Banchory Veterans' Hill-walkers

From http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.com/ Ian Sharp couldn't make it yesterday so it was just the 4 of us that set off for our supposed 10 mile walk from Glen Muick to Crathie. We met at Crathie car park, but Ken suggested we drive up the road to Royal Lochnagar distillery and leave a car there, rather than finish off our walk on the road. This probably took about another mile off our walk, which turned out to be a lot shorter than we had planned. It was a pleasant enough stroll, but no way was it the 10 miles that the Deeside Walks book had suggested. The other major error was having a start (or finish) at the Loch Muick visitor centre and car park. Being a one way, rather than circular walk, it meant that we had to drive the 8 miles up and down the single track road to Glen Muick a total of 3 times to drop off and pick up one of the cars, which was a bit of a pain. Ironically, it would have been a wonderful day to go up Lochnagar - our original plan. We did get nice views of the m...

From http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.com/ No responses yet, so can I safely assume we are just 5 for Sunday morning? - McWhinnie, Black, Kilgour, Stewart and Sharp (probably)? Can I also suggest we try and leave Banchory by 8:30 am and head west? We'll need 2 cars and can dump one at Crathie on the way past then drive on to Glen Muick in the other. I'm willing to take my car - a bit tight with 5 of us, but we'll manage OK and it's only a relatively short journey. The other car will also need to be big enough to take 5, so this presumably precludes Colin and John from volunteering? Over to you again, Ken?

From http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.com/ We had a quorum last night in the Douglas so we discussed the ever-changing situation with our planned walk up Lochnagar next Sunday (20th) and have now come up with a compromise solution to go ahead with a training walk next week, but not to do Lochnagar. Instead we decided to revert to Plan B and do the shorter, flatter walk between Glen Muick and Balmoral on Sunday morning. This would allow us to get back in good time to participate in any Father's Day celebrations that afternoon/evening. Colin, John and I agreed that this was the best plan in the circumstances, and we know Ken is available too. Hopefully Ian Sharp will now be able to join us as well, but it's unlikely that Jack will be coming along, and Gordon is not available. Not sure yet whether Dan will be available or not. Lochnagar is still an ambition, but it'll now have to wait - probably until the August walk when Jack's back from Oz.