|
Hillwalking
Cairngorm
Mountains
Home Page
About This Site
Pitlochry
Trossachs
The Gorms
North Skye
Lomond Glens
Loch Tay
Kinlochleven
Loch Sloy
Glen Nevis
Goat Fell
West Highland Way
Arrochar
Ochil Hills
Greenock Cut
Braemar
Links
Tony Connery.

|
HILLWALKING in the
CAIRNGORMS
More renowned for it's
Mountaineering and it's Skiing,
the Cairngorms has all the easy walking tracks you could wish for.
The Cairngorms
The Cairngorm Mountain range is situated between the Spey Valley and Braemar on
Royal Deeside. The weather and scenery can be wild and dramatic. The nearest
civilisation are the towns of Aviemore, Granton on Spey and Kingussie. Apart from
the Gorms themselves the area is littered with hillwalking opportunities many of
which can be found in the Glenmore Forest Park and the Loch Garten Nature Reserve.
The main mountains of the Gorms are Ben Macdui, Cairn Gorm, Braeriach and Cairn Toul.
Since most of the land is over 3000ft, flora is very limited to moss and heather.
|

River Spey at the
Town of Aviemore |

Looking at the
entrance to Loch Morlich |
Over the years glaciers have gouged deep valleys into the terrain and if you are fit enough
it is possible to circumvent the Gorms through the valley of the Lairig Ghru (south from Aviemore)
past the Devil's Point to Derry Lodge, then turning left head up the Lairig an Laoigh, northwards back to Aviemore.
Not for the faint hearted, I may add . There is a major skiing centre in the north-east
Cairgorms.
My first day there took me the 4ml. walk from my campsite in Coylumbridge,
just outside Aviemore, to the placid Loch Morlich, where all the
watersport activities you want are available, there is a beach and a
restaurant on the shore and the surrounding hill forests are littered with
easy walks, too many to mention here but can be found in local maps
|

Yachts in Loch Morlich
|
|
Second day took me on a 12ml. return walk, again from the campsite,
along Gleann Einich to the sprawling heights of Sgor Gaoith(1118) and
ending up at Loch Einich, the loch is totally surrounded by mountains and
well worth the walk. Be prepared to get your feet wet as a small stream
has to be crossed as you near the loch. Long jumpers can handle this in a
single bound. The path is man made..easy. |

Sgor Gaoith
|
The next escapade was to tackle the Lairig Ghru, a 10ml walk at the
foothills of the Gorms, alas, here I failed miserably. I had done my homework on the Lairig and knew it was not going to be
easy, especially when the book tells you to forget the mountain bike. The
walk kicks off, again from the campsite ( I think I am an agent for that
campsite) and begins with 3miles of forest walk and then into the Lairig.
The path gets very rough at times and you have to be pretty fit, thus the
reason I only made it out about 7ml to the foot of Braeriach (1296) and Ben Macdui (1295) but not a bad effort at that. Remember on this one you are
really out in the wilds and the weather can set in real quick as it did
with me which was another reason for returning. This area is famous for it's Distilleries.
|

Lairig Ghru |
Aviemore & Cairngorms Accommodation
Cairngorms Accommodation
|