Northern Corries - Cairngorm

11th July 2021

Our first day walk since early May following a few wild camping weekends and Corbett compleations took us over to Glen More where 8 of us met at the Sugar Bowl car-park. We crossed the road and river and almost immediately (too much chattering) took the wrong path. Steve set us right and we headed upstream to the Chalamain Gap, an interesting feature but awkward to negotiate.

The forecast of frequent heavy showers had not materialised; it was a warm slog up onto Lurcher's Crag but we were rewarded with good views of the edge of the Cairngorm plateau and behind us over Loch Morlich and Glen More. From Lurcher's we crossed the MacDui path to reach the north rim of the plateau and to walk round the Northern Corries towards Cairngorm. As these summits are 'only' Munro 'Tops' we had the hills to ourselves

The threatening thunder clouds headed off so we continued over Sneachda and round Choire Chais to climb up to the summit of Cairngorm itself. We had not been below 1,000m for about 3 hours - very unusual for a group of mainly Corbetteers. The summit was quieter than expected with only a few other people around.

The descent off Cairngorm was the disappointing part of the day but at least it was quick. The route off is very much prescribed - follow the cairns, fences and tape - down through all the downhill ski gear and alongside the broken railway. The good far outweighed the bad however; the expanse of the Cairngorm massif almost to ourselves on a day that surpassed our expectations.

Susan, Jane, Ali (with Dylan), Steve, Margaret, Gillie, Alan & Sandy