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Only
eight brave souls turned up at 7am for this walk. The weather in Aberdeen
was bright and sunny; belying the mountain forecast which was quite
daunting. Wind 30mph, gusting 45/50mph, 700-900 metres cloud base and a
wind chill of -70C. I suppose it was July after all!
The general consensus was that we would
probably miss out The Stuic as no one present had done it before and it
seemed prudent in view of the forecast
After the usual brief stop in Ballater we
disembarked where the A93 crosses the Dee near Invercauld Bridge (which
appears to be undergoing some serious maintenance). We were kitted up and
on our way by 9am with the weather still more favourable than forecast.
The top of Lochnagar could be seen now and again, indicating the cloud
base to be around 1100 metres. Excellent!
 The walk through Ballochbuie forest was
pleasant enough, sheltered from the northwesterly wind and in intermittent
sunshine. We routed via the Norwegian Hut for those who hadn’t seen it
before and had an early ‘fly’ there. We then took the narrow path east
then south from there which, although overgrown with heather in places,
was useable but wet in places.
After
coming to the end of the Landrover track by the Feidallacher burn the
group then headed south east up the ridge towards the top of The Stuic,
by-passing Sandy loch
and the buttress. At first it
looked as if we were going to be lucky with
the weather as the wind was on our backs for
the climb and the top of The Stuic was visible. However by the time we got
to the 900 metre contour it was apparent that the cloud base was rapidly
falling and we were soon in visibility of around 50 metres, which was to
remain for the whole traverse of the tops. This was where the small size
of the group became an advantage as it was easy to stay together and in
sight of one another. Extra layers of clothing were added as the
temperature dropped.
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Map,
compass and GPS got us to the top of the first Munroe, Carn a’ Choire
Bhoidheach, at 12:15pm. A fairly featureless and unremarkable mountain it
must be said. It was too windy to comfortably stop for lunch at the top so
we retraced our steps to the flat area just east of The Stuic which was
relatively sheltered and allowed us to make inroads into the food and
lighten the rucksacks somewhat.
We then followed a compass heading southwest
over the top of Carn an t-Sagairt Beag the down and up again to the second
Munroe of the walk, Carn an t-Sagairt Mor. The damp mist turned into
moderate rain at this stage although the wind wasn’t as severe as
forecast. It was on this leg that we met the first other hardy souls on
the hill that day, very quiet for a Saturday. After inspecting some
aircraft wreckage which has been there since 1956 we reached the summit
cairn and took the mandatory group photograph.
The
route off the top was as simple as following the remains of the fence west
until picking up the Lochnagar to Achallater path. By the time we found
the path we were below
the cloud base and enjoying fine views of Loch Callater. After stopping
for the last fly at Loch Callater Lodge (with
its bright red painted chimney, complete with smoke!) the octet of
Stockets walked the 5 kilometres out to meet the bus at Achallater at
3:45pm, giving a total walk length of 21 kilometres and a total ascent of
976 metres.
The conditions at the top allowed us to get
used to navigating in poor visibility and trusting in the map & compass.
However the GPS, combined with Memory Map software which allows the
planned route to be uploaded to the GPS, was a comforting backup.
A
refreshment stop at the Prince of Wales in Ballater on the way home
rounded off an excellent day. Just a pity there were not more of us to
enjoy it!
Dave Wood
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