Clouds & Sunshine & Braeriach

Sgor Gaoith

The hot dry weather of the last few weeks is due to end with thunderstorms in the next 24 hours. Whilst there has been plenty of sunshine there have also been clouds, sometimes extensive, so clear summits with wonderful views haven’t been a certainty.

A few days ago I headed up on to the Moine Mhor from Glen Feshie for an overnight camp, hoping for cloud-free skies and a bright moon. The sun shone, the sky was blue, and I was feeling very hot as I began the long climb. The only cloud was a thin narrow band away to the south.

Cotton grass & Glen Feshie

I’d barely cleared the forest however when that cloud spread quickly across the sky, soon blotting out the sun. Waves of cotton grass nodded in the breeze. I was still hot.

The climb over, the clouds still there, I wandered over to the jumble of knolls and boulders where the Moine Mhor breaks up and falls away into Coire Odhar and found a good site with a view of the massive, steep, rocky east face of Sgor Gaoith. In sunshine or moonlight this would look spectacular. In the flat evening light with cloud capping the summits it was merely good. I ambled over to the edge of the corrie and looked down on the wind-rippled water of Loch Enich. I would not see it again. Beyond the loch sunlight cut beneath the clouds and lit up the landscape. Here all was grey.

I woke once during the night. It was very dark. I looked out and my headlamp beam bounced back at me. The cloud had descended on the tent. No moon photography this time.

Camp, cloud inversion, Sgor Gaoith

Awake again at 5.30 I could tell the world had changed. Brightness suffused the tent. Looking out this time revealed sunshine on Sgor Gaoith and mist in Coire Odhar. I was outside in minutes to spend an hour or so wandering around staring down at the cloud below me and watching the sun appear over Braeriach. The clouds in Coire Odhar rose and fell but stayed all day, hiding the loch.

Sunrise over Braeriach

The ground was wet, the flysheet soaked inside and out. The mist had been damp. 

Morning coffee, the tent starts to dry

The sun had barely begun to dry the tent when the cloud rose up and engulfed the tent. A fogbow appeared, curving white above camp.

Fogbow over camp

As it was the highest summit in the area I decided to climb Braeriach in the hope the top would be above the cloud. Visibility was down to down to maybe twenty metres as I negotiated the rough ground above Coire Odhar before the ascent began. This is complex terrain and I took a meandering line as I couldn’t see which little ridges connected to each other and how best to avoid dips and crags. Maps are little help here as they just can’t show enough detail.

Hills in the cloud

Occasionally the mist would shift and reveal dark flashes of hillside. Braeriach appeared once, assuring me I was headed the right way. Soon the terrain steepened and became easier. Straight lines were possible.

Cliffs in the mist

As I reached the vast summit plateau I came out of the mist though wisps and tendrils still drifted over me and I could see thick clouds swirling round the cliffs and the highest point. From the Wells of Dee where two people were packing up their camp and reindeer were cooling themselves on a snowbank I walked to the edge of the huge cliffs above An Garbh Choire and followed the top of these round to the summit cairn.

View from Braeriach

Below the top the corrie stretched out to the Lairig Ghru and the silver line of the infant river Dee. Above the clouds boiled up over Ben Macdui and Cairn Toul, never still, never permanent.

Clouds fill Coire Odhar

There was sunshine most of the way back to camp though whenever I turned to look back Braeriach was in the cloud again. Whilst the visibility made the route-finding much easier and the views were extensive somehow the excitement of the day had gone. Now it was just pleasant. I didn’t mind. The morning had been dramatic and memorable.

Reindeer staying cool

 

Memorable Mountains 6: Braeriach

Braeriach from the Cairngorm Plateau

Back to the Cairngorms for the sixth memorable mountain I'm thinking about during lockdown. This is one I'll be returning to as soon as it's okay to venture a bit further. Braeriach competes with Ben Macdui for my favourite Cairngorm mountain. On balance, today, Braeriach comes out on top. But I might change my mind - probably the next time I climb Ben Macdui. They are both splendid.

Braeriach across An Garbh-choire

Like Ben Macdui I've been up Braeriach many, many times. Or rather I've been over Braeriach many times. Again like Ben Macdui it's not a pointed peak with a little summit that you go up and then down. Braeriach is a great sprawling mass of a mountain. The actual highest point isn't really significant, being only a touch higher than the surrounding area. Braeriach is about space and distance, about the vastness of this high plateau. It's also about the myriad dramatic corries biting into the mountain on three sides. Only to the south are there open slopes as the mountains falls away to the huge expanse of the Moine Mhor.

Camp near the infant river Dee

I love spending time up on Braeriach. Out in the heart of the mountain I feel in a separate world. The lowlands are far away, invisible. Camping here is magical. I especially like climbing the mountain in the evening and pitching camp in the dark with the stars above and black space spreading all around, then waking to the first sun and the beauty of the landscape coming to life.

One of the Wells of Dee

Also magical are the Pools of Dee. Surrounded by bright green moss these little bubbling springs are the source of the river Dee, one of the major rivers at Scotland. At 1220 metres the Wells are the highest source of a big river in the UK. From the Pools the infant Dee runs across Braeriach as a gentle little burn before crashing over the edge at the Falls of Dee into massive An Garbh-choire.

The Falls of Dee

Braeriach is a long walk from any direction, a full mountain day. I like the approach from Gleann Einich, via one of the ridges between the three corries on the north side of the mountain. There's a bit of an old path in places but mostly this is untracked, unfrequented ground. Once on the mountain the finest walk - one of the finest in the Highlands in my opinion - runs from the summit round the rim of An Garbh-choire, with a diversion to the Wells of Dee, to Sgor an Lochain Uaine and Cairn Toul. The grandeur of the mountain scenery on this walk is unsurpassed.

Braeriach from Sgor Gaoith

A Wild Camp on Braeriach

Wild places always call. Sometimes the weather does too.  Blue cloudless skies, hot sun, the mountains sharp and clear. I couldn’t resist. So I went to Braeriach for a circular walk with a high camp that I think takes in just about everything the Cairngorms have to offer from the forests to the mountain plateaux.

 

The walk began amongst the wonderful pines of Rothiemurchus Forest. Even in the shade of the trees it was hot. The rivers and streams still ran strongly though, full with recent rain. The path took me slowly up through the forest towards the great cleft of the Lairig Ghru and the ragged cliffs of Creag an Leth-choin. 

Once below the cliffs and in the mouth of the pass I turned more steeply uphill to climb the slopes of Sron na Lairige, the other wall of the Lairig Ghru. A few walkers passed me, descending. Distant views opened up, far hills sharp and clear. 

A last climb and I was on the long broad summit ridge of Braeriach looking across the snow-splashed cliffs rimming huge An Garbh Choire to Cairn Toul, one of the great views of the Cairngorms. Across the Lairig Ghru a few clouds were drifting over the summit of Ben Macdui, the first I’d seen all day.

Away across the plateau I could see the silver thread of the infant River Dee running across the mountainside before plunging down into the corrie as the Falls of Dee. Reaching the stream I followed it to its source, a collection of springs called the Wells of Dee. Here I camped, alone in a vast landscape.

 

A thin mist slipping over the ground reduced the sunset to a thin red line. At 2.30 in the morning I woke and looked out to a clear sky with a bright crescent moon and the white streaks of noctilucent clouds rising above the orange glow on the eastern horizon. I wandered round camp, revelling in the silence, the beauty, the peace, the joy of being here. In the distance I caught movement, a herd of reindeer browsing in the half-light.

Several hours later I woke again as the bright light of the sun warmed the tent. A breeze gently rattled the fabric, a breeze that kept me pleasantly cool as I wandered up to Einich Cairn and then along the edge of Coire an Lochain where I gazed down snow-filled gullies to the dark waters of the lochan.

From the mouth of the corrie an old little-used path zigzagged down towards Gleann Einich with the long cliffs of Sgor Gaoith and Sgoran Dubh Mor rising above, another splendid scene. A final descent down boggy heathery slopes and I was on the wide track in the glen and heading back towards the forest. Once in the shelter of the trees the heat hammered at me, making the walking the toughest of the day. Amongst the glorious trees I was happy to slow down, sitting often to soak in the life of the forest.