Beinn Bhrotain and Monadh Mor

July 3rd 2022

The first summer day walk attracted six members; Ruth, Steve, Paddy, Iain, Robert and Sandy. It was great to see Paddy back on a DHC outing and looking so fit. The intended early start from the Linn of Dee was delayed a little due to the organiser 'faffing' with his bike in Banchory but we were soon cycling along the trail to the White Bridge on an encouraging morning. Most of us abandoned the bikes at The Chest of Dee but the hard core duo of Paddy and Iain managed to pedal a further 2km to the start of the walk proper.

There had been rain in the preceding days with the weather on the previous day being particularly wet with torrential rain. This had caused the hillside to be fairly wet and boggy despite the generally very dry spring. A path of sorts led us up over Carn Fiaclach and onto the 'top' of Carn Cloich-mhuilinn where the first refuelling break was enjoyed.

The last time I was on these hills was again on a DHC outing in 2003. My brief notes say that due to poor weather we cut short the walk after summiting Bhrotain and as approaching the summit the weather closed in again leaving us looking for shelter.

But what a difference 15 minutes made; we stood up after lunch to see watery sunshine behind us.

Robert and Paddy had already decided that one Munro was going to be enough and so they headed back down while the remaining four continued north-wards on easy ground to Monadh Mor. It was a first ascent of both hills for Steve so good reason to carry on.

We continued on to Loch nan Stuirteag (Loch of the Seagulls, thanks Paddy) from where we had fine views of the mountains from The Devil's Point to Angel's Peak with the Point at over 1,000m looking quite diminutive in comparison and its profile very different to the normal view.

Glen Geusachan was very wet and it was a slow plod down and out to the better path by Glen Dee and back to the bikes. We were glad of them to shorten the return back to base. Almost 10 hours with only a few short breaks to cover over 30km with 1,000m of ascent. A good long day with old friends and on old hills.