Jock’s Road

Saturday 1st June 2013

Towards the end of the previous day's walk I had been feeling very tired and was considering having a rest day in Braemar, possibly spending the day visiting Balmoral and the Royal Lochnagar distillery. I spent much of the evening before this walk pouring over maps, talking to people in the hostel and trying to decide what to do. But in the end I went back to my original plan with the slight alteration of doing the walk in the opposite direction, starting with a climb along Jock’s Road, which is an ancient route between Glen Callater and Glen Doll that became the first officially recognised right-of-way in Scotland. I had planned a two day walk to Glen Doll with a return to Braemar Sunday evening, so I set off from the peaceful village of Braemar walking up Glen Clunie towards Glen Shee on a quiet road the opposite side of the valley to the main A93 road. After passing Braemar Golf Club, the highest eighteen hole golf course in Scotland at around 1,200 feet above sea level, I crossed the valley and the main road to the foot of Glen Callater. There began a long walk along a wide track through a  picturesque valley all the way to Lochcallater Lodge.

After passing the lodge the path improved tremendously into a meandering ribbon of delight through an unspoilt valley and was beautifully engineered with small stone bridges over the streams. Beyond Loch Callater the ground became slightly boggy, but the path always managed to find the driest route until eventually I reached the rugged, crag-surrounded end of the valley. Unfortunately this was where the excellent path disappeared, so to allow my frustration to subside I stopped and had my lunch, and was astonished at how long it had taken me to get to the end of Glen Callater when I considered that it was already lunchtime, even though I hadn’t left Braemar as early as I could have done. Glen Callater must be a deceptively long valley, and it must have maintained my interest all the way as I hadn’t realised how much time had passed. After lunch I tried to find my own way out of the valley following a faint semblance of a path, whenever I could find one, vaguely following the Allt an Droighnean up to the top of the corrie and around the snow drifts that guard the top.

Eventually I managed to reach the bleak hill-top moor of the Mounth not far from the top of the Munro Tolmount. I could have climbed to the top of this Munro, but this and all the other hills in this area are just grassy mounds with their only redeeming qualities being the crags at the top of the deep valleys that lead up to them, such as at the end of Glen Callater. I had no desire to do the pointless climb as I don’t believe Munro Bagging to be a worthwhile endeavour solely on its own. Assuming that my onward route across the featureless terrain along Jock’s Road would minimise ascent by keeping to the lowest point I headed to the col where a metal pole seemed to mark my route. Continuing in that direction I crossed the side of a hill with a big, empty valley on my left, but this didn’t match my map so I began to doubt that I was going the right way and got my GPS out. When it finally got a lock on enough satellites it told me that I was in completely the wrong location, between the Munros Tolmount and Tom Buidhe at the head of White Water, and heading in the wrong direction. The GPS had taken so long to get a lock I was by now a long way away from the col that I had mistakenly gone through past the pole that probably marked the county border rather than the path.

To add to my torment, the good weather that I had enjoyed all morning had slowly deteriorated and it now looked like it would rain as I turned around and headed back to the top of Glen Callater and onto the surprisingly clear path. Instead of taking the lowest route over the hills, the path climbs to the summit of the Munro Top of Crow Craigies; although maps seem to indicate that Jock’s Road passes to the north of the summit, the clearest route now goes straight up to the fine cairn at the summit. Just as it had looked like the weather was going to turn really bad the sun came out and I had a gloriously enjoyable walk down the long eastern ridge of Crow Craigies slowly veering towards the right into the valley of the White Water, known as Glen Doll. As I gradually descended into the valley the path got better and better with the terrain becoming craggier and craggier. The path narrowed into a deliciously sinuous delight weaving a well-maintained, meticulously designed course through the stunning scenery of Glen Doll.

Just beyond the tiny Lunkard Bothy is the Lunkard, an abrupt rampart of rock with a fantastic easy-to-reach viewpoint at the top that afforded me with an absolutely stunning view of the gorgeous valley with rugged crags and corries lining the southern side above a heavily forested valley. In the sunshine it was a wonderful sight, but dark clouds were already beginning to appear from behind me and the long-promised rain appeared before I returned to the main path and began a long, thrilling descent into Glen Doll. The rain failed to dampen my enthusiasm for this glorious path that was an absolute pleasure to walk along, whatever the weather and eventually I came blissfully into Glen Doll and plunged miserably into a dark, dingy conifer plantation. All my views of the glorious valley were now obscured by the trees and I was unable to see the stunning Corrie Fee or Corrie Sharroch.

Eventually I passed through the wood to the ranger station at the top of the road through Glen Clova. By now it was getting late so, rather than exploring the great little valley of Glen Doll, I found a spot to camp near the ranger station. When planning this walk I hadn’t realised how long it would take me to get to Glen Doll and the tragedy was that I had left myself with no time to explore this fantastic valley. I could have started another walk during the evening, doing the walk that I’d intended up Corrie Fee, but I was already tired and hungry, so I will have to return to Glen Doll another time to get a better appreciation of this truly stunning valley. Jock’s Road is a fabulous route over the hills, starting and ending in two great valleys that have some wonderful paths in them that were a joy to walk along.