Geldie Munros

I've been putting these 2 munros off for years as I knew the route was a bit shit with miles of flat landy track, bog and boring featureless hills.. It was exactly that however it was another scorcher and the mileage suited my running plan so I got on with it!

On approaching LOD bridge from Braemar I was directed into a field on the right to park because the LOD car park was full. This actually suited me perfectly as I was going west towards White Bridge anyway, oh and free parking in a field! 

A convenient pile of wire and posts to padlock the bike to..

I'd done 14 miles on Braeriach the day before so I was only looking for 20 miles on this run and no more as I'm teetering on the edge of a couple of injuries. The route from Lynn of Dee is 26 miles so I biked into White bridge to cut it down to 20 miles on foot.. 

Geldie Lodge

To begin with it was actually great running and I cruised to Geldie Lodge on the easy landy track pretty quickly before starting to climb onto the first hill Carn an Fhidhleir (994m). I was on Fallon's route and as is usual on his routes I found myself  without a path in the middle of bog and deep heather! very hard going climbing direct onto the shoulder and summit where I was happy to be back on a path and get back to running..

Back of Cairn Toul from the shoulder of Carn an Fhidhleir

The views were great though on such a clear day. These hills are typical Cairngorm rolling grassy hills but the skyline was pretty cool and it was great to see the Lairig munros from the back.

Carn an Fhidhleir

From Carn an Fhidhleir it's good running over towards An Sgarsoch until the route drops down on a steep faint path then gets lost in bog before climbing up onto An Sgarsoch (1006m).

The path appears again half way up. 

I was surprised to see so many other folk out here being so remote but this is the norm now with all the Covid mountaineers!

An Sgarsoch

My legs were feeling good considering the week I've had training. Since Tuesday I was on Corrennie, Pitfichie, Pressendye, Braeriach and now half way round this route. That's 56 miles and 14,000ft for the week..

Mourne Skyline is only 4 weeks away now, well if it goes ahead of course with the changing Covid restrictions. This only leaves me 2 weeks hard running left before I cut back a bit for race day.

The climb onto An Sgarsoch

An Sgarsoch summit

Once onto the summit it's good running again heading NE towards Geldie Lodge. The path did continue in a more easterly direction but I went with Fallon and dropped off a perfectly good path into steep heather then 40 minutes of hell crossing very difficult boggy ground! I was raging by the time I got to Geldie and fukn soaked haha! 

Then it was back to miles of mundane landy track back to the bike then Braemar for a coffee and a Bakewell! Yaldy!!

I won't be in a rush to get back here again, it's really not my bag and without the good weather it would've been grim! However, at the end of the day it's the hills, it's fresh air, it's peace (mostly), it's my sanctuary, peat bogs or not!!