Wednesday 24 June 2015

The end of the world

Spending some time in the sunny French Alps just now, climbing, walking and enjoying the wonderful alpine flowers at this time of year. One of the highlights has been visiting the "le bout du monte" the "end of the world" at the head of the dramatic horseshoe of cliffs at Sixt Fer a Cheval. Really aptly named.










Friday 5 June 2015

Southern Munros

Change of scene for me today as I was round in the Southern half of the Cairngorms National Park guiding new client Edward up some hills. Edward is very fit, but living in the SE of England lacks many big hills to put that into action! Today we set off from the Linn of Dee (which never stales, it's so lovely) onto the Derry Lodge track.

 Pretty soon we broke off onto the smaller path that heads over towards Glen Quoich. This was soon left for pathless heather bashing all the way up to the summit of Meall an Lundain 777m. This is a lovely wee hill, quite neglected amidst so many Munros. From there it was down to the Bealach and up to the summit of Beinn Bhreac (at 931m a Munro). Still a few large, deep snow patches left (easily avoided)---I wonder if they will all survive the summer? 

The weather high up was less than perfect, low cloud, strong winds and some rain, but that's what waterproofs are for! 

The rain soon dried up as we descended to Derry Lodge and thence back to the Linn of Dee. Interesting to see the new replacement bridge at Derry Lodge, which replaces the one swept away last summer by the severe floods.  As forecast, the day improved hugely on the walkout, with some lovely spells of warm sunshine. 


Thank you Edward for a fun day out together.