Today I drove a bit farther than I usually do for my hill-walking, meaning a very early start as the alarm was set for 5 AM. But at least the roads were quiet and no hold ups. It was dark all the way. Once there I left my bike at the finish to save a bit of tedious road walking.
The forecast of unimpeded sun turned out to be spot-on. The ground was almost rock solid making the going fairly straight forward - in the summer it would have been a harder walk in squelchy peat bog - the main climb up to the airy heights was before me so there was nothing else for it. I soon hit the snowline and some difficult scree but the first Munro(mountain over 3000feet) Creag Leacach was reached at 9:45 AM. The sunrise had been very pink on the horizon.
This was winter walking at its finest - fresh powder snow, blue skies and a high level ridge walk. Awesome.
Time wasn't really on my side with 15 miles of walking in total so I just kept walking at a pretty good pace. I walked with a couple from east Yorkshire staying at Braemar for a while before leaving them to enjoy their soup at the next top.
There were plenty of black grouse, white mountain hares and even a ptarmigan (a type of grouse specialising in life at the top of mountains camouflaged in white plumage).
The next Munro was a big round mountain with little features on it, after that it was down to Ca Whims - an indistinct point sort of between two hills. I met another couple who were running off the edge of their map and I felt a surge of cheer as I realised the benefit of using my all-in-one printer to make a copy of the full route on one sheet, there's nothing (much) worse than fumbling with maps. Then two relative pimples on the landscape; Tom Buidhe and Tolmount. Two guys from Glasgow were impressed with my six munro route, they offered me a lift from the finish back to start but I had my bike. I gave a couple of dogs some chocolate raisins, they were shivering in the cold. 6 guys had just passed me running the tops - I'd like to see them run up the main climb up. I must have seen over thirty people and 4 dogs but it wasn't crowded.
The last Munro was the hardest taking me an hour and a quarter to reach. My legs were feeling it a bit by now. I needed my crampons to start the decent on steep icy snow, it was a great feeling though, i felt like i was walking on water!
I finally had some lunch at about 2:30PM. My bike was still there. There was a bit of a climb on the road up to the main Glenshee ski centre, but the last mile or so took me about a minute with not an ounce of effort, a 1 in 10 gradient a perfect finish in style - the guy in the car park called it cheating, but I don't care. Six Munros in six hours. Very pleased.
3 comments:
Sounds amazing. well done mate. glad to see the chocolate raisins have caught on. you shouldn't be wasting them on dogs though!
They weren't quite as tasty as your ones - maybe being given them adds to the flavour slightly
Looks great - I would have liked to have been there too, although maybe not for the 'dancing on ice' section. My life flashes before me just thinking about it!
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