Craig Vallich & Pannanich hills

How lucky were we? Or was it good planning that brought us another excellent day's weather in Ballater yesterday? We seem to have been blessed every time we have headed up Deeside for a walk. It was wall to wall sunshine and t-shirts all the way.

Steve and Ken drove us to Ballater and out to the entry road to Glen Muick, where we parked the cars. Dave had come up with the route, which proved to be excellent. The trails were in good condition although everywhere was very dry. Any time we had to traverse a bit of heather roots, it made a satisfying crunch under our feet:

It was Ballater Walking Week and soon we came across a large group doing the same trail in the opposite direction:

The first opportunity to set the camera up on the timer came along - and Dave snapped me setting it up on the deer feeder:

and this was the result:

Another few hundred yards up the track, another photo opportunity:

Onwards and upwards - but, wait a minute - Dave's left his phone behind at the last stop:

He hadn't - it was in his bag all the time.

We came across a large comfortable bothy a bit further along:

We had now reached the plateau, but the cairn itself was a little further along and we had to take a short trail up there and straight back in order to tick off Craig Vallich:

The plateau continued for a while, apparently swinging away from our route back, but soon we had fine views of the town of Ballater:

Time for another refreshment stop:

That's Mount Keen popping its head up in the background.

Further on, we reached the summit of Pannanich, where there was a curious little statue:

The team photo had to be an homage to the statue:

The descent was fair bit steeper than the ascent:

It had been a perfect route on a perfect day - something had to go wrong surely - and it did, when we got back down to the foot of the hill. There was a gate to some fenced off buildings which had a sign saying strictly no access. We looked in vain for an alternative route round. Eventually we engaged in discussion with what transpired to be a couple of Glenmuick estate workers and they told us just to ignore the sign and unlatch the gate.

Soon we passed the rather grand Glenmuick House (http://www.glenmuick.com/house-of-glenmuick/):

The way back from there to the cars was the prettiest part of the walk - down through tree-lined walkways.

A grand day out - and here's the stats:

Ken had to head off, but Steve stayed for a swift beer with the rest of us outside the Alexandra, after which he had to dash back for his evening of music in Torphins. Another fine Cairngorm ale in the Alexandra was followed by a stroll round to the Barrel Lounge for some Windswept beers and soon the remaining four of us were on the scheduled 6:55 pm bus back to Banchory. No curry this time - we had to fend for ourselves.

Cairngorm

It was Ken's suggestion to try to take a day in the Cairngorms before all the snow had melted. All we needed was a suitable weather window - but we also had to try to find a date that would accommodate at least a healthy quorum of the regular walkers - a tricky balancing act. We thought we had cracked it a few days ago when a high descended on the UK, but it seemed that most of the heat was centred a lot further south than the Scottish Highlands.

Undaunted, we set off early-ish on bank holiday Monday morning - Ken leading with Ian and Nigel in his car and me following with John and Colin. By the time we arrived at the large car park at Cairngorm it was looking fairly gloomy - rain, wind and low cloud - hardly ideal for a bit of relatively high level walking.

Ken's strategy was to keep our options open in the hope that the weather and visibility would improve and the clouds would lift later on. There was a high level walk and a lower level walk, both of which started along the same trail, but we would meet our decision tree after less than 2 hours. As insurance, we would drop one car at the lower level car park, so, after some Starbucks coffee and chocolate chip shortbread, most of us got fully togged up and off we went.

I checked out the various routes on the not-so-handy Gaelic language map in the car park:

It wasn't long before those that had optimistically donned lighter garb to start with had to get the full waterproof gear on. We trudged upwards but the cloud level remained stubbornly low, so Ken came up with plan C - we would follow the descending water line upwards to where there was a little lochan with a fine face of a snowy backdrop. This was to be our lunch stop as we waited for the forecast improvement in weather to come. Time for some photos then:

Car A backdropped by "Scotland's only icebergs"

Car B

By now there were occasional glimpses of clouds lifting, only to be dashed seconds later by more descending gloom. Nonetheless, we headed optimistically back to pick up again the lower level trail that we'd left earlier. We spotted a few twitchers taking photographs and heard what sounded almost like frogs croaking. Ken was able to enlighten us that these were ptarmigans who were now beginning to shed their winter all-white coats:

The "lower level" trail went fairly steeply upwards at this point - and we had the additional test of walking straight in to a strong wind. We were all a little relieved when we reached a high enough point to turn right and head across the hill towards the ridge that formed part of Ken's Plan B - all except Ian, who had trouble with his knee walking across, rather than up or down the slope.

As we traversed the ridge towards the high point, we could look down and see the Lairig Ghru pass far below:

We stopped at the top of the ridge, where Ken checked the altitude and advised us we were over 1,000 metres up - approx. 3,400 feet in old money. Aha, we thought - a Munro at last. No it's not, said our leader - it may be Munro height, but it's not a named Munro. Never mind, we'll stop and take a couple of photos anyway:

  

From there, a bit of rock scrambling was required to get to where we could get views of Loch Mortlich below:

The path that would take us back to the low level car park was now clearly visible, but how were we to get there? When in doubt, take the shortest route downwards is Ken's maxim and, a bit like our scramble through the heather last month at Carn Ferg - only worse this time - we gingerly made our way down the hill. Not ideal for those of us with dodgy joints and it certainly didn't help Ian's problem with his knee. When we all finally made it safely, Ian was the first to issue Ken with a red card.

Our troubles weren't quite over yet, however, as there was a short passage of deepish snow on a dodgy incline still to traverse - again not easy with dicky knees:

That's Ian (at front) and John with the sun behind them

As you can see, the sun was now shining brightly and the clouds had lifted from the mountains - shame about the timing. Our walk back along a good quality trail in warm sunshine was offset a little by a pretty fierce crosswind, but when we arrived at the low point where there was a pretty burn and bridge, we had all stripped off in time for a couple of photos:

Here's the Strava stats:

Ken had brought over a few of Bev's paintings which he had promised to drop off at the Pine Marten bar, which was currently being run by one of Bev's pals from University, so we had a nice refreshing pint of Trade Winds - two in Nigel's case - to round off a fine day out. Here's what Ken left behind: