Loch A'an from southern slopes of Cairngorm

One of those day of days again, fortunate with the weather which was forecast to be wet but ended up very reasonable until we were in the car on the way home.

Our objective was to get to the top of Cairngorm, 4085 feet above sea level, one of the Scottish Munros and I think the 6th highest peak in the UK.

We followed a route from the Country Walking magazine, 8 miles and several thousands of feet of ascent. It turned out to be 3,800 in the end. In many respects this was one of the easiest routes to the top of a Munro, starting at Coire na Ciste car park but without ceremony going straight up to the north ridge before levelling out up to Cairngorm summit.

We made it more challenging by dropping of the summit down to the Ptarmigan Station for a coffee and a look at the exhibition cheek by jowl with sandal wearing tourists who had ascended via the Mountain Railway. We then had to ascend another 790 feet back to the summit before descending again to catch this view. From there more ascent took us up Coire Raibeirt before finally descending through the untidy skiing detritus on the way back to the car park.

Much of the walk was over open country, no paths as such. This felt a little uneasy as the exhibition made much of the unique but fragile nature of this arctic like wilderness.