Christine's walking & birds blog

Meall a' Bhuachaille

We left home at 5.45am. It's always exciting to drive from night into the dawn, and as we drove along the loch-side a tawny owl flew over us. We were in Aviemore by 8am, buying coffee and pastries in Tesco before heading up Glen More and parking by the information centre.

As we set off from the car, three crossbills flew over calling. While we were still on the forest track, ten geese flew over with just one call before turning and flying back over us; I'm pretty sure these were pink-footed geese - which would be a new species for my hill-walking list.



Passing the green loch, we left the forest behind and made our way to Ryvoan Bothy, where we turned off to the left to begin our climb. This is looking back at the bothy and the lochan-studded moors towards Bynack Stable.


That's an area I first walked across in 1997, when I turned south to traverse the Munro, Bynack More - to the right on the skyline.


On the rocky crest all those years ago, I was startled by a sudden croak behind me - and there was a female ptarmigan, crouching just to the right of the path. If she hadn't made this vocal protest I would never have seen her! That walk was 23 km (14 miles) and I didn't see another soul. It was warm and sunny, and for the first time I became aware of the lovely "tundra" carpet beneath my feet; it was the day I fell in love with the Cairngorms.

The weather forecast today was correct in that the day was sunny and dry - but they'd failed with regard to the wind! It was horrendous, and when we reached the summit of this Corbett (810m) we decided to call off walking the whole ridge with its three further tops. Three cheerful men reached it from the other direction at the same time, and kindly waited for me to take my picture; they then asked Greger to take a photo of them in the sizeable shelter, while we decided to continue as it was a bit early for lunch.


We could still make a round walk by dropping to the col and then descending through the forest, instead of following this inviting-looking ridge - but it was just too windy for comfort. The view north takes in Abernethy Forest and Loch Garten (of osprey fame).


This is a very popular hill as it's easily accessible from the road, and from now on we would meet loads of people, coming up by our route of descent. Not a hill for solitude! We were more sheltered from the wind here and able to just enjoy being on the heathery moors on a sunny day. The hillside was dotted with conifers including large specimens of the old Caledonian pine forest.....


.....and crowding in on the made-up path were small thickets of juniper.


A large caterpillar basking on a rock was photographed very badly and found back at home to be that of the emperor moth.


It was nice to be in the Cairngorm area again, and as we're only two hours' drive away we can always come back another time and walk the rest of the ridge.