Those who have been following my blog for a while will know that I absolutely love the Cairngorms national park – so much so that it has become a staple of our travel plans, with at least one week there every year. Last year we travelled up in August, and we were treated to a lovely display of heather even if the weather wasn’t hugely summery. This year we were slightly later (having originally planned to visit around the time of an ultra Sam was interested in, which was later cancelled), and could not believe the incredible weather we had – a whole week of non-stop sunshine, light breezes and no midges. Clearly, mid-September is the time to go to the Cairngorms!
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Ben Newe
We’re always a bit surprised by how long the drive up to the Cairngorms takes, given that it’s almost all on good roads, with no prolonged tracts of windy, single track roads. We like to take it easier on day one of the holiday to ‘ease ourselves in’, which worked out well because it was also the day with the poorest weather forecast of the week. That’s a relative description, as the morning and early afternoon were still forecast to be lovely, with the rain holding off until later on in the day. It was Sam’s pick, and he perused Walkhighlands to find this 2.5 mile route up the small hill of Ben Newe.
Ben Newe is just inside the boundary of the Cairngorms national park, well away from the more popular centres of Aviemore and Braemar. Parking for the walk is free at the bottom of the track into the forest, and we were the only ones there on a sunny Sunday morning in September. The route heads steadily uphill into the woods, climbing gradually (for the most part) with good views of the surrounding countryside.
The final climb up to the summit is a bit steeper but very short, and once you reach the top the views are fantastic in all directions. We spent a while sitting up here enjoying the surroundings – it really was lovely, and we had it entirely to ourselves. Eventually we began our climb down, looping around the summit on a different path to soon rejoin the outward route.
The paths on this walk are generally very good, clear and not muddy. There are a few arrows which attempt to way mark the route, but these are inconsistent and you’re better off using the Walkhighlands directions – not that the navigation is complicated.
Dog friendly rating – 5/5. This was an excellent dog walk, with no stiles or other obstacles, and the dogs can happily explore off lead without having to worry about livestock. Just keep your eyes peeled for deer!
Lochnagar
Fully warmed up from the day before and with a spectacular weather forecast, Monday was always going to be a hill day. The question was, which hill would it be? Many of the Munros in the Cairngorms aren’t quite as scary as some of their counterparts in other parts of Scotland (Wester Ross, I’m looking at you), but they are still a serious undertaking and require a long walk to bag them. Munro bagging is not something I’m massively wanting to get into (still only being halfway through the Wainwrights and having no desire to ever climb the In Pinn), but I do enjoy a good hill walk.
The trick was going to be to find something not ridiculously long or hard which we could manage with the dogs – in the end we chose a 19km circular route from our Day Walks in the Cairngorms book, taking the ‘tourist path’ up Lochnagar, returning along the shores of Loch Muick. And this was one of the shorter routes we could find!
There’s plenty of pay and display parking at the Spittal of Glen Muick, although it can fill up on summer days in good conditions. We set out to begin our ascent on the path clearly signposted ‘Lochnagar’, which passes through a small wood before starting to climb steadily uphill. The route was surprisingly gentle – it was actually much easier than many of the fells we’ve climbed in the Lake District, with just one shorter, bouldery section towards the end of the ascent, which if you’ve climbed some of the scramblier Wainwrights, shouldn’t pose any difficulty at all. If you’re still unsure, Queen Victoria managed to summit this peak on a pony – it was this fact which gave me the confidence to give it a try.
The summit plateau looked a bit intimidating from above the Lochan where we stopped for a break, but once we were up there it wasn’t scary at all: a broad plateau which enables you to keep well back from the drop off to the right. It’s a bit of a walk from here to the trig pillar, with a few more climbs, but again these aren’t particularly steep and are interspersed with flat sections which allow you to catch your breath.
Like the initial climb, the final approach to the trig isn’t particularly challenging – but we did this walk in summer, in perfect conditions. In winter this would be a much more challenging prospect, and is best left to experienced winter walkers: parts of this route can be prone to avalanches, even if it was hard to imagine while we were there.
The views from the top were amazing, with hills as far as the eye could see. It really gives you a sense of how remote the Cairngorms are – I couldn’t pick out a single road or settlement. We shared the summit with a few other walkers, but it was nowhere near as busy as Lake District peaks like Helvellyn or the Old Man of Coniston.
After enjoying the views (for less time than we spent on Ben Newe, as once we were at the top the wind picked up and it was pretty chilly), we began our descent back down to the car. Much like the path up, the route is gradual, and I very much appreciated the steady downhill – not to mention the lovely view which stretches out in front of you almost all the way down. Eventually the path starts to run alongside a river, which the dogs very much enjoyed dipping in and out of as we walked – just be aware that this later becomes a waterfall, so we kept ours on leads well before we approached this.
From the waterfall, the track steepened and shaky legs set in – happily though, it wasn’t long before we reached the level path running around Lock Muick, which was the next step on our walk. For some reason I was convinced that the car park was at the end of the Loch (which it isn’t), and was subsequently gutted after power walking for a few miles to find at least another mile remaining. Sore feet had well and truly set in by the time we got back to the car, 7 hours after we’d set off that morning!
Dog friendly rating: 3.5/5. While there are no stiles or other obstacles, and the river is accessible for some of the descent, I’d only recommend this walk with a fit, adult dog. Both of our dogs are used to long days out in the fells, and even they were tired by the end (well, Coal was, Merry I think could have gone round again). While for some parts of the walk you need to be aware of sheer drops, at other times we were able to let Coal have some off lead time. We carried extra water for our dogs on this walk and they polished nearly all of it off, despite being able to access the river multiple times.
Black Craig
The next day Sam chose an 8.5km route from our Pocket Mountains guide, exploring Black Wood, its hill Black Craig and the remains of a hill fort, Dun da Lamh. The idea was to do an ‘easier’ walk to let our legs recover from our jaunt up Lochnagar the day before – however I think Sam and I have different definitions of an easy walk!
Parking is free at the Pattack Falls car park, just off the A86. From here we crossed the road to pick up a very vague, overgrown path. It was here that my concerns about the difficulty of the walk first appeared, as we battled our way through ferns, brambles and low hanging branches for a few hundred metres. Eventually though the path cleared and we started to walk gently uphill on a good forestry track – bad mood momentarily abated.
Soon, a narrow path branches off the main track to climb more steeply uphill. I would have walked straight past this if Sam hadn’t stopped next to it to wait for me to catch up! I found this part of the route tough, with very tired legs from the day before, the sun beating down and no breeze at all. I must confess to being rather whingy! After what felt like forever but probably wasn’t that long at all, the top comes into sight and a rather adventurous walk across some exposed rock leads to the summit of Black Craig.
The view is outstanding, worth the tough climb and this was another hill which we didn’t have to share at all. I had a lie down to cool off and catch my breath, ate a brookie and felt recovered enough to carry on. Sadly, the good views soon disappear as the path leads into woodland, and the trail deteriorates into a steeply undulating, muddy, slippery mountain biking track. I definitely wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this kind of walk unfortunately, and I would’ve probably enjoyed it a lot more on a day when I wasn’t quite as fatigued.
Thankfully, the muddy track ultimately joined a better forest trail which was much easier going. From here, it’s a short detour to climb up the hillfort of Dun-da-Lamh, before descending steadily back down towards the road. At least the descent was mostly gradual! This walk was pretty quiet and we didn’t see anyone other than a group of mountain bikers – the area around Laggan is very popular for this sport. Finally we reached the overgrown trail we’d picked up at the start and battled our way back through it to cross the road back to the car.
Dog friendly rating – 4/5. Mostly this is an excellent dog walk with no stiles or livestock, however, be aware of some steep drops along the section between Black Craig and Dun da Lamh. There aren’t many options for dogs to have a drink so carry extra water on a warm day.
Prince Albert’s Cairn
The one walk I really wanted to do while we were in the Cairngorms this time was the Balmoral Cairns walk, a 6 mile circular I’d found on Walkhighlands. Parking is pay and display in the village of Crathie (£5 all day) and when we got there, we found a sign up advising that this walk is closed to the public in August and September. However, the route to Prince Albert’s cairn remained open, and with a bit of jiggery pokery we adapted the Walkhighlands route to cut out the closed section.
Getting to the cairns requires a walk of a mile or so down quiet roads, skirting the edge of the village of Easter Balmoral (which has lots of rather imposing ‘no access’ signs) to eventually enter the woods. The cairns walk is padlocked shut when closed, so you’ll have no chance of accidentally ending up in a forbidden area (always something I’m paranoid about), and despite not being our planned route we still had a very nice walk – with the temperatures climbing into the twenties, I was glad that there was plenty of shade for the dogs.
The pyramid at Prince Albert’s Cairn is arguably the most impressive feature of the walk, and getting there early meant we only had to share with a few other people. The views out over the Cairngorms are very nice, and it’s a rare bonus for a woodland wander to come with views like this. As we started to make our way down the main path from the cairn to the road, we met an increasing stream of people coming the other way – the early bird catches the worm with this walk!
Dog friendly rating – 3/5. There’s a fairly long walk along a road at both the start and end of this route, which when we visited ended up being about 50% of the hike as the main walk was closed. There’s a lot of shade, which is a bonus on a warm day, and there are no stiles or livestock. However, you are likely to come across more people/dogs than on other routes in the Cairngorms.
This took us to about mid-way through our week in the Cairngorms – with sunny weather and temperatures climbing, we changed our plans for the rest of the week so that the dogs weren’t too exposed to the heat. Makes sure to subscribe to my blog so that you don’t miss part two, including information about where we stayed.
