A Corbett, Carn Ealasaid and a Corbett Top, Beinn a’ Chruinnich

I had to drop Ciara off at Keiloch, near Invercauld Bridge, for her Gold practice expedition, so I thought I’d make use of the journey and tick off a couple of hills. Laura fancied meeting me there and keeping me company, so we met at The Lecht and after a bit of chat, decided we should put our boots on and climb the hills. It was quite breezy with a cool edge, so our clothes were suitably adjusted to allow for that before we set off, along the track uphill.

We were following the ski tows for the first hill, which had us pausing to enjoy the views regularly. We also had to cross the nesting ground of some common gulls (I think, I didn’t spend time looking closely…) they weren’t happy with our presence, but just took to the air and made a lot of noise, there was no swooping or pooping. We made it safely to the summit and wasting no time, picked our route to head for the Corbett.

Views

 

 

Common gulls

Poor photograph of a Cloudberry

Fungus

We chose to head along the ridge to the coll, before making a final ascent to the summit of our second hill. We had rather fine views all the way around, picking out Morven, Ben Wyvis and Ben Rinnes to the N, NW and NE of us, Ben Avon to the W and Lochnagar and Mount Keen roughly to the S of us. After a short discussion, we returned the same way as the the shorter route would have involved losing too much height and then having to climb sharply again to regain it. It also would have involved wet feet, I think, whereas our chosen route meant we could easily cross a small area of hags which, in the event, we actually quite enjoyed. Well, I did, I think Laura did!

Lovely track, but of no use to use to us, except for a few yards

Cairn

Hill spotting

Laura, behind the enormous cairn, koff

 

Laura, hag-hopping, with Corgarff Castle in the background (look carefully…)

…more hag-hopping

Nearly there!

After returning to the van to eat our lunch, we decided to pop into the cafe for coffee. It was, unremarkable. But the company was excellent, again!

Roughly 4.31 miles and 1,057 feet total ascent.

Thanks Laura!!