Turned out nice again
by - 23:26 on 18 April 2007
Serious Munro-baggers can skip this note, but If you ever find yourself at the top of Britain’s highest main road, the A93 south of Braemar at the Glenshee skiing area, with four hours to spare, then here’s a plan. You’ll also need decent boots, a measure of fitness, proper clothing, a map, compass, sandwiches, chocolate, water - and a piece of cake and a small onion tart from your mother-in-law. The last two items are optional but that’s what I had the other day.
Park at the south end of the ludicrously large carpark by the ski lifts and walk to the top of the Glas Maol, which is 1068m high, but feels smaller because you’re starting from around the 700m mark. Instead of taking the switchback track which gives views of the ski area detritus, you can avoid this by contouring round well to the right, to the south, where there are faint tracks leading to the final steep but thankfully quite short pull up the summit plateau of the Glas Maol. You find yourself on the edge of The Mounth, the rolling plateau lands of the eastern Grampian massif. This high in Scotland is obviously serious hill country, so keep an eye on the weather.
If you turn south-west from the top, you can make your way gently down and over to another big hill, Creag Leacach, usually a safe piece of navigation as it’s in sight of the main road, westwards and well below – and you can follow an old wall, a boundary (Perthshire and Angus at this point) which also now marks the edge of the Cairngorms National Park. Leacach is a rocky kind of hill, with impressive drops into bare Glen Brighty eastwards, while on the other side is the main road, far below.
By now, you ought to have seen red grouse and mountain hare, if you avoided the paraphernalia of the ski area. You should also have ticked golden plover, raven and ptarmigan. Contour back to the car via the cairn marked on the map midway between Creag Leacach and the Glas Maol, taking a lot of care on the steep slope off the Glas Maol flanks. Then continue your journey north or south with the feeling that you didn’t spend the entire day in the car, and that you had just a little taste of a high wild space without too much effort.
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