The Occasional Munroist - West of Glen Shee

Distance:	29km
Height Ascended:	1450m
Time Taken:	7 hours 30 minutes
Munros:	Glas Tulaichean (1051m), Carn an Righ (1029m) and Beinn Iutharn Mhor (1045m)

This is my third trip to the Glen Shee area this year. The previous two were in the winter and, for ease of access, those trips were focussed on the munros nearest to the ski centre. Now that summer is here and we're actually getting some good dry weather I felt the time had come to take on some of the longer walks required to cover the more distant munros. This trip is probably the longest single day route (in terms of distance) I've ever done in the mountains. Thankfully the start at Spittal of Glen Shee is fairly high (it's at 350m) and once you get over the first ascent there is not too much reascent between each top.

I started this walk at about 8am and, according to the car, the temperature was already 15C. For Scotland, even in summer that can often he as high as the temperature reaches at midday. The sky was blue and almost totally cloudless with barely a whisper of a breeze as I set off up the road at a fairly fast pace. It was clear that the day was going to be a warm one. My aim was to do the walk in approximately 8 hours which would allow me to be back home in time to help out with getting the girls to bed so the pace was always going to be fairly challenging. It was clear from the map that a large part of the distance of this route is taken up with the walk in and walk out along landrover tracks used by the deer stalkers. My plan was to go fast along those sections (4 to 5 Km/h) and then take my time over the ascents and descents which are on rougher ground. This worked pretty well and meant that I didn't suffer too much although the first big ascent was very hot work due to the strong sunshine and lack of breeze.

Once away from the Spittal this area feels surprisingly wild. There are huge open spaces up here and the views are tremendous, the eyesore communication masts on the top of The Cairnwell thankfully fade into the background at this distance. The landscape to the north is dominated by the Cairngorm plateau and from Glas Tulaichean there is an excellent view of the Lairig Ghru. This all brought back a lot of wonderful memories of my two-day trip over the Cairngorm 4000ers last summer and yet again reminded me that I really want to do a trip through the Lairig Ghru itself sometime soon.

This was most definitely a day for wild life spotting, particularly deer. I came across several large herds, the biggest of which was easily counted in the hundreds on my way up from Creag Bhreac to Glas Tulaichean. I also came across several incredibly tame mountain hares that allowed me to pass within a couple of metres. There were also plenty of heart stopping moments involving red grouse. It seems that the young chicks, even though they can now fly quite well, will allow you to come so close you almost step on them before they violently burst out of cover and fly off. There were also good numbers of ptarmigan on the tops, I am always pleased when I get an opportunity to see such a true mountain specialist.

The paths around this area are mostly fairly obvious and well worn, it's clear that these are fairly popular hills. Having said that I only passed 9 other walkers all day, 2 early on, 2 on the first summit, 1 on the second summit, 2 having just left the third summit and a couple more near the end. Such a long route in the Lake District on such a nice day would, no doubt, have meant encountering hundreds of people. This is the aspect of hillwalking in Scotland which really appeals to me, there is a great chance to really escape from humanity for a short while, enjoy the scenery and just lose oneself in the physical effort of the walk. The saddest bit of the day was discovering on reaching the second summit that someone had chosen to stuff into the cairn the cardboard box and tin foil dish from their supermarket quiche. This person had walked 14Km with this in the backpack and having eaten the contents it was then suddenly far too heavy or awkward to be carried back out. I just don't get that sort of mentality. You put all that effort into reaching a truly wild remote and beautiful place and then you feel you can be utterly selfish and lazy and leave litter. Truly incomprehensible... I, of course, did the decent thing and carried out the litter for them.

These hills, like most of the area, are fairly large and rolling without any technical difficulty. I'd say they are mostly to be enjoyed for their excellent views and their position in the wider landscape. If anything I think the part I enjoyed most was reaching Loch nan Eun after the final munro. This is a very attractive area and I think it could make an excellent camp site. I really quite fancied the idea of wading through the fairly shallow water and camping on a small island in the middle of the loch. The Allt Easgaidh which flows out of this loch is also very pleasing, the path follows it all the way down to Glen Lochsie, with more spare time it would be great for paddling tired feet on a hot day.