Braemar to Loch Morlich

Monday 1st June 2009

This was a really difficult walk even though I never went up any mountains. I had to get to the Cairngorm Youth Hostel on the other side of the Cairngorm Mountains, which is a journey that even in a car would take two hours, but walking it took me all day. First thing I had to do was walk along the road from Braemar to the end of the road at the Linn of Dee, which is a distance of 6 miles, fortunately soon after leaving Braemar a couple who had been staying in the hostel stopped their car and offered me a lift. With my distance to be walked slightly reduced, after thanking the couple, I set off away from the Linn of Dee on a wide track beside the Lui Water. This walk was made much more tiring by a heavy rucksack that I had loaded up with food while in Braemar, so as I slogged up Glen Lui towards Derry Lodge in the hot, sunny weather I weighed significantly more than usual. I spent the whole walk on good paths that should have made the walk a little easier than it could have been so it should have been quite an enjoyable, relaxing walk, if only I hadn’t put so much heavy food in my rucksack. From Derry Lodge I toiled up to the top of Glen Derry where I left the Ben Macdui path that climbs into Coire Etchachan, where I could see the great mountain scenery of the tops near Ben Macdui, the second highest mountain in Britain.
Climbing out of Glen Derry I went over the pass of Lairig an Laoigh on a climb that really wore me out with my heavy burden on a path that hadn’t been heavily manufactured (yet). As I continued from the top of the pass the weather began to cool as broken cloud started to cover the sun, which was quite a blessing as that usually makes things a little more pleasant for walking. Eventually I came to the Fords of Avon, which is a crossing over a river that at that time was not easy to cross due to the late spring spate. I tried walking upstream but that yielded no better places so after getting half way across I just decided to go for it and wade across the river. Unfortunately I’d not picked the best place to try that and ended up knee deep, almost falling into the water. It would have been better it I had tried to cross at the ford where the river was probably not as deep. With wet feet and trousers I stopped outside the Fords of Avon refuge and had my lunch. The area around the Fords of Avon is really delightful as it’s a wide open area surrounded by mountains with no sign of civilization. It was a wonderful place to just sit and gaze at the unblemished beauty of the mountain scenery.

After eating lunch my trousers had dried slightly but my socks would never dry until I could take them off. Moving away from the fords I climbed over the moorland into the Corrie of the Barns, soon climbing out of the valley and onto the open moorland on the eastern side of Bynack More. After walking along the bottom of valleys for most of the day it was a strange to now have wide open moorland to my right, even if I still had the steep slopes of Bynack More to my left. This moorland crossing began to feel like I was in the Pennines of England rather than the Cairngorms of Scotland, but I suppose there are similarities. Certainly they are much more similar in terrain than the Scotland of the West Coast where the mountains are much more rugged. Continuing across the moor I climbed once more to the highest point of the day on Bynack More's northern ridge, at a height of almost 800m. Before long I was descending steeply down into picturesque Strath Nethy where I crossed the tree-clad moor to the Ryvoan Pass.

By now I was in agony with the rucksack feeling heavier and heavier, digging into my hips and shoulders. I couldn’t help wondering how it would feel if I always carried this much extra weight around with me. My legs, and particularly my ankles and feet, were really feeling the strain of having to keep all that weight up, but I suppose it’s not quite the same as even though I was carrying a lot of weight I was still quite fit, which wouldn’t be the case of someone who was naturally carrying all that weight, and they wouldn't be able to walk from Braemar to Loch Morlich. Somehow I managed to struggle on through the gap past the beautiful green lake of An Lochan Uaine, and through the woodland of Glenmore Forest Park, gritting my teeth whenever I had to go uphill, even if only for a short distance. I look back on this walk now with a loathing and resolve to not do such a walk again with a heavy rucksack. It took me a long time to get over the effects of this walk, and it could so easily have ruined the holiday, but this should have been a good walk, if only I hadn’t attempted to carry so much on my back.