Carn an Fhidhleir & An Sgarsoch from Linn of Dee

Date 24 August 2017

Hills: Carn an Fhidhleir & An Sgarsoch

If you'd told me, when I started hillwalking in Scotland, that in time two of my favourite hills would be a pair of flat lumps in the east, I would have laughed. But hey, middle age gets to us all (well, the lucky ones) and nowadays the prospect of Carn an Fhidhleir and An Sgarsoch fair gets mi' thingies thingying.

Q. Why?

A. Space.

Now, I don't want to lose both my readers before I've started, but I've got to come clean. There are no doggie photos in this report. Or wifey ones! C was still recovering from her slipped disc, and Sadie offered to stay back in Braemar and help her with the physio side of things (although I can't see how face licking really helps). So company for me today was John, an old friend from Killin: a paramedic and member of Killin MRT, though I wasn't planning on needing his full skill-set today. John pointed out to me that the last hill we did as a pair - fifteen years ago - was Sgurr Mhic Choinnich. I'm pleased to say I didn't need John's professional skills that day either, although it was reassuring to know they were there.

Enough blether. This is us up and away…

…or rather, along and away. I reckon that, with about eight miles distance and only 640m of ascent, this must constitute the shallowest gradient by a standard route to the top of any Munro. Any other candidates? (And no, Mount Keen from the Rest and be Thankful doesn't count as standard.)

At some point in the day I picked up John's bike and realised it seemed to have a cast-iron frame. The track was more rutted than I remember, but I think John's bike may have steamrollered it back into submission for those who come follow us. After a while, Geldie Lodge and our hills come into view…

No real problem with crossing the Geldie Burn today. We left the bikes there, and headed up to the ruined lodge. Here's the view looking back towards Beinn Bhrotain and the Gorms…

Carn an Fhidhleir was first on the hit-list. The stalkers' path that leads out to it is a minor miracle of construction. I'm assuming that it hasn't had any repair work in at least a hundred years, and yet here it is, as pristine as if it had been laid yesterday…

Some claggy stuff came over as we headed up Carn an Fhidhleir from the Allt a' Chaorainn…

From the top, a view south towards Beinn a' Ghlo…

Not much to see as we made our way down into the bealach, but no matter: by this time in the walk our free-wheeling conversation had, as I recall, led us on to the merits of euthanasia. Always an interesting topic to discuss with a health professional. I'll admit that the bealach wasn't the bonniest place in these conditions, but personally, I didn't think it merited terminal thoughts. Oh well, for whatever reason John seemed cheered…

It cleared up as we made our way to the top of An Sgarsoch…

This was Munro 243 for John - although his actual tally stands at about 500. (He may hold the record for ascents of Beinn Ghlas from the Lawers Visitor Centre.) Good to help him on his way with these two.

An eagle flew past us on our way back down to Geldie Lodge. He was half-way to the Gorms before I even thought about a photo. So, another Nixie to add to my collection. But if I leave a space here, perhaps you can fill in the blank from your imagination…

Well done: trust me, your imagination is superior to anything I could have achieved with my camera. Perhaps that reflects how I feel about this whole area: not much to see, but a feeling of infinite space for the imagination to work on.

So, just the long ride out, down through the purples of Upper Deeside…

…and back to civilization.

Great company in a great area. That'll do for me.