"Night lingered on the hills; a single star
Sent tremulously down on Lochnagar"
John Logie Robertson's Poem Morning on Morven gives an ample description of the beauty of the Royal Deeside at sunrise.
Say what you want about them being a waste of space, a drain on the tax payer, or the public sectors biggest useless expense (on a long list of useless expenses) but boy do they know how to pick a place for a holiday home.
Last Friday night in a rather rushed plan of last minute adventure fuelled significantly more on overexcitement than sensible mountaineering attitude would dictate, I headed up Lochnagar on a speedy overnight jaunt with three pals from my work (Chris from whom I steal pictures to make the blog prettier, aswell as Tom and Mark [afore mentioned old man of lochnagar])
Mark Tom and Chris
So fresh faced and eager after work, and not at all crabby or tired, we set off from Aberdeen, with only 3
of the four of us realiseing what we had forgotten to pick up and needing to head home first. But we arrived at The Loch Muick Carpark at about 9pm all told with a good few hours of daylight ahead of us, and so rather than stop for the night in the bothy at the back of Prince Charles royal hunting lodge - Glas allt Shiel (pictured below) we decided to fire on up the mountain and camp for the night at a convenient spot to give us more time to get down in the morning.
It seems poignant to note at this point in the proceedings that the main aim of the trip was to be at the top for sunrise so that chris could do his thang and takes some wonderful pictures, we also had they unenviable task of having this adventure in an unfortunate time frame, limited by the fact that Mark and I were working at 10:15 Saturday morning.
So storming up the mountain in great form looking forward to a picturesque night ahead, we quickly chewed through the miles with a few stops for Chris to put us all to shame with his camera. Just as we hit the switchback across a shallow valley before heading up towards Meikle pap we were greeted by a stunning view of golden skies as the sun bedded down over Balmoral and the dee, and somehow, i managed to employ a dose of luck to the skill that had obviously been rubbed off on to me by my time with Chris I managed to land a couple of nice shots,even just with my point and shoot camera, the nicest of which includes a rather fetching grouse in silhouette which I can assure you is only in that picture by sheer chance and chance alone.
Here is said Grouse picture, which if may say I am a little proud of.
On we went with many a wonderful view and plenty of stops to take them all in. eventually we reached the eponymous loch nan Gaire after which the mountain was renamed from its original Gaelic Cac Carn Beag (Small cairn of faeces [Charming]) . After these the path steepened to a scramble over large boulders around the left hand shoulder of the Corrie for which Lochnagar has become famous. After slightly haphazard scramble in the Dying light we headed around the corrie to just below the summit in the last of the days light to set up our little camp in the lull between Cac carn Beag and one of the lower summits.
We set up camp and ate a quick meal before heading off to squeeze in a few hours before our photoshoot in the morning followed by our flight down the mountain.
I awoke in the wavering light just after dawn to see the summit just above me inviting me to crawl out of my comfy new sleeping bag to witness the stunning sunrise just beyond.
And gratefully its temptation was not without reward, and the sunrise over the hills was beautiful;
A quick hop skip and a jump in the car later and we were back at work and ready for a day of raving about our adventures to any customers who would stand still long enough. Needless to say we were a little pooped out , and Mr Mark needed a sleep in the car ;
But I can hardly comment as by the time lunch came around I too was more than a little sleepy
That's all from me for now but more adventures soon so watch this space, and thanks again to Monsieur Hoskins for the pictures.
Last Friday night in a rather rushed plan of last minute adventure fuelled significantly more on overexcitement than sensible mountaineering attitude would dictate, I headed up Lochnagar on a speedy overnight jaunt with three pals from my work (Chris from whom I steal pictures to make the blog prettier, aswell as Tom and Mark [afore mentioned old man of lochnagar])
