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[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