dooger.org

[Trail blog is here]

We woke around 7:30am and were off by 8:30am.   The prior night’s slog up through the peat hags to Shielin of Mark was exhausting but we were very pleased to have gotten it over with. From the bothy we headed up over Muckle Cairn and got a little lost on the top by following the wrong path. We ended up traversing Muckle Cairn and finding the path down to Stables of Lee. This is rustic bothy but very dry with a fireplace that could be used if you’re super cold.

From Stables of Lee, we continued on to Loch Lee and ran into a bunch of Landrovers hauling folks in shirt and ties up the hill (?). We passed by a small castle (N0442804) which looked like it was in danger of falling down at any moment. From there it was once again over the hill to reach Tarfside where we were pleased to be able to get a spot on the floor out of the rain.

Lots of beer, cookies and bacon butties later (and showers too!) we had a great time socializing with other challengers. Most of the usual crowd were there including Andy, Richard, Gordon, Des, Andy Howell, John Manning, Alistair, etc. Good times!

Distance today was 18km making 224km to date

On to day 12

[Trail blog is here]

We had a long walk today through "the peat hags of despair" aka. The route into Shielin of Mark. The walking from Braemar through the Balmoral estate was very pretty. Lots of meandering trails through open forest with running rivers.

We had a nice lunch stop at Gelder Shiel Bothy (Queen’s bothy) – running water and toilets (again!)

As we left the bothy, we bumped into lots of people hiking down from Lochnagar which looked like a full on hike. We were already knackered and I was glad we’d taken the "low level route". We passed through Spittal of Glenmuick (pronounced Glen-mick) and stopped for a cup of soup from the vending machine in the visitors centre.   From there we headed up the valley towards Shielin of Mark. By this point I was extremely tired and would have stopped if we’d found a good campsite. Fortunately we pressed on and joined Andy and Richard who were looking a their GPS trying to find the bothy. We literally stumbled over it as it’s very well hidden in the peat hags.  The cheers of joy were shared by all.

We had a good time in the Bothy. John Handcock (camping with a tarp) had made himself a nice "nest" in the bothy; it was small but nice and dry so we cooked up dinner. Richard had extra Chicken Tikka from Expedition foods so we tried one and it was fantastic! Scarfed down dinner and then headed off to bed for a well earned rest.

Today was very wet and I noticed my sil-nylon pack cover from ULA pools water at the base getting the pack wet.   I think a grommet hole in the bottom would help to fix the problem.

Distance today was 27km making 206km to date

On to day 11

[Trail blog is here]

We had a nice lie in this morning since we only have a short hike into Braemar. Breakfast was "self service" bacon, sausage and eggs. Lovely. Packed up our stuff and moved out for a short road walk into Braemar. Lots of folks on this route today with enthusiasm building for what promises to be a very social affair.  While walking along to road we passed by a huge herd of deer on the upper ridge.

We entered the town and soon passed by the Fife Arms which seems like a gathering point for challengers. It’s very hard to pass by the huge bar windows and not be drawn in by folks waving and drinking. Had quite a few jars there and met many other challengers.

Also visited the Hungry Highlander for a lovely lunch of fish and chips.  The fish was so large, I think I could have sailed it across the pacific back to Seattle.

We stayed at the Callater Lodge B&B which was wonderful.  The rooms were large with very comfy bed and sofa so we could spread out with all our stuff.   This was also the spot for food parcel #3 which also made it safe and sound.

We had lots of time free in Braemar so headed into the local hiking store (Braemar Mountain Sports) to see if we could do anything for Lynn’s footwear problems.   Lynn left with a nice shiny pair of TNF Hedgehogs.   The store is wonderful and well worth the visit if you’re passing through.   It was hilarious to see all the Challengers in there replacing broken and worn out kit.   Many kit upgrades were purchased.   The shop owners were pretty smart too, offering free shipping back home for your purchases.  Many challengers took advantage of this to ship back old gear in exchange for new stuff.

Dinner was great at a local cafe I can’t recall the name of.  We also headed out to watch the Bingo Wings play.   Great night overall, lots of catching up with folks we’d seen in the first few days of Challenge including Hamish!

Distance today was a record 6km 🙂 making 179km to date

On to day 10

[Trail blog is here]

The weather this morning was extremely poor; rain started pouring at around 6:30am and the winds were blowing. There’d been some discussion last night of Mar Lodge and accommodation there including a big supper. Since we were already well ahead of schedule (8km) we decided we’d make a run for Mar Lodge to get somewhere warm and dry for the night.

We got a later start this morning, needing to spend a while dressing poor Lynn’s blisters. We soon caught up with Russ and Des at the waterfalls at the head of the valley. It’s definitely worth the trip up and over the falls rather than attempting to fjord the river. From here it’s a wet slog across the watershed. Rain was pelting down at this point with driving rain and we were starting to get soggy and cold. My Goretex paclite jacket was starting to fail and we needed to get out of the weather and warm up. We found a Bothy that was being renovated at NO002869.  It was open, warm and dry so we ducked in and cranked up the stove to make some hot food. We were soon joined by Des, Russ and Adrian who all had the same idea.

From the "bothy" we hoofed it on to Mars Lodge. The trail up to Linn of Dee was pretty nice but soon made way for yet more road walking for the remaining 4km to Mar Lodge. The folks are Mar Lodge were wonderful – despite being "full", they made space for us in a set of rooms called "base camp" which had a lovely set of bunk beds and what seemed like an endless supply of piping hot water.

There was a huge crowd of folks staying here (26); had a lovely venison stew dinner and retired to the shooting room for a few drinks and socializing. Great time had by all; if I pass through Braemar again, I’ll definitely plan on booking in to get a room in the main lodge. The rooms are supposedly fantastic.

Distance today was 23km making 173km to date

On to day 9

[Trail blog is here]

We headed out from Kingussie after a late start at 10am. Taking advantage of the local shops to stock up on camping gas and blister supplies. Lynn’s blisters have been responding well to "Compeed".

We hit the road at 10am and headed back out of Kingussie passing by Ruthven barracks. Wonderful ruins that are still mostly intact. They were built in 1715 by the English to quell the Jacobite uprisings. After the battle of Culloden the Scots captured and burned them down. The site is still very well preserved.    We saw some very hairy cattle here and were told they were "highland cows" by the farmer – we’d seen patches of long fur on the trails yesterday and had wondered what kind of animal it came from.  Lots of sheep here – it’s very obviously lambing season in Scotland.

After hiking through several forests, we finally headed out into open country on our way to Glenfeshie. The hills here are beautiful with lots of streams and rivers.    We had a great lunch of "German flat rye/linseed bread". It’s very compact and tasty but has a tendency to fall apart if squished.

Lynn’s hands have been badly blistered from the sunshine the past few days. She’s in a much better mood tought with the blisters feeling much better compared to our yomps of the past three days. Today’s walk is much shorter so we’re feeling better physically and mentally. Apparently her new Bridgedale liner socks are working pretty well.

Note: hiking roads in walking boots is a bad idea. Lynn had brought Crocs along as a second pair of footware.  While these are great for camp at night, they aren’t much use for road walking. Next time she’ll bring a set of trainers and boots since the trainers can serve dual purpose.    I was doing fine with my Innov8 318GTX shoes.

The trails here are much nicer than the past few days; really makes you feel like you’re hiking again. The weather was mixed today with good cloud cover hiding the beating sun of the past few days.

On the trail today we bumped into Russ Manning, a jovial fellow wearing a black kilt. He says he likes the feel of the fresh air :-). Also bumped into Des and a new face – Adrian. Walked with them up to the Ruighaiteachain Bothy (NN847928) which was fantastic. The bothy has a nice water source and a flush toilet! There were a bunch of mountain bikers here with baby burly trailers. Hardcore group! Lynn walked to them for quite a while.  Someone said they’d seen Gordon here but I wasn’t so sure…

We stopped at the bothy for some Miso soup and oatcakes. Russ had this amazing wonder cream called Biofreeze which is a cold pain relieving gel. Worked wonders on my knotted left shoulder. Need to get some. The weather for tomorrow didn’t look very good.  Since we’d made the Bothy by 2pm, we decided to push on with a smaller group (Des, Russ, etc) and head up Glenfreshie to a better camping spot. The walk up the glen was nice with a bit of a "goat scramble" through one section where there’d been a landslide. From here the walking was superb following the river as it meandered up the valley floor.

Camping here with shelter is pretty sketchy but Russ has mentioned a great little camping spot in a depression further up the valley about another 8km on. We headed up and found three Akto’s already in place and a tarp. Wonderful little spot, felt like a little valley with a good stream and lots of places to "do the business" in privacy. We nick-named this spot "The Amphitheatre" – it’s located at NN887891.

Distance today was 21km making 150km to date

On to day 8

[Trail blog is here]

We got off to a reasonable start by 8:30am today. After leaving Garva Bridge we stopped in at Laggan "Wolftrax" mountain biking center for a huge slice (well two really) of Lemon Cake with a gallon of hot chocolate. After leaving Wolftrax, we took a wrong turn and headed in the wrong direction for about 2Km before bumping into two other challengers who set us straight 🙁

There was lots of road walking today and poor Lynn’s feet had major blister troubles needing lots of patching. We stayed off the major roads where possible keeping to military roads paralleling the A89. These routes above Newtonmore and Kingussie were beautiful.

On heading into Kingussie, we saw lots of rabbits (literally 10’s) who lived in a large rabbit warren on the side of a hill. We were traversing across the top and I had a vision of a collapsing hillside due to our weight!

By the time we reach Kingussie, we were both mentally and physically exhausted.    Lynn had been fighting wicked blister pain all day.  The first think we saw when entering the town was our friend Jackie with a glass of wine in her hand. Two minutes later and were in the bar sucking down a pint of ale. Champion!  We stayed at the Silverfjord Hotel which was superb. The bar food was great with a great breakfast menu. Rooms were big, nice and comfortable with a fantastic set of radiators for drying socks.

Our BPL blister kit was earning it’s keep today.  This is a combination of gauze, tincture of  benzoin, leukotape and hydropel gel.   Unfortunately we were out of leukotape but found a good alternative “zinc oxide tape” at the local pharmacy.

Kingussie was the location of our number 2 food drop which made it safe and sound.  Opening the box was a but like a Christmas experience.

Distance today was 30km making 129km to date

On to day 7

[Trail blog is here]

We had a fantastic night of sleep in the B&B and woke up around 8am ready for a super cooked breakfast.  Showing again felt like a luxury but heck, get it while you can.

Our start today was delayed by our breakfast which started at 8:30am.   It was worth it though with a great helping of eggs, bacon and toast.   Nothing like a good old fryup to get you going in a morning.    We left the B&B at 9am passing by the campsite with was empty but for a single tent.    I think everyone else was up and off at the crack of dawn.

As we climbed up towards the Corrieyairk we looked back towards Ft Augustus and had great views of Loch Ness.    The past few days have had outstanding weather with full on sunshine and clear blue skies.    We’re both looking quite sun burned and are taking extra care to cover up from now on.

We reached the summit of Corrieyairk and were buffeted by 60 mph winds.    It was a wonderful walk up there with stunning views.   This has been my favorite day so far with epic views of the mountains.   As we walked up the pass we passed several groups of walkers and mountain bikers.   The path itself is very well maintained but hard on the feet with lots of packed rocks.  The shoulder was a little easier on our tired feet so we kept to one side and trudged on.

The highlight of today was our visit to the Blackburn bothy which was staffed by two fellows from an MBA work crew.   Iain and Neil were very friendly and greeted us with the offer of tea, coffee and biscuits.   They even provided seating outside the bothy.  They’d come up for the weekend to work on a planned extension to the bothy and had decided to stay on since the weather was so good.   Iain and Neil were being assisted by Jock, a very cute young Border Collie.

After a brief refueling we continued along towards Melgarve Bothy, a somewhat rustic (non MBA) bothy but in great condition. Here we bumped into Bill and Brian again who we’d met prior to the Blackburn bothy.

Lynn’s blisters were really bothering here at this point so we took the time to redress them before heading on the remaining 6km to Garva Bridge.   The campsite at Garva Bridge was very nice but there was no privacy for pee spots since we were surrounded by lots of green Aktos and Lasers!

Distance today was 25km making 99km to date

On to day 6

[Trail blog is here]

Today was a super long haul.   After leaving Cougie at 8am, we’d opted to take a easy but longer route up and over the ridge going by way of Hilton Lodge. This added 6km that was very easy going.   Today was one of the longer days taking 10 hours of hiking with short breaks.

Our feet really ached having banged out 31km to Ft Augustus.   It felt much longer too as the landscape was pretty boring compared to some of the great scenery of the past few days.  Interestingly we saw lots of Salamanders in mud pools at the summit above Ft Augustus.

As we got towards Fort Augustus, I started to dream about food.   I told Lynn I was thinking about Coconut buns and they looked so good I could almost smell them.   We later realized that Scotch Broom smells like coconut in full bloom.   Yum, it certainly made for an easier last few miles to Ft Augustus.

We were planning on camping tonight but were lured in by the delights of the local B&B.    We stayed at Caledonian Cottage B&B right above the locks which was a delightful little place serving a wonderful cooked breakfast the following morning.    We had a lovely pub dinner at the Loch Inn before jumping into bed for an early night.

Today’s distance was a whopping 31km making 74km total.

On to day 5.

[Trail blog is here]

We woke up to find two blokes has pitched their tents in the barn!   After a nice breakfast of oatmeal and dressing Lynn’s developing blisters, we pushed on for Cougie Lodge.   This was an easy day for us with only 12km planned.

The walk out from Athnamulloch to Cougie follows the banks of Loch Affric which is in a stunningly beautiful location.   Unlike our prior days, the weather had finally cleared and were were experiencing full on sunshine with clear blue skies.   That’s more like it!

The path up from the Loch to Cougie was very muddy with soaking wet trails.   Looking at the map, it appears we missed a turn which is very odd since we were following a very well worn footpath with lots of boot prints in front of us.

After climbing for a while, we hit a ridge and then traversed along travelling through commercial forest which had been felled a while back.   We later learned they were replanting the forest for the native species and removing (I think) non-native spruce trees.

We arrived at Cougie before we knew it and were greeted with steaming cups of tea, scones, stew and chocolate biscuits.   I was on my second brew and in pops Hamish and crew.   Made for a fun hour before they headed out again.   We spent the afternoon just chilling out and doing laundry.   I have to say that it felt very decadent just waiting around but it was a great deal of fun interacting with the Cougie Kids and talking with Val’s nieces and nephews.

Cougie was the location of our first food drop but alas the UK “guaranteed 48 hr” parcel force service wasn’t having a good day.  I did wonder about the small print “rural areas of Scotland are not guaranteed” when we’d posted it three days prior.   It wasn’t too much of an issue since we’d be in Fort Augustus tomorrow and would be able to hit the shops for supplies.

By dinner time, a bunch of other challengers had appeared including Des Horan and Gordon Green.   A delightful pair of characters with whom we’d spend a great deal of time with in the coming days.  Gordon had a nice bottle of Scotch with him which he generously shared after dinner!!

After a nice dinner and shower we were tucked up in bed by 8am ready for an early 7:30am breakfast and the long 30km slot on to Fort Augustus.

Distance today: 12km making 43km total

Go on to day 4

[Trail blog is here]

We woke up nice and early at 5am after a very cold night.   There was a lot of groundwater flowing underneath the tent so the floor acted like a fridge panel!

After a nice oatmeal breakfast, we packed up in the pouring rain and headed along the ridge following the river up to Loch Gaorsaic.   The going here was pretty hard with lots of peat hag jumping up and down.   We tried to find a better route by going high but it didn’t seem to make much difference.  We were headed for a set of stepping stones at the base of Loch Gaorsaic which would allow us to cross to the North side of the river.

When we got to the location of the stepping stones, there were only a few stones showing with the others a few inches below the surface of the river.    I’d had reports from a few weeks back telling me they were completely submerged so we were overjoyed to see the water levels had come down.   A quick change into our River Walkers and we were both across without any mishaps 🙂

From Loch Gaorsaic, we continued on towards the youth hostel at Allbeithe.   On the way we bumped into a group of four women (Fiona, Francis, Mary and Mari).   We’d actually met them the day previously and they’d taken a different route choosing to avoid the falls.    The youth hostel at Allbeithe was a welcome sight – by the time we arrived our feet were quite soaked and we welcomed steaming mugs of builder’s tea (tea, white with lots of sugar).

While in the youth hostel, we bumped into Hamish who asked us if we were the "Bloody Idiots" for camping on the ridge :-)    From the hostel, the walk to Athnamulloch was un-eventful, following a LRT all the way.    Athnamulloch is a random set of buildings which contain Strawberry Cottage, a very posh looking Scottish mountaineering house.

We met a guy staying in the cottage and he told us we were welcome to use the barn which was a wood store for the cottage.  We all pitched up tent in the shelter of the barn and then hopped inside to make dinner.    Mountain House spag bol for dinner which was great.    Francis gave us a packet of Apple and Custard dessert which tasted like heaven.

Distance today: 15km making 31km total

Go on to day 3