We’d had 3 Sundays of lovely sunny WX on the run, would there be a 4th? Yes!
Another Sunday, another thrash up the A93 to Glen Shee and the Ski Centre. Blue skies, 4C not much cloud. I was tempted to grab Glas Maol as I have been on other occasions passing here especially as this time I might get a whole activation of the summit without the mist coming down. But we want uniques… so I pushed on. Down to Braemar and then along the Dee Valley to Ballater. Braemar and Ballater are “picture-postcard” towns. The road between then is stunning with mature Scots pine, the River Dee and simply gorgeous countryside. Well it must be nice, the Queen comes here for her Summer Holidays!
#Coyles of Muick
A few miles on and just past the turn off for Glen Muick and the Spittal of Glenmuick car park for Lochnagar is the road that runs to the forest. It’s all awfully nice and well kept around here. Not a leaf out of place. Park at the forest entrance at NO346935 where there is space for 2 cars. I’d checked the route on the 1:25k map and Google Earth, looked easy, follow a path to its end and a bit of forest bashing and you’re out onto the moors. Along the forest edge and there is The Coyles of Muick ES-050. I did a few route seaches and most walkers didn’t take this route but something more roundabout. Why? Well I found out quickly. Map and ground do not match!
The track I expected follow was not there. I’d seen it on Google Earth, clear as day, a muddy track through clearfelled forest. Well the clear fell was there. I followed another track but what the GPS showed and the map and road direction didn’t match. I was 1km from the edge of the forest so how hard is 1km of mainly level clear fell going to be? Well the technical term is not suitable for a family website. After 40m I found an old track. This must have been a minor track when the forest was planted and badly overgrown during the life of the trees. The trees were well rotted so I guess it was harvested at least 5 years back. Sadly the track soon ended and I had a significant amount of terrible ground to cross. Very wet & boggy, trip hazards, tree trunks, pools of water. Finally I reach a deer fence and gate. I was filthy, wet and sweating a lot. The other side of the deer fence was the missing other track… screams were released. Over the fence not with the dexterous movement of chimp or Orangutan, but more like a tree climbing elephant!
Another 400m of clear fell to cross but this went up hill and was quite easy to navigate. It was quicker to climb the slope than cross the level clear fell. Soon you’re out onto the hillside. Boggy. Webbed feet boggy. I climbed up to the ridge line hoping for better ground and found it and a path. From here you can see the target 1km distant. An easy walk but boggy in places and then you climb up and up and then your there at the top. Due to the fun and games I was 30mins longer than I expected. This was a pain because there isn’t much daylight and I wanted to bag another summit.
It was CQWW CW contest weekend, I had planned on picking off the juicy DX on 10m etc. but I noticed that neither of my 2 summits were activated often so I thought I’d forego DX chasing and let the SOTA guys work me. 17m was the band of choice and I worked mainly EU stations on CW. ODX was W4MPS who sneaked in just before I shut down. Most satisfying QSO was with Roy G4SSH in Scarborough. I don’t believe it was ground wave and we were 229 with each other. 17m signals were strong though so maybe it was back scatter. At that it was rip the station down and high tail it back to the car. I managed to find a big hole full of water to wet the top of my socks and I took the other missing path back which avoided the clear fell nightmare. It’s a lovely walk in the forest and the views from Coyles of Muick are pretty damn wonderful.
Looking down the Dee Valley past Ballater towards Aboyne.
Creag Ghuibhais ES-096, it doesn’t look too hard does it? (Hahahahahaha! Oh yes it is!)
17m station
The big cairn on the lower summit.
The little cairn on the true summit.
#Creag Ghuibais
Back at the car there was time for a chocolate bar and a drink before heading off along the South Dee road for a few miles towards Ballmoral. I didn’t change my boots and Mrs. FMF has commented that the carpets in my nice shiny car are filthy whilst the carpets in the pickup are nice and clean. I think I need to get the hoover out and spruce the car up a bit! Anyway, you keep thinking you’ve missed it as you drive along but there is space for one car and gate in the deer fence at the start of the track for this hill at NO304957. About 200m further along is a big layby if you can’t park here. There has been logging and when I came to turn around at the layby, the lorries had dug up the ground badly. I nearly bottomed my car when the wheels went into a gully. Take car.
So through the gate along the path through the most lovely woods ever. Period. You come out into more open ground and realise when people say this is a bit of grind that it is. There’s about 100m of thigh deep heather to cross on the level. Then the slope starts and you grind up a 1 in 3 with knee length heather over rocks and very uneven ground. There are patches of bare boulders which move when you walk on then. The trees start at 425m. I was shattered and rapidly running out of light by now. I had packed the head torch but didn’t fancy a pathless decent on hellish ground. The summit is 486m so the AZ starts at 461m. By the time I reached 462m on the GPS I was breathless and soaking in sweat. Here is where I stopped and set up. I didn’t find the summit cairn nor look. In the AZ would have to do for this one.
Mainly US stations worked as I watched the sun set behind the hills. Amazing colours and it did go cold as soon as the sunlight wasn’t on me. Looking at the log I was on the air for no more than 15mins. Sorry for the smash and grab but it was going dark. Again a rapid rip down of the station and decent over the awful ground. Back to the car, change boots and a leisurely drive back. The only spoiler being a 1hr25min delay in a traffic jam to cover 4 miles approaching the roadworks by the Forth Road Bridge. Grrr! 
View as you emerge from the trees, the ground at the base is very, very wet.
15mins later at the bottom, it’s now quite dark.
View back up the ascent path though heather, more heather and steep slopes.
