Hiking in the Cairngorms - Day 2

Munros bagged:	Beinn a' Bhùird (1196m), Ben Avon (1171m), Beinn Bhreac (931m)
Distance walked:	26km
Song stuck in head:	Massive Attack - Teardrop (Tuuuuune!)
Camping cuisine:	Smoked trout, noodles, cupa-soup and parmesan

Up at 6.45am, Tom makes me porridge for breakfast while I pack the bedding away... Okay, I sleep a bit more. Until he asks me how I'm getting on. Then I pack the bedding away, while Tom puts coffee into our flasks to take with us. As with the evenings, the morning pack-away is now routine, with set responsibilities. However, it still always takes us at least TWO HOURS to execute!

 


Leaving the plateau at 800m, we had a steady climb up through a boulder field. (boulder field = annoying, slow, a lot of wobbliness)

Beinn a' Bhùird is a mountain with a wide flat top, so the peak is not particularly easy to find, especially when the whole thing is covered in mist. OUT COMES THE COMPASS! Hooray! This is our first use of the compass on one of our Scottish hiking trips. How exciting! Thankfully, Tom had done the smart thing and learnt how to use it beforehand. I didn't have a f***ing clue. In fact, it took me a long time to understand how it worked. But I didn't tell Tom that. And I think I got away with it. Ha.


We found the cairn marking the summit. Kerching, Munro #4 in the BAG. Absolutely no view to enjoy, so straight on to the next one. Ben Avon is a bit of an outlier so we had a 4km hike across quite bare sandy terrain.



There is a proper nasty slippery gravel descent between the two mountains, which I believe is called The Sneck (?). We were coming back the same way, so dropped our bags at the top and worked our way down with better balance and flexibility. (I need all the help I can get!)


It's still a long walk to the top of Ben Avon. I wished I had taken more snacks. The peak is characterised by a massive rock that is exciting enough to have earned its own name: Leabaidh an Daimh Bhuidhe. Nice one. We shimmied up to the top. The mist had cleared by this point, so we enjoyed looking back over to peaks that we had climbed already.



As we returned to The Sneck, the wind picked up and it was ABSOLUTELY freezing. So I mummified my face with my buff. But still insisted on chatting away in muffled, numb-mouth English. And then it chucked it down. And Tom sulked because his trousers got wet (earning him the entirely affectionate nickname "Pissypants Pearson")

We had to pick up our bags and retrace our steps back over Beinn a' Bhùird, and onto the plateau where we had camped. I got excited about a friendly little bird, and we congratulated ourselves on avoiding the boulder field on the way back. Otherwise, nothing happened for two or three hours.


Our third Munro of the day, Beinn Bhreac, is on the south end of the plateau. A bit more clambering over rocks but we reached the top with relative ease.

Finally, we had to get down into the valley to the west, Glen Derry. We spent a long time hopping over bogs on the plateau and stopped briefly to marvel at a huge herd of deer running across the hillside in the distance.


The descent into the valley was unexpectedly quick and simple, and we immediately joined a well-maintained track through the valley. We could see a bothy up ahead and set our hearts on staying the night in it.


We followed the slightly waterlogged path and crossed a footbridge, arriving at the bothy at about 7.30pm.


How nice to have somewhere sheltered to sit and stand. And it was equipped with a big shovel, maltesers and fairy lights!