Hillwalking
Cairngorm
Mountains

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.
 

 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

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