Scotland – Summer 2021.06 (Week 3)

Inevitably it became time to move on from Tomatin, a place of many and varied bridges, not least the iconic railway viaduct…

The short hop southward to our new base between Boat of Garten and Nethybridge left us with a little time to kill; never a problem in the highlands! As we passed close by the Strathspey Railway station a rising plume of steam suggested that there might be a waiting train, which did indeed turn out to be the case – a former LMS ‘Black Five’, similar to those which were a familiar sight (and sound) on our local line back in my schooldays – wheel-slipping the night mails out of Dudley Port before the diesels elbowed them aside. By mid afternoon we had parked up at Whitewell and walked the familiar trails to Loch an Eilein.

Once settled into the cottage we discovered that we had the company of Greylag Geese and brown hares in the neighbouring meadows. The geese we occasionally see on our local waterways, but hares seem to be increasingly a rarity for us in recent times.

Being sometimes creatures of habit we decided to revisit a couple of the biggish hills which separate Glen Feshie from Glen Einich – Carn Ban Mor and Sgor Gaioth. Mostly the route follows good, well engineered tracks which felt comfortingly familiar, and it was only when typing this post I discovered that it had actually been 4 years since we’d last walked these hills. Another reminder – as if more were needed – of how quickly the years roll by!

Loch Einich and Glen Einich, with the southern shoulder of Braeriach to the east (right)

Shifting shades and cloud shadows

Loch Einich and the Moine Mor

The myriad watercourses which plait their way through Glen Einich

Climbing away from Glen Feshie, and gratifying to see the regeneration doing the same

The chimneys of Achlean Croft, just at the point where the climbing begins

Summit shelter Carn Ban Mor – lunch spot with a view of the most southerly buttress of Sgor Gaioth

An easy descent at the end of a hard day, with views west as an added perk

Mostly this final week was spent on familiar ground – ‘familiar’ being a singularly inappropriate adjective to describe landscapes which can vary dramatically within the space of a single day. So we meandered the hills and trails of the northern Cairngorms, sat and ate our food wherever the midges would allow, scanned the lochs and lochsides for red throated divers, the pinewoods for crossbills, crested tits and red squirrels. Back at the cottage we would find that a juvenile yellowhammer had moved into the garden and that we could actually pick out the line of the preserved railway in the distance.

And we made time for one final mountain escapade before returning south: Cairn Gorm via the appropriately named ‘Windy Ridge’ path, which seemed determined to demonstrate on the day that its name was merited. Strong sideways gusts appeared to have an unerring instinct for striking just when we were least balanced, and the regular low passes of helicopters, underslung with heavy construction materials, moving across the hillside added its own particular frisson of excitement. 

Having reached The Ptarmigan restaurant and funicular stop we decided to avoid the engineered walkway up onto the summit plateau and make use of a track which begins just a few metres to the left (when looking from the bottom). This path is clearly marked on both OS and Harvey’s maps but appears to be very lightly utilised; that said it is easy enough to find and follow – just taking care to avoid the obvious fork which descends east into Glen Avon. Route finding might not be quite so straightforward under a covering of snow.

The engineered and handrailed path to the plateau is the one marked in red on the map; the alternative is the blue track. The path reaches the summit adjacent to the weather station, which is a visible way marker for the last 100 metres or so of the route…

Weather station Cairn Gorm

Cairn Gorm summit – just below the cloud base

Late on Friday we reluctantly dragged ourselves away from the hills and then early(ish) next morning, and with even greater reluctance, we turned south onto the A9 with 400-odd miles ahead of us. Sooner or later the tab has to be picked up; that’s the deal.