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: