For a few days over New Years I went to Braemar to go winter walking. We had to work around the extensive flooding but managed to get some good walking done.
Braemar is situated among the mountains in the Cairngorms National Park. It is one of the coldest areas in the UK and holds the joint record of coldest temperature of -27.2 °C. We thought it would be a good location for some winter walking.
In the evening on 28th December I met with my two friends Stu and Phil, they had travelled to Braemar earlier and been for a long walk the day before. The morning, we walked up to “Top of the Battery” (Carn Damhaireach 784 m). The name comes from the mountain’s resemblance on a map to a plan view of the terminals on the top of a 9 V battery.
We started in Inverey and walked along a track to a small wooden bridge crossing Allt Cristie Mor. We then continued up to the ridge towards the summit. In the valley there had been no wind but as we reached the top of the ridge there was a strong southerly wind. We carried on to the summit before descending to the north east, near Allt an Beal, we walked between the two spurs which provided shelter from the wind. We crossed back over the river using the same bridge. There was very little snow cover and in fact we only had to cross two small patches on the entire route. We had initially been hoping for good winter conditions.
The walk took 3 hrs 30 mins, covering 10.3 km with a height gain of 480 m.
The next morning, we were at the Lin of Dee car park cooking breakfast. The forecast was for heavy rain and very strong winds, so we were still deciding what to do when a white Land Rover pulled up. The driver was with mountain rescue and informed us the road to Braemar was flooded. However, he thought if we left straight away, our vans would have sufficient ground clearance to get through.
We decided it would be better to be stuck in Braemar, than in the car park and so quickly packed up and set off. The river under the bridge was a raging torrent and there were several patches of deep water across the road. We had also been warned of a small landslide across the road but not that this was also flooded. Although bouncing along over the rocks as they crossed through the water, both vans safely reached the other side. We drove into Braemar and it was confirmed both the North and South roads were closed. We later saw the man from mountain rescue and thanked him for his advice.
We spent the rest of the day in Braemar, we visited Braemar Mountain Sports Ltd but shortly after the electricity supply to the town was cut by the rising flood waters and so the shops closed. Later we had a look at Kindrochit Castle and that night stayed at Rucksacks Braemar.
The next day we went on a walk from Braemar to Morrone (859 m) and Carn na Drochaide (830 m) and descended via the same route.We the followed the path the viewpoint and continued to Morrone, and from here we followed the track south before turning west for Canr na Drochaide. There was a sprinkling of snow in places but no extensive snow cover.
The walk took 5 hrs 23 mins, covering 14.7 km with 810 m of ascent.
We spent the evening, New Years eve, at the bunkhouse joined by our friends from Nottingham. Ollie, Steve and Alistar had also come to Braemar with the hope of winter walking and climbing. At that time the only public bar in Braemar, the Fife Arms, was closed for restoration.
The following day we decided to go for a walk and afterwards head to our homes, we did not want to get trapped in Braemar again by more flooding. Stu and Phil also had to go back to Middlesbrough before returning to work.
We set off from Glenshee and walked up Meall Odhar (922 m) and Glas Maol (1068 m), then returned via the same route. We started from the top of the pass near the ski centre, at an altitude of 665 m. On the walk there was a light snow cover and the visibility from varied from good to poor.
This walk was 3 hrs 8 mins, 6.3 km with 500 metres of ascent.
The map below shows the three walks.