Details
Date : 02/06/2021
Duration : 8+ hours
Style : Solo
Type : Quality Mountain Day (QMD)
Weather : Clear - sunny - good visibility
Wind : Gentle Breeze
Camping Type : N/A
Nights Camping : 0
Mountains : Ben Macdui Cairn Gorm Cairn Lochan Cnap Coire Na Spreidhe Stob Coire An T-Sneachda
Flagged :
Description
An unplanned walk through the Cairngorms today.
Other than Ben Macdui there was no planned route for ascent or descent and regular checks of the map and available options meant an day with constant unknowns.
Cairn Gorm was the first summit, followed by Coire an t-Sneachda and Cairn Lochan.
Then after researching I went to find the site of the Cairngorm disaster, by this point I had been walking through snow for around an hour, the snow then was a feature for a few hours until reaching the Lake after descent.
After the disaster site I continued to Ben Macdui then decided on an off piste decent around the other side of the mountain.
The snow made decent difficult and any potential paths were covered in snow which forced me into some scrambles.
Once at the bottom I arrived at a lake with no place to cross upstream due to how much snow was melting and coming off the mountain, this now forced me to complete my first river crossing in what proved to be very cold water at thigh height.
After a walk around the lake I came to a gully which I needed to ascend from to summit my final mountain and get back down to the car park.
The ascent was steep with no path, scrambling over rocks, brambles and heather.
A really good day out with lots of new experiences.
https://youtu.be/7F_VE0B-LUY
An unplanned walk through the Cairngorms today.Other than Ben Macdui there was no planned route for ascent or descent and regular checks of the map and available options meant an day with constant unknowns.
Cairn Gorm was the first summit, followed by Coire an t-Sneachda and Cairn Lochan.
Then after researching I went to find the site of the Cairngorm disaster, by this point I had been walking through snow for around an hour, the snow then was a feature for a few hours until reaching the Lake after descent.
After the disaster site I continued to Ben Macdui then decided on an off piste decent around the other side of the mountain.
The snow made decent difficult and any potential paths were covered in snow which forced me into some scrambles.
Once at the bottom I arrived at a lake with no place to cross upstream due to how much snow was melting and coming off the mountain, this now forced me to complete my first river crossing in what proved to be very cold water at thigh height.
After a walk around the lake I came to a gully which I needed to ascend from to summit my final mountain and get back down to the car park.
The ascent was steep with no path, scrambling over rocks, brambles and heather.
A really good day out with lots of new experiences.
https://youtu.be/7F_VE0B-LUY
Area : The Cairngorms
The Cairngorms are ‘a little piece of the arctic in Scotland’ according to the SMC Munros Guide and the area contains many of the tallest peaks in the East Highlands. Ben Macdui (1309m), Cairn Gorm (1244m) and Braeriach (1296) are probably three of the better known and the whole area is full of steep corries and high plateaux. Access to the mountains is typically from Aviemore or Braemar.
