Hiking in the Cairngorms - Day 3

First thing in the morning, we were joined at the bothy by a chap who had cycled the very technical route up through the valley. This didn't bode well for my standard 8.30am morning poo. I sulked. We started the day with a steep but short climb up to Loch Etchachan. We dropped our bags and continued up the south side of Beinn Mheadhoin.

First thing in the morning, we were joined at the bothy by a chap who had cycled the rather challenging route up through the valley. This didn't bode well for my standard 8.30am morning poo. I sulked.

We started the day with a steep but short climb up to Loch Etchachan. We dropped our bags and continued up the south side of Beinn Mheadhoin. Like Ben Avon, the top is defined by massive rocks - three this time - and I climbed up onto the smallest to show willing. Tom, of course, had to immediatedly out-do me and claimed the largest. A tiny part of me anxiously wonders if this technically means I didn't successfully bag Beinn Mheadhoin... But I think I'm going to allow myself to be blissfully ignorant. 

Once back at the loch, we briefly followed the main mountain path, swinging off it to the south at its shallowest point to head towards Derry Cairngorm. We dropped our bags again and hopped up the rocky side. My balance was definitely improving by this point and I moved more quickly and confidently across the rocks. Although still partial to a comedy scream whenever I stepped on a surprise wobbler!

Two Munros down by midday. Easy.

As we ate our lunch back on the main path, the wind picked up, rain began and fog closed in. We continued along southwestward, all the way up to Ben Macdui, the second highest mountain in Scotland (after Ben Nevis, obviously). It was marked on the map as a "viewpoint". Yeah alright, map. I'll take your word for it. 

There was a pretty cool ruin though, that looked wonderfully bleak and mysterious in the mist. Back to using the compass, we hiked slowly down the south side. We followed a cliff edge for some way before the mountainside opened out into a gentle enough slope to continue right down into the valley. The fog suddenly cleared and we had a great view of the Carn a Mhaim ridge, and beyond it, the rather dramatic Devil's Point.

The going was slow since the whole slope was covered in boulders. After an hour or so of concentrating hard on footsteps and tensing my body to maintain balance, I was feeling really quite sick. By the time we reached the valley, I had pretty bad stomach cramps.

The plan had been to climb up and over Carn a Mhaim and camp on the far side, but it was getting late in the day. We decided to steer further down through the valley on the east side of the ridge instead. But I had my Munro-bagging mindset nagging at me. We had talked about getting this last peak the next morning, but I was concerned about time. We already had a long final day planned to get back to Cairn Gorm Ski Centre some eighteen kilometers away, and a deadline of 6pm to catch the last bus.

I put this to Tom as we approached the shallowest point on the slope up to the ridge. He wasn't super-keen to climb Carn a Mhaim today, but agreed on the premise that we would do it bag-less, and that we could camp as soon as we got back down. Deal! 

It was still pretty steep in places, and also a bit slippy. There were tonnes of little frogs hopping about, and I felt it necessary to let out a gleeful girly squeal each time I spotted one. About an hour later, we reached the ridge, and the peak was just 100m or so northwards. The sky was darkening, so we quickly shoved our celebratory Nutrigrain bars in our mouths, and got the hell out. 

It was about 6.30pm when we arrived back at the bags, perfect time to set up camp for the night. But for some reason, I convinced Tom to continue down the valley for another half hour to make the following day easier still. Unfortunately, by the time we wanted to stop, there was absolutely nowhere to camp. We had joined a path and all of the surrounding terrain was both steep and very - erm - bushy. We set our sights on a wooded area in the distance. 

At 8.30pm, we arrived at the wood, and it was still crappy camping. We spent the next 30 minutes scouting around for somewhere - not even pleasant, but just possible - to pitch the tent. It was becoming pretty stressful. There was a lot of heather around, which, for me, isn't just off-putting due to its lumpiness. It always brings back memories of an adder that a schoolfriend and I stumbled upon while hiking in the North York Moors when we were 18. Nothing happened. It's just that seeing heather reminds me that snakes exists. And that puts me off camping. Big time.

Deal with it, Lucy. We are camping in f***ing heather. End of story. 

I picked the most sparse, tent-sized patch I could find, while Tom refilled our water bottles to make the now well-overdue dinner. We settled down around 10.30pm - the first time it had actually been dark before bed!