Big Rucksack, big mountain, big day out…

It’s been occasionally said that I carry too much crap on my rides. I completely resemble that accusation and would like to put the record straight.

Finally got my arse up to the Cairngorms this weekend with a competent, fit and enthusiastic accomplice. Game on.
Forecast for Saturday was top notch so we opted for a proper big day out.
Beinn a Bhuird anti clockwise. Been wanting to try this for years since doing it clockwise and thinking this would be betterer. As ever there was a wee AlexLet’sOvercomplicateThis option chucked into the mix. What’s the point of driving hundreds of miles from grotty Manc if you don’t maximise it.

Took the low road at Slugain, which was mainly rideable, but not completely

The section above this was brilliant. Gradual climbing with brilliant views and not too much worry about the shallow wide water bars ( that are such a PITA when you descend this way)

It’s pretty much all rideable up to around 800m or so. Then a bit of push/ carry up to the Sneck.

Then a nightmare carry up the last bit of Beinn a Bhuird. Especially carrying 15kg of rucksack and 15kg of bike 🙁

But I still reckon that 200m of HaB is OK given how much of the rest is rideable.

Veer rightwards to the cliff edge, at which point the silly sized rucksacks are explained.

Got to admit that I was shitting myself about the descent to the start of the climb. The usual descent route was under the snow so we did some horrible downclimb/ slither thing down the bit in the middle of this photo…

Soooooo loose. We knocked a few blocks off and they went a long way. 🙁
But the route looked excellent. 90m Severe called Squareface. CLassicRockTastic

The last step across the gully underneath this cornice was deeply unpleasant

Anyway. We did the route. It was lovely. Nice and easy, but enlivened by the fact that one of our ropes was only 30m long and we only had a lightweight rack. Gorgeously warm. Couldn’t believe I was toasty warm on a multi pitch climb in the cairngorms in May with so much snow around.

Anyway. Over the Main Summit. Lots more huge cornices.

and onto the main objective. I’d ridden up the west side from Quoich before and thought the descent looked a bit too mellow. Fair enough it wasn’t very tech, but it was still great fun…

And sooo much flow

Then few drainage ditches to jump, then the final brilliant bit through the trees.

Really enjoyed it.the ride up is brilliant, with only a short section of HaB. The descent is really chilled , but not dull and goes on for bloody miles. Much better than the clockwise route.
On a slightly contentious note, one of the reasons I think the westerly descent is good is that it has got much more bumpy and hacked to shit since I rode up it. It’s much less rideable up than it was… and loads more interesting down. Clearly in a few more years it’ll be totally **** or turned into a staircase. ( bad mountain bikers)

🙂

Proper adventure. Ace.
🤘

A grand day out.

Nice one. That route is a great one too. Exciting last pitch in a heavy shower when I did it. My hex may still be in situ.
Looks like a pretty much perfect day out👍

Rest day today. Was a bit of a mental challenge but I persevered and we went straight to the tearoom after one solitary lap of Heartbreak Ridge.

Hoping to do Maccy D tomorrow. I’ve told myself it’s just a nice ride, then 450m HaB then a nice ride, then 350m HaB hell then a splendid descent. All excited 🙂

Quality! I like the pics of you cragging in bike helmets, that’s the future. A proper adventure, as Matt says.
Looks like a rusty peg just below the stance in the 2nd climbing photo. Are there others on the route?

A grand day out! The Strava had me wondering was you were up to

I like the pics of you cragging in bike helmets, that’s the future

I was going seriously lightweight 😉
Only had one can of Appletise and one Can of San Pelegrino, oh the humanity..
I did at least take the Peak off my helmet ( for aesthetic reasons) dave didn’t, and kept banging it off the rock.

The Strava had me wondering was you were up to

Going backwards and forwards trying to find a way down that didn’t involve tobogganing or abseiling off the end of a mismatched pair of 30m and 40m ropes 😂
Tell you what, I’m not used to wearing a watch, nor climbing jamming cracks these days. The noise my Garmin Instinct made as I rummaged around in the top pitch sounded horribly expensive.

So, bored at home today so might as well continue waffling about last weekend…

After our enforced (by me being old and decrepit) rest day we did indeed do Beinn Macdui:
Up Glen Lui and over the Luibeg burn

at this point the plan was to go via Cairn a Mhain so we started off in that direction, but the weather was clearly shit over the big hills. I figured we could do one big up and over in manky rain but that two would be considered deeply unpleasant. Given that I reaaaaallyyy wanted to do Macdui I decided the risk of having to bail on the Cairn a Mhaim/Macdui boulder slog was too great and so we headed further up the Luibeg burn towards Sron Riach instead. I was actually quite proud of myself. Not often I shorten a route that early in the day !
Nice cycling to start with then a long but benign push up the ridge. No heather dragging at the wheels, constant gradient, push not carry. Live was good, so much so that I hopped on my bike to pretend to ride a bit of it:

It did piss it down with rain once of twice but my new Altura shorts kept me dry (Cheers Tracey)

little bit of down after the summit of Riach:

then trying to find the best way through the boulders and snow patches:

thankfully (?) the rain had turned to snow by this point so there was no danger in getting wet!
Oops, nearly forgot. Found a nice granite lump to piss about on

Eventually got to the summit, along with a phat hailstorm…

I’m bored and ill at home your weekend has brightened up my day looks boss.

Awesome big snow patch on the way down. ReverseSteerTastic…

nice

View down to Loch Etchachan.

kinda changeble weather, no?
Anyway, another decision time and this time we **** it up and decided to go over Derry **** Cairngorm. In short it was a bit shit. The extra slog up was ok, the hellish boulder field on top was ok, and the stop start descent after the boulder field was almost ok. But the bits in between the boulder fields were just a bit dull. We also took the left path at one point and ended up stuck betwen a big snow patch and a nasty cliff. Retreat and regroup.
The last bit of the ridge was indeed great, but it really wasn’t much reward for the slog all the way up. Ho hum, will do the full Etchachan next time.

So far so good. I was pleased with having had two pretty big days and managing to visit some of the legendary bits of the ‘gorms. Was really unsure about the Tuesday though as I’ve been burned out this last year and have not done 3 big days out in such close succession in years. The mediocre weather forecast for Tuesday didn’t really help either.
Should we just bimble at Ballater, or perhaps visit Aboyne, or horror of horrors, do something else on the way home to Manc…
Hell no. Luckily enough I was with Dave, who is the epitome of stoic, uncomplaining perseverance. We agreed we’d have a little gander up the fireroad above Glen Muick, if it was shit we might head back Streak of Lightning, if it was good we’d head up Broad Cairn, and if it was reaaaaaalllly good then there was a light chance we might head up Lochnagar and get ourselves into all sorts of trouble on Allt Glass Sheil before the 7 hour drive back to Manc…
Anyway, the landrovertrack rocked. Gradual height gain, followed by insanely steep height gain, followed by more gradual height gain. There was even a wee stable at 700m altitude where we sheltered from an utterly rancid rainstorm. At this point I was really regretting my clothing choices. Normally I take whatever I am riding in, waterproofs and 3 long sleeved thermals. The idea being that I can layer up and still have 1 or 2 completely dry layers in case of emergency. But this time I had just one more thermal and a pile jacket. In the Cairngorms, with regular snow and rain showers, I really wanted to keep the thermal & jacket dry as spares; thus I had no more useable layers to put on for riding. In the end we got too cold in the hut and headed off into the slackening rain. I [correctly] figured that we’d be much warmer pushing up the hill than standing around in the tin hut full of horseshit.
We got up Broad Cairn. No idea if this is it, but it give an idea of just how uncycleable the uncycleable bits are:

Then over the top past Creag an Dubh Loch looking very Tolkeinesque

Gowal, Cairn Bannoch, not quite up Sagairt Mor as I was trying to conserve energy. We did tick Bhoidheach though as it was a tiny detour and I’d not done it before. Then up onto Lochnagar. Where, horror of horrors, we saw another person! Shock horror…. and a chance for a photo with two people in it:

Anyway, I’m waffling again…. TLDR; we padded up and headed down the Allt Glas Shiel.
AND IT WAS ABSOLUTELY **** AWESOME!!!
MIND BLOWING.
Full disclosure, I don’t much like going fast. My main MTB interest is riding stuff. Don’t care whether it is up or down , don’t care how long it takes, but I love riding difficult gnadgery trails, usually at a snail’s pace. And the Glas Allt trail is absolutely perfect.
Don’t get me wrong, I walked shit loads of the bigger water bars, bottled the top staircase and pushed a fair few bits. But the other bits…. OMFG – Heaven.

Dave on some steps:

Me managing to turn the corner on the fourth attempt (yes really):

then there’s a long flattish section which was just amazing. I gamely tried to keep up with Dave to try to gauge the waterbar jumpability, but kept slowing down for the scary ones so he dropped me. Despite that it was just brilliant.
After the bridge it steepens up and hairpins back and forth down these insane bits.

What amazed me about the descent was how possible it was to keep going. I was gubbed after 3 big days, extended periods of being frozen cold and hyped up. But we didn’t stop for any significant rests or food. It was just a long extended adrenaline rush for about an hour and a half.

I think I must have ascended about 100m extra on this descent as I kept going back up to try and try again.
I hit my pedals the first 3 times I tried this drop…

but eventually managed it 🙂

So, we got to the bottom eventually, long ride back along Glen Muick to the car and then a frankly worrying 6 hour drive from Dave to get back home early Wednesday morning.

So, whaddawe know?
We did 3 proper days riding, the shortest of which was 32 km, the longest of which took about 10 hours (though that did include a rock climb)
The 3 routes were almost exactly the same height gain: 1362m, 1333m, 1348m. How weird is that…
Despite being tempted by Mastermind, we did manage a rest day, and it was a good thing. I’ve not done that much riding since pre covid and I’m well chuffed that I still can.
The cairngorms trails alternate between mind-blowingly good gnadge, fast descents and vile horrible boulderfields. The effort involved bears no relation to the distance or height gain, it just depends on surface.

Really pleased to have visited the gorms with someone competent. All my other trips have either been alone or with the family. Don’t get me wrong, the family is awesome for riding with but they wouldn’t have been up for this. SO good to get some of the big ticks done.

Now then, about that Coire Etchachan descent……

Ooh Squareface. I remember that from Classic Rock, but never got there.

Inspiring stuff!