Five Munros at Ballater
5 Munros Near Balmoral:
Lochnagar, Càrn a’ Choire Bhòidheach, Càrn an t-Sagairt Mòr, Cairn Bannoch, and Broad Cairn
I’ve wanted to climb Lochnagar for ages. Lochnagar means Small Loch of Laughter in Gallic.
A long day walking in the hills, climbing five Munros on the White Mounth plateau. Lochnagar might just be my favourite Munro – even though but we didn’t get great weather!
We started early at Spittal of Glen Muick car park
We were dying to see the famed Northern corrie of Lochnagar – a huge buttress of rock, curving magnificently around the lochan. But when we go to the path to detour for the view, it was completely obscured by a thick bank of cloud and mist.
Ah well, we turned to go then … the mist started to lift, fragment by delicate fragment, to reveal this stunning feature. We stayed for ages just watching.
Then we pushed on to the top of Lochnagar. The mist came down again.
No view.
We had lunch at the top of Lochnagar … then the mist lifted again in wisps, to reveal the treasures all around us.
2nd Munro quite underwhelming, Càrn a’Choire Bhòidheach.
Moving on.
3rd Munro, Càrn an t-Sagairt Mòr , 1047 metres. We saw 2 piles of wreckage on this summit – parts of an aircraft (RAF Canberra) which crashed into the mountain in 1956.
We spent some time here reflecting. It’s easy to imagine how mist and fog could re4duce visibility to zero.
4th Munro, Cairn Bannoch, 1012 metres, involved a scramble up a rocky outcrop, up to the cairn on the summit.
It started to rain here and we pushed on to the 5th and final Munro
Broad Cairn. Bagged in the rain. We didn’t care. We’d had better weather than forecast and we nearly didn’t do all 5 Munros. So glad we did.
The descent was a bit tricky, climbing over a boulder field in the rain.
The last bit was a zig zaggy descent down to Loch Muick and back to the car. Wet, tired but happy. Another 5 Munros in the bag.
We walked over 18 miles 18 miles in 8.5 hours.
I wouldn’t like to do this walk in very bad weather as there are a lot of sheer cliffs!
