Banchory Veterans' Hill-walkers

Just 3 of us made it to Clachnaben yesterday on what was a fine warm and mostly sunny afternoon - at least until we got to the top where the wind was pretty strong and the temperature fell considerably. Here's the photos and the stats:

  Two recent walks that until now have not been blogged are Glen Muick on Thursday 6th August and yesterday (Monday 24th August) the long promised cycle/hike up Mount Keen. Only three took part in the first of these - Ken, John and Dave - and the only information I have is the following route map: Don't know the distance or elevation climbed. Different story for yesterday. Originally the cycle/hike up Mt. Keen, which had to be cancelled last year due to bad weather, was going to be held today (Tuesday 25th) when 11 of us were available, which would have made it the best ever attendance at one of our monthly walks. The weather again intervened and to avoid Storm Francis, which is due to hit Scotland today, there was a last-minute change to Monday, unfortunately meaning that Gordon, Nigel and I had to drop out, leaving a total of 8 on the trip, including debutant Harry. Ian's Strava stats show he covered a total of 30.2 kms and Jeb's showed that the distance cycled to the foo...

Six of us turned up yesterday for just our 3rd walk this year - appropriately after 4 months of lockdown, it was the shortest in overall distance but it involved the most climbing: Stewart, Ken, Nigel, Jeb, Dave and I - plus Ruby - drove separately over to Rhynie and squeezed in to the small car park at the official start of the walk up to the ancient hill-fort. In a taste of what was to come for me, there were flies everywhere. The official walk is a straight up and down one of about 3 miles, but we chose to take a circular route, approaching the top from the east of the hill, which increased the distance by about one third. We turned off route slightly too early and had to wade through classic tic territory before we found our way back to the path we had intended to travel. As we rose higher, I fully expected the flies to disappear but they stuck closely to me all the way to the top, whilst nobody else seemed to be bothered by them. The final climb was relatively steep, al...

There was much pfaffing about the weather and the location for our 2nd monthly walk this year - would it be Braemar or would it be Ballater? In the end, we chose the latter - mostly because we had gathered in Ballater to discuss the options and with the clock ticking and some potential for precipitation, we opted on a foreshortened version of the walk Gary had suggested - The Coyles, Birkhall. Off we drove in 3 vehicles - up the Loch Muick road and down a sidetrack, only to find no way through, so back we went, this time taking the next road west which took us safely to our start point where we donned boots and let Gordon's and Dave's dogs loose. The track upwards was wide and good but we soon hit the snow line where it became a little trickier: Eventually, we reached what Gary called the "shoulder" where there were terrific views of snowy Lochnagar: We could clearly see the Coyles but we reckoned it would take an hour or more to get up there and ba...

Great turnout for the first monthly walk of the decade yesterday - even Gordon managed to join us to make up a total of 9 of us who met up at Shooting Greens car park and headed up to Tom's Cairn: The team took in the views: Gordon and Suzie  were doing their own thing: From the top we could just make out Dave's house in the distance below: There was a bit of scrambling over fences and through fields when we got back down to river level but eventually we made it safely back to Dave's house. Stats for the day were:

Mid-December and it looked pretty bleak this morning but 4 of us decided to risk it again and headed out to Tarland. A slight drizzle at the start soon disappeared and we managed round the rest of the walk dry - overhead anyway. Conditions underfoot were, unsurprisingly, a little wet and muddy in places. Starting at the square in Tarland, we walked west, crossing the Tarland burn and up towards Drummy Woods, skirting the Tarland biking trails. It was a very gradual walk up to the top of Knockargerty Hill where there are fine open views of Deeside, with Lochs Davan and Kinord prominent: There are reported to be remnants of an unfinished prehistoric hill fort here but we couldn't see much, other than a few mossy stones and a slight ditch. Continuing westward, we came down to the site of the remains of the prehistoric Fernyhowe Burial Cairn: Again, not much evidence as you can see in the above two photos. It was now a case of retracing our steps for a bit until we...

One casualty and one call-off meant just 5 of us took part in our 10th monthly walk of 2019 yesterday - Dave picked up Jeb - and then Ruby - and Andy drove Colin and I down to the meeting point at the walkers' car park on the Invercauld estate. I had the directions and instructions but failed at the first hurdle by accidentally taking the clockwise route - mistake number one. The outward path through the estate was familiar to Dave as it was the same route the Freewheelers had gone on when cycling out to Linn o' Dee. As we came almost level with Invercauld House and the large sculptures in their grounds, we took a right turn and zig-zagged a bit as we climbed the hill. Despite the mists and grey skies above, we still had some pretty good views up the valleys: Given the benefit of hindsight, we now realise we went too far north up the hill and should have made a right turn back a bit sooner than we actually did. Up to now, it had been fairly easy to follow the pr...