I made a mistake while switching my day off for this week, and effectively I produced two days-off but each with some duties to carry out in the morning. The first one I used to revisit one of my first Munros, Sgor Gaoith. The other one I also spent in the Cairngorms, but this time climbing a new hill, Meall a’ Bhuachaille. It had caught my attention before when I was climbing Bynack More, but it’s a hill ‘detached’ from the main Cairngorm Plateau.
I left my car at Glenmore Lodge car park (Pay & Display) and headed towards the Reindeer Centre (or shop, to be more specific) where I turned left and upwards, walking on a tarmac road for a couple of minutes. Then I turned right onto a wide forest track, winding its way up at a very gentle gradient. After a mile or so I reached a sort of viewpoint with a bench facing south. There the track finished and my route continued along a narrow and winding footpath – I liked it more than the forest track. In a couple of places there were boardwalks; eventually the path quite dramatically went steeply down towards the bottom of the glen, and then to An Lochan Uaine with its ever green-ish water. From there the path I had trodden before led me towards the eastern exit of the glen, where the path split; one turned gently south, the other led to Nethy Bridge. I took the latter and a few hundred yards up the road I came to a bothy.
There I found a path going up the hill of Meall a’ Bhuachaille, my main destination of the day. The path traversed the slope, making climbing easier. Roughly halfway up it changed; the path ran almost straight up hill, in many places with steps built out of stones. Despite its steepness it wasn’t a difficult walk; perhaps because I didn’t have to battle against a strong headwind as I had had to do a couple of days earlier. The higher I climbed the wider the views became, and pretty impressive views for that matter. Eventually I reached the summit with its rather big dry-stone wind shelter.
After a short lunch break I moved on. The path ran down to the gap between the hill I was on and its neighbour, Creagan Gorm. I could see the path leading down and back towards the car park. But the day was still young and another path, up to the summit of Creagan Gorm beckoned. I gave in and started climbing the hill. On its summit I realised that there was another hilltop behind Creagan Gorm. I checked the map and decided to continue along the whole ridge, all the way to its northerly top of Craigowrie. It was a really pleasant walk, occasionally through some boggy patches, but they didn’t cause any problems. At Craigowrie the path turned left and led down towards woodlands at the bottom of the hill.
In the forest the path wound its way for a couple of hundred yards and then joined a wider path, which a bit down the road joined a proper forest track. From there it was plain sailing, although quite long and rather uneventful. Tarmac narrow road, running alongside the main road. Thankfully it was pretty short and after a few minutes walk I returned to my car and could head back home.
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