Friday 8th June 2018. A circuit of hills in the Sgòr Gaoith Group, from Glen Feshie. The hills were Pt. 783m 782.9m/30.8m, Carn Bàn Mòr 1052m/40m, Sgòr Gaoith 1118m/242m, Sgòran Dubh Mòr 1111m/58m, Meall Buidhe 976m/36m, Geal-charn 920m/54m and Creag Mhicgeachaidh 742m/72m.

23.0km, with 1150m of ascent. 8hrs 45mins.

It was June, and time again for the annual dinner and AGM of the Relative Hills Society. This year it was in Aviemore, so I found myself hiking in the Cairngorms again after an interval of just over two weeks. I love the high granite plateau of the Monadh Ruadh, so visiting it again so soon was nothing but a pleasure to me.

The weather for our hike was a little grey with some broken sunshine, but warm with a light north-westerly wind. These are not the best conditions for taking photos of the landscape, as the light is ‘flat’ and defused. The photos I took were rather disappointing, not conveying to good effect the vastness of the Cairngorms plateau.

I drove AC round into Glen Feshie in my new car, parking it again in the parking area south of the farm at Auchlean, from where I had set off for Mullach Clach a’ Bhlair last month . This time, however, there was no long trek up the glen as, shortly after passing the farm, we took a path east up through the pine woods into the corrie of the Allt Fhearnagan. We made a steady ascent on the track towards the plateau ahead. I was keeping a careful eye on my GPS, as we intended to divert north off the route to visit the summit of Peak 783m, the first ‘nail’ in the horseshoe walk around the corrie of the Allt Ruadh (the ‘Red Stream’) that was the objective for today’s hike.
At the closest point on the track to the summit we headed uphill steeply and were soon there, the highest point marked by a few rocks.

Descending gently to the deep cut in the ridge that marked the bealach for this hill we rejoined the track, then climbing steadily until we were over the 1000m contour. Here the paths divided. We headed north on an eroded route to the wind-shelter on the broad summit dome of Carn Bàn Mòr. The view was much restricted by the wide summit plateau, so we did not linger long. The summit of Sgòr Gaoith beckoned, resembling a rocky tor on the horizon.

The gradient was a little steeper, but not much effort was needed to reach the summit. In a way, Sgòr Gaoith might be considered as only half a mountain because, to the east of the summit, the ground plunges precipitously for over 600 metres into the deep glacial gash occupied by Loch Einich. The un-marked summit was a fine place to pause today, but in winter it can be a very dangerous place to be. An extensive cornice builds up over the cliffs, with potentially lethal consequences. Although it would have been good to linger, the summit was plagued by flies. We abandoned our plan to eat and drink and headed north towards our next peak. Summits plagued by insects seem to be common occurrences in summer. I have experienced hordes of wasps, flying ants, horseflies, gnats and midges on many summits when the wind is light. There must be a reason for this phenomenon but I do not know it.

Sgòran Dubh Mòr was a much more shapely subsidiary peak than Carn Bàn Mòr, with a small rocky tor for the summit. Near the top we disturbed a ptarmigan. By its distressed behaviour it was clear it was guarding eggs, so we hastened on to leave it in peace.

It was now time to turn to the north-west around the northern flank of the corrie and begin our descent from the high places. However, we planned to visit three subsidiary tops as we descended, each lower than the other. After crossing a wide grassy bealach that would have been a quaking bog in normal conditions, we by-passed a minor top to reach the summit of Meall Buidhe. Swinging north-north-west we skirted yet another minor top to descend steeply into the stony bealach south of Geal-charn. A stiff pull brought us up onto its summit. On the way up, I came across a batch of ptarmigan egg-shells, the chicks hatched and safely gone.

Up to this point there had been a path to follow, but we left it on this summit, as it swung left to descend into the corrie. It followed a better route than ours, as a tricky steep descent over boulders followed. Descending cautiously, we reached the bealach without accident. Another steep pathless ascent brought us onto the summit plateau of Creag Mhicgeachaidh. On a clearer day this would have been a good viewpoint, as it sits on the north-western edge of the range. However, there was much more cloud to the west and north-west, and so the panorama was obscured.

Making a descending traverse down the south flank of the hill, we picked up a tolerable path into the corrie of the Allt Ruadh, hiking though attractive pine woods when we reached the tree-line at about 550 metres. A rough stony track descended west into a plantation and then to the road. A walk on tarmac of 2.5 kilometres brought us back to my car.