Didn’t September roll around quickly this year? A beautiful summer made the time fly by, and before we knew it we were setting off on our now annual pilgrimage to the Cairngorms. Britain’s biggest national park, we’re continually overwhelmed by the choice of walks (for all levels) available, and we always leave wishing we had an extra week to explore just a few more routes. Last year we had such fantastic weather in September that we booked the same week for 2025: admittedly, we knew it was unlikely we’d have wall to wall sunshine again!
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Creag Choinnich
After a long drive up on the Saturday (made an hour longer than it needed to be by me leaving my purse at the yard the day before and having to detour via the Dales to pick it up), we were all a bit fatigued on our first day. Frustratingly, this was forecast to be the best weather day of the week, and it felt sacrilegious not to be suggesting a big hill on a lovely sunny day. But, we just didn’t fancy it, and no one wants to be traipsing up a hill for 9 hours unless they really wanted to be there in the first place.
Despite not wanting to be on our feet all day, we did still want views, and so the compromise was a slight adaptation to one of the easy walks in our Pocket Mountains guide to the Cairngorms. The book follows the 3.5 mile Lion’s Face and Cromlins circular from Braemar, which circumnavigates the bottom of Creag Choinnich. This is a pleasant woodland stroll, but we wanted a good view for the sunny day, and so we tagged on the climb up to the top of the hill at the start of the walk. Altogether this made for a route of about 4.5 miles and took us around 2.5 hours.
There are a few different car parks in Braemar – we parked in the one with public toilets and paid for our parking with the Ring Go app. On leaving the car park and crossing the road, the route is signposted with a green finger post, and so we set off confidently up a quiet road to then enter the woods. We passed a lovely lady walking her dogs on the way up who recognised Coal’s reactivity and offered to wait five minutes to give us a head start: faith in humanity restored.
The woods are really beautiful, the kind of light and bright canopy which I associate so strongly with the Cairngorms. Even better, the heather in the woods was just about hanging on, and added a nice pop of colour throughout the walk. Which gave me the boost I needed to drag myself up the surprisingly steep track leading up to the top of Creag Choinnich!
A small cairn marks the highest point of the hill, but the best views (in my opinion) are gained shortly before the summit, by climbing up to the top of either of the two rocky slabs next to the path. The view is slightly different from each and both are worth the short detour. As well as a beautiful view over Braemar and across to Morrone (which we climbed on a trip a few years ago), the higher slab offers a gorgeous view down Glen Clunie.
Returning back down the way we’d come up, we then started the Lion’s Face and Cromlins circular. After the really rather impressive views at the start, to me this part of the walk was a bit featureless, but I think Sam preferred this section (lover of trees and obscure things on the ground that he is). It was surprisingly undulating, using good trails but never quite feeling totally flat. We certainly felt like we’d walked a longer walk by the end.
There’s a reasonably long stretch next to the main road which wasn’t my favourite, but it is at least set back a few metres and there’s a deer fence between you and the road. Eventually you leave the road to head back to Braemar via the Lion’s Face, a huge rocky outcrop hanging over the path. I couldn’t see the resemblance to a lion though!
I’d ummed and ahhed over choosing this walk, mainly because it was a Sunday and I was worried about how busy it might be. The Cairngorms once again proved to me that there’s no such thing as a busy walk here: while we saw a handful of people, for such a pleasant and relatively easy walk, we hardly saw anyone. If this same walk was in the Peak District it would be crawling with people.
Dog friendly rating: 5/5. Like many walks in the Cairngorms, this is a stile free walk and has lots of places where you can safely let your dog off lead. We didn’t come across any livestock, and the road sections at the start and end are very quiet (we didn’t see any cars). I did find a few ticks crawling around on the dogs when we’d finished, so make sure you give your dog a thorough check over at the end of the walk.
Meall a’ Bhuachaille
A sunny weather forecast for Tuesday saw us heading towards Aviemore to do a walk which has been on my list for years: Meall a’ Bhuachaille (for the pronunciation, I highly recommend the Walkhighlands website, where you can play an audio recording of the hill’s name). This 5.5 mile circular from our Pocket Mountains guide promised great views without being too strenuous. The route is also available on Walkhighlands.
Parking is £8 at Glenmore Visitor Centre – I really don’t mind paying for parking though when it funds keeping the walking trails in good condition. Glenmore is one of my favourite places for a walk and we’ve visited a few times over the years to do the walks around Loch Morlich and the Ryvoan Pass, as well as exploring trails nearby at Rothiemurchus.
The route heads uphill almost straight away, climbing steadily through the trees. This is one of the things I love so much about the Cairngorms: even on a single walk, you can find an excellent balance of open hillsides and woodland trails where dogs can be off lead without worrying about livestock (although in summer you do need to be mindful of the Capercaille breeding season). The further we climbed the thinner the trees became, until before long we started to get some cracking views back down over Loch Morlich.
The view just got better and better, and I spent a lot of time snapping photos of the same view – you never know how a photo is going to come out! I was asked by Sam, about three quarters of the way up when he was having a sit down so that I could catch up to him, if I was stopping for snack breaks without him. The cheek!
While the climb didn’t feel overly steep, I think it steepens gradually so that you don’t notice it until all of a sudden you’re stripping layers off and feeling glad of the cold wind. Unfortunately it came over a bit cloudy as we reached the summit, where there’s a wind shelter (which did actually do a decent job of blocking the wind), but the views were still pretty panoramic: across to Cairn Gorm and its neighbours on one side, and over to Abernethy Forest and Ben Rinnes (I think) on the other.
Having come up ‘the back way’ (via the saddle between Meall a’ Bhuachaille and Creagan Gorm) and having seen exactly one other person up to this point (a lady who worked at the Reindeer Centre), I expected it to be much busier as we descended down to the Ryvoan Pass. Meall a’ Bhuachaille is one of the most popular small hills in the Cairngorms and we’d purposely saved it for a week day to avoid crows, but we were left wondering if we needed to have bothered.
We did start to see more people as we descended, but nothing more than you’d expect on a mid-level popular Lake District hill. I quite welcomed the chance to stop off the path to let people ascending pass by – my tired legs found the descent hard going at times, and I was glad we’d come up the other way! Reaching the bothy at Ryvoan saw us pick up the good flat track which we would follow all the way back to the car, and while there were a fair few people about, every single dog walker recalled their dog when they saw us coming and put them on a lead, which was wonderful. Tell me you’re a reactive dog owner without telling me you’re a reactive dog owner!
It’s a nice walk of a few miles from this point back to the start. It’s almost entirely through woodland, but we made a quick detour (if it can even be called a detour, it was so close to the main path) to visit An Lochan Uaine. The unusual colour of ‘The Green Loch’ is, according to legend, a result of the local fairies washing their clothes in the loch. I’m sure there’s a more scientific explanation but I doubt it would be as charming and therefore haven’t bothered to look it up I’m afraid…
Dog friendly rating: 5/5. This is an excellent dog walk, which not only has plenty of woodland sections where you can let your dog off lead (outside of Capercaille breeding season), but it is also stile free and includes the opportunity for dogs to have a paddle in the loch.
Dodging showers in Moray
With rain blowing in overnight and intermittent (but heavy) showers set to last throughout the morning, we opted for a steady start to the Wednesday. After a bit of mooching around in our accommodation we drove down the road to the cafe at BikeGlenlivet: which, despite staying in the same accommodation for 5 years now, we had no idea was only round the corner. The cafe is dog friendly and open to non-bikers, serving breakfast all day as well as some simple lunch options like toasties and burgers. Not only did this kill a bit of time while we waited for the weather to dry up, but a decent lunch set us up nicely for the rest of the day. Thank you to everyone who has bought us a coffee, it makes the difference between a co-op meal deal and supporting an independent cafe!
From BikeGlenlivet, we were going to head down into Tomintoul for a walk, but a road closure and 30 minute detour to get back to Tomintoul resulted in us impulsively chucking the plan for the day out of the window and heading north into Moray. Moray is an area we’ve day tripped to before from our base near Tomintoul, having climbed Ben Rinnes and visited Findhorn beach, and its always somewhere which we want to come back to and explore properly. This time, we decided to visit some of Moray’s historic buildings, making use of our English Heritage membership which gives us free entry to Historic Scotland sites (from year 2 of membership onwards).
Stop 1 was Balvenie Castle, a ruin dating back to the 12th century (open April-September). We weren’t really expecting much other than a quick poke around here, but we actually spent 40 minutes exploring the castle. Much of this was actually spent with the visitor assistant we got our tickets from, who knew the castle’s entire history and managed to condense it down for us into a super interesting 10 minute summary. It definitely helped to pique my interest – usually I find it hard to muster up too much interest (one ruined castle is very similar to another ruined castle in my book), but I really enjoyed our visit to Balvenie.
Having had Balvenie entirely to ourselves, we’d been able to take our time strolling around and reading the information boards (which are helpfully dotted around the castle, but not as interesting as the visitor assistant!). There was one dicey moment when Merry nabbed one of the wooden bowling pins which had been set out for people to enjoy before I saw him, but after carrying it around for 5 minutes he soon got tired of it and I managed to retrieve it without any teeth marks. Phew!
Dog friendly rating: 5/5. The dogs were made very welcome at Balvenie and a bowl of water was put out specially for them, which they appreciated. Dogs should be kept on leads, but the site was lovely and quiet when we visited, so it’s a great option for more anxious dogs.
We would almost have been happy to call it a day at Balvenie, but the sun had come out and it was even feeling pleasantly warm, so we decided to squeeze in a visit to Elgin Cathedral before heading back. Another chance to use our English Heritage membership!
The cathedral was much busier than Balvenie but not crowded by any means. There’s no car park but we managed to park easily enough on the street near the cathedral. You really can’t miss the ruins of the cathedral rising up in front of you when you’re near: while ruined, it’s still extremely impressive.
Despite only parts of the cathedral remaining, what is there is more than worth a visit. So much detail survives, from the gothic arches to the stone effigies (both lying down and standing). There also seems to have been a fascination with skull and crossbones from the masons working here: I counted at least 7 or 8 and I’m sure I would’ve found more if I’d been looking.
Although some parts of the site had scaffolding up due to works required, this didn’t spoil the visit at all and there was plenty still uncovered for us to see. Don’t miss the chapter house (make sure to close the door to avoid pigeons flying in), where the quiet monastic music is the perfect backdrop as you examine the vaulted ceiling with its carved faces and emblems.
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. Dogs on leads are very welcome to join you at Elgin Cathedral: I’ve just knocked off some points as unlike Balvenie, they are limited to ground floor areas only and the site is a bit busier.
Loch Kinord
Strong winds with gusts of 60mph saw us spend a beautiful sunny day limited to lower level walks: blue skies might make a hill day tempting, but you won’t catch me up high unless my hat isn’t going to get blown off my head!
And, in the Cairngorms, lower level walks are in no means a hardship. The national park has a plethora of lovely low level hikes, ranging from riverside strolls to meanders through the woods. On this occasion we chose a short circular walk from our Pocket Mountains guide around Loch Kinord in Deeside (similar route available on Walkhighlands).
We’d been for a walk around here before, on our very first trip to the Cairngorms. Back then we’d done a whole day walk also taking in the Vat, Cambus O’ May forest and a stretch of the Deeside Way. By the time we’d reached Loch Kinord it was almost getting dark and we were cold and hungry, so it was nice this time around to be able to take our time and enjoy the setting. Plus, being mid September everything was still green, rather than our last visit in early January with everything all brown and muddy.
The route is just shy of 4 miles and took us about 1 hour 45 minutes, walking at a good pace. It was surprisingly quiet, but then I always think that because the Cairngorms are so vast with so many cracking walks, the number of people in any one place gets diluted. Or perhaps people were just avoiding the wind! Either way, we had a lovely walk mostly to ourselves, only bumping into a couple of other dog walkers. The trails here are well maintained and way-marked, which makes walking a pleasure. It was hillier than I remembered towards the end though – although it wasn’t really a hill, just an undulating stretch of path. What can I say, lunch time was approaching!
Loch Kinord is located in the Muir of Dinnet NNR, where as well as a range of water birds, you also have a chance to spot otters (nope) and red squirrels (also no, but we did see one last time we were here). There are a few different walking trails to choose from, and dotted around the trails are information boards to help you better understand your surroundings. On the Loch Kinord trail look out for the crannog, an island built 2,500 years ago by submerging timber in the water, later used by a local laird as a prison. Additionally, you can find a Pictish stone cross along the side of the trail, again thought to be more than 2,000 years old and dating from the very earliest days of Christianity in Scotland.
Dog friendly rating: 5/5. This is a great dog walk, stile free with plenty of shade in the woods for a warmer day, as well as several opportunities for dogs to have a paddle in the loch. It’s livestock free, but keep in mind that it’s a nature reserve and make sure your dog sticks to the path. In the warmer months you may find adders basking along the paths and on the walls here, so keep this in mind if your dog is likely to disturb them.
Geal-charn Mòr
The last day of any trip always rolls around far too quickly. One minute I’m sitting by the fire on day 2 of the trip and then I blink and we’re suddenly setting out on our last walk. The weather forecast promised us a brighter, less windy day, and so we chanced a slightly bigger hill with a romp up Geal-charn Mòr (824m). We followed a 7.75 mile circular route from our Day Walks in the Cairngorms book, but the route is also available online on Walkhighlands.
Parking is free on the roadside in Lynwilg, and then it’s a straightforward climb steadily uphill all the way to the summit. We still managed to go wrong and walked through the Christian Recreation Centre by accident instead of detouring around it (and were politely told by the staff we’d gone the wrong way, but they still let us continue on to exit through the back gate). Other than this, the ascent was without incident!
All of the photos in the book were of the walk in the snow, which looked magical, and I can’t help but wonder if this expectation contributed to me not being hugely bowled over by the views (although there were some nice vistas over the mountains in hazy light on the way up). The summit is a rocky, somewhat featureless plateau, and I thought the best views were on the ascent and descent. We took advantage of the wind shelter by the trig to eat our lunch though – the temperature dropped at the top and we both got our gloves out for the first time since last winter.
This is a great option for people who don’t want anything too technical – the path is clear track all the way up, and the descent, while not a level track, is a clear path 90% of the way and boggy in only a few places. Plus, we only saw one other hiker the whole time we were out.
I was a little disappointed that the blue skies the weather forecast had promised never materialised, but it didn’t rain and didn’t blow a gale, so I can’t complain. Plus, I was thankful we hadn’t stuck with Plan A (Braeriach) – my legs were pretty tired by the end and we’d still have had another 10 miles to go. Definitely one to save for a perfect weather day, and not to do at the end of a week of walking!
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. This is a lovely quiet walk, where we didn’t see any livestock (although we crossed a few empty fields towards the very end). We did see grouse up on the moor so make sure your dog isn’t going to disturb any ground nesting birds should you let them off the lead. There’s a stile to cross on the out and back section up to the summit, where both of ours just about squeaked under the fence. There’s a little bit of water but not much, so it’s worth carrying extra for your dog on a warm day.
Where we stayed
As always, we stayed at Balneden Steading, our go to home away from home when we visit the Cairngorms. Historically, we have always stayed in The Cattle Shed, Balneden’s budget friendly option and the smallest of the three cottages. This year we decided to treat ourselves with a stay in The Mill, Balneden’s largest cottage: we just couldn’t resist the floor to ceiling windows to take maximum advantage of the view.
As well as the fabulous windows, The Mill sleeps 4 in spacious, comfortable accommodation. It has a log burner (as do all of Balneden’s cottages), but we’ve never used it thanks to the underfloor heating keeping the interior toasty warm. Having a bit of extra space really makes a difference to us with the waggy labrador tail, and we are definitely converted to The Mill now!
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. Two dogs are welcome to join you for an additional charge of £20 each, and the floors are easy to clean laminate. Balneden is in a fantastically quiet location on a hillside, so there’s no passing traffic other than the owners and guests from the other cottages coming and going – so not much for Merry to bark at. I’ve just knocked off a point as the garden isn’t enclosed – but I always think when the view is this good, it’s not a hardship to take the dogs out for a wee.
That’s it for another Cairngorms adventure – I’m sure we’ll be back before too long though. If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog today, you can subscribe below so that you never miss a post. If you’ve found it helpful, you can also buy me a coffee – it really makes a huge difference and helps support me to carry on finding new dog friendly places to share with you!
