The Occasional Munroist - Cairngorm 4000ers Day 1

Distance:	22Km
Height ascended:	1400m
Time taken:	7hours 30 minutes
Munros:	Braeriach (1296m), Sgor an Lochain Uaine (1258m), Cairn Toul (1291m) and Devil's Point (1004m).

Over the last few years we've done a family holiday for a week to stay in Ballater in Deeside. We've often gone in the Autumn when the area is particularly beautiful but with the imminent arrival of daughter number 2 things got pushed forwards to July this year. This seemed to me like the perfect opportunity to make use of the longer daylight hours to fit in a bigger hillwalking trip. I had various thoughts of doing the hills near Lochnagar or possibly those accessible from Glen Shee. Eventually though, a much bigger prospect came into view. Although I wasn't really on the "right" side of the Cairngorms, I realised it's not that far to drive to get to Aviemore. This brought up the idea of doing the classic walk over all the Cairngorms hills that have a height greater than 4000feet. It can be done in a very long single day of about 15 hours (or more like 5 if you're a serious runner) but it seemed to me much better to take some time over it, appreciate the wilderness and saviour the views by camping half-way around.

The route natural splits itself into two with an overnight camp at or near the Corrour bothy. You could use the bothy but beware, it's small and not much more than a hovel (although it has been much improved recently by the addition of a composting toilet) so don't rely on being able to stay there, take a tent is my serious recommendation. This leaves the decision of whether to do the Braeriach and Cairn Toul side or the Cairngorm and Ben Macdui side on the first day. Initially I had planned to go over Cairngorm and Macdui on the first day since this is what most guide books suggest. Looking at the route though it made sense to me to get the larger walk, in terms of both length and ascent, done on the first day. Also looking at the route, if you come down off Braeriach at the end of the second day you have to descend into the Lairig Ghru then do a big pull up to the Chalamain Gap, then descend before having to ascend a final time up to the car park. I really didn't fancy having to do those two ascents (and the crossing of the very rocky Chalamain Gap) after a descent from Braeriach. The route down from the top of Cairngorm is much easier for tired legs, you can even get a cup of tea at the cafe. All this meant that, for me, day 1 was definitely going to be over Braeriach and Cairn Toul.

Day 1 started well, I set out from the Coire Cas car park on Cairngorm at about 9:30am in beautiful sunshine. Given the terrible weather we've had this summer this was a big bonus. I'd been holding out for a dry weather window of a couple of days but never expected to see any sun, as it was I ended up wearing a sun hat and a liberal application of sun cream. One thing worth noting is that I think Coire Cas is now the only car park where parking charges are not obligatory (there are donation boxes though). It also seems to be the recommended "long stay" car park for anyone wanting to leave a car overnight.

The first target was the Chalamain Gap. I've heard much about the gap and not all of it complimentary. The pictures make it appear to be an awesome sight, like something out of Lord of the Rings, but it is also one of the many large boulder fields in the Cairngorms. That means it is extremely awkward to cross and a lot of care has to be taken to avoid knackered ankles. Having left the car park the path firstly goes down hill which definitely feels like the wrong direction! There is only one decent bridge, as far as I know, so this is the only way and it does mean you get to say hello to some reindeer in the fields on the way past. This path is very easy going and I covered the first 4.3km in an 1hr 15mins. As I got near to the Chalamain Gap I passed a guy heading the other way carrying a huge pack, I think he must have been camping in the Lairig Ghru and had an early start to walk out, other than that there was no-one around, clearly mid-week this is not a tourist route. The Gap itself is as impressive as everyone says it is, it's well worth the walk if you don't have time to go any further on. I didn't find it that bad to get through the boulder field, even with my heavy pack, it probably took me about 15 minutes to get through but I did spend quite a bit of time taking photos. I'd say that if you get to this point and struggle to cross the Chalamain Gap you really should just turn around and take a trip on the funicular railway, there are several other big boulder fields to cross during the day which are just as tough.

Once through the gap I headed on down into the Lairig Ghru and had some "fun" attempting to cross a rather full river. Thankfully I managed to avoid a soaking which would have thoroughly ruined the walk at such an early stage. I'm not aware of any bridge around here so it's something to bear in mind after heavy rain. The views from here up to Lurcher's Crag are really impressive, the rock was still damp and the sun glinted on the crags to make them look very black in a seriously intimidating manner. After the river crossing comes the first big slog up and over Sron na Lairige. This is a munro top (i.e. right height but not enough separation from neighbours) so I went right over it but I think you can cut round the side to avoid some height gain. I reached the end of Sron na Lairige after about 3 hours and took a well-earned lunch break. At this point I came across several other walkers, one chap was heading up Braeriach and 3 others were coming back, I assume that was there sole target for the day. It was at this point the weather started to deteriorate, the cloud came in, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped. I was rapidly gaining another layer of clothing and swapping my sun hat for my fleece hat. Just a typical day in the Cairngorms really...

After lunch the pull up to Braeriach was relatively straightforward and on reaching the top I met the guy who I had previously seen ascending. This was the last person I was to see until I reached Corrour bothy in the evening. These hills are really are remote and empty, I think once you get beyond Braeriach there is little hope of making it back to the start without an overnight stop unless you are super fit. I found Braeriach itself to be rather dull and uninteresting. The highlight was meeting the very tame reindeer herd. At this point I was rather concerned about the cloud layer. Last year I had a terrible experience with cloud rapidly descending on me when I was on Ben Macdui and leaving with me an incredibly tough navigation challenge. I really didn't want a repeat performance so I took a bearing from the top for safety and then legged it across the plateau as quickly as possible. It was clear that the route finding would be much simpler once I reached the main ridge. One thing which surprised me was the amount of water around, I don't know if it is always that wet, I really didn't expect water to be coming from right up on top of the mountain. Having said that Braeriach is rather dull from the top, the views most certainly are not dull. The coires are huge and most of them still have some big snow patches. The view into the Garbh Coire is spectacular and worth all the effort of getting up to the top of the mountain.

Coming off Braeriach and onto the main spine of the ridge towards Cairn Toul was the best part of the whole walk for me. This place is huge and very impressive. The view across the Lairig Ghru is massive and awe inspiring, it's hard to really express what it was like, what sticks in my mind is the sheer scale of it all. After a long walk in to reach the first summit (nearly 10km to Braeriach) you now get a sudden flurry of summits with Sgor an Lochan Uaine, Cairn Toul and Stob Coire an t-Saighdear (another munro top) coming in very quick succession. A particular treat for me was finding Dotterel (a ground nesting wading bird in the plover family) very near the summit of Cairn Toul. In another life I was/am a keen bird watcher and I've long wished to meet these birds high up on the Cairngorm plateau. They are somewhat unusual in that they reverse the normal "roles" with the males being drab coloured and raising the chicks whilst the females have the impressive plummage. They're an arctic specialist and don't breed anywhere else in the UK as far as I am aware.

After these summits the main aim of the day to cover those mountains over 4000feet is complete but it would be a shame to walk such a long way and then ignore Devil's Point. As I ascended this summit with very weary legs an RAF Tornado jet flew through the Lairig Ghru. I was at 3500feet and the floor of the Lairig Ghru is at about 2500feet so it felt like there really wasn't much of a gap between me and them. The final summit was reached after a final 30 minutes of slog and serious sustenance was required to revive my tired body, it was time to open the big bag of jelly babies! This is a great view point on which to finish the day, it gives great views back along the ridge to Braeriach and it also provides a glimpse of what lies ahead, including the huge ascent which must be done first thing in the morning.

As I toddled down to the Corrour bothy in search of a suitable camp site a bit of excitement was added to the day by an RAF sea king rescue helicopter on exercise. Their target was Devil's point and they proceeded to "land" the helicopter on the top of the mountain with the rotors still turning. If only I had been up there a bit later I could have had a nice ride down the mountain.

The reputation of the Corrour bothy proceeds it and I didn't have much desire to camp nearby. Luckily having crossed the river by the bridge I found a good camp site fairly quickly which is almost directly across the glen from the bothy. This seems to be the only patch of solid, grassy ground in the area and could probably take 3 tents if you're friendly. There was a rough track through the area leading down to the river and I'm sure that in drier times this is fine to cross but it was like a swamp when I was there. This made getting water from the closest part of the river quite a challenge.

The first day took me 7hours 30 minutes which I thought was pretty reasonable going. Up until Sgor an Lochan Uaine I was a good half an hour behind my predicted schedule, mainly because the ascent to Braeriach is really hard going with a 14Kg pack. After that I easily picked up time and came down to Corrour bothy almost spot on to my expected timings. This was a sensational first day of the trip, the weather held nicely with no rain whatsoever and the wind dropped as the evening went on which made camping very easy.