Date: 21st August 2026
Start: Cairngorm Mountain Resort
End: Cairngorm Mountain Resort
Distance Travelled: 18.68 km
Song Currently Stuck in Head: Welcome to the Internet by Bo Burnham
Scottish Summit Views: 0 from 5
Leaving Corrour was honestly one of the hardest things I’ve had to do for a while. Physically it was easy, but after waiting nearly a decade to get there, I didn’t feel ready to just leave it again. But leave it I have to, I’m barely two weeks into this trip and there’s a lot more of Europe still to see.
So, onto a southbound train to Glasgow and a quick connection onto an eastbound service to Edinburgh. I’ve heard good things about Edinburgh so I was looking forward to getting there.
I was in for a shock. It shouldn’t have been, but a shock it was. The city was absolutely packed. In hindsight, I had arrived in the middle of August when both the Fringe Festival and Military Tattoo are on, of course the city was gonna be packed with tourists. Going from peaceful quiet Corrour to loud chaotic Edinburgh was like being punched in the face.
To top it off, when I finally got to my hotel, I tried to get ready to go for a run, only to discover I had lost my hat. The same hat I had worn on the TA. I shouldn’t be so emotional about losing a hat, but I had a lot of memories associated with it. I tried calling Corrour and a couple of rail stations, but I knew my odds were slim.
Still grieving, I made my way to watch the Tattoo, the primary reason for me being in Edinburgh. The city itself looks lovely, I think I just came at the wrong time of year. Reckon I’d appreciate it a lot more if I went in the off season.
The Tattoo was great, love a massed pipes and drums band. The following morning I was back on a train (no complaints there) back north to a little town called Aviemore, located near a mountain range called the Cairngorms. A mountain range I planned on climbing. Not straight away though, I had laundry to do.
The next day I was back on a bus up to, checks notes, a ski resort? In Scotland? I know it gets cold in winter but I didn’t think the mountains here would’ve been high enough to support a ski resort.
When the bus arrived and I was greeted with a blast of frigid (to my Australian standards) air, I understood why people ski here. If it was this cold in summer, I can only imagine how cold it gets in winter.
But I am not skiing today, I am hiking. Let’s not stand on ceremony and just get on with it. There’s two more munros on offer today and the odds of getting even an inkling of a view from them was, well…
So it’s gonna be another day with limited views, got it. Well, whatever I get I’ll enjoy. At least the path is nice and yes, I do get an actual path on this hike and it is glorious. Gotta celebrate the small wins where you can. There’s a nice path, loads of wildflowers surrounding said path, and some lovely streams cascading into the valley below.
Here’s a bigger win: reindeer. Actual reindeer. In Scotland, of all places.
They were remarkably chill around humans, but still I didn’t fancy getting too close. Once they wandered off I continued my climb. Every now and then the clouds would waft away ever so slightly, teasing me with a hint of what I could see if they weren’t there. All too soon even that would be taken away from me and all I would be left with is fog.
The climbing eased up with a few kilometres to go as I stepped onto a plateau. My world was still very grey so I took solace in the flat terrain and streams flowing past me.
The track got more rocky the closer to the summit I got and with the fog I was fully reliant on rock cairns to get me there. Whenever I reached one, the next one would appear. Soon a taller one appeared, looking more official than the rest: the summit of Ben Macdui, Scotland’s second tallest munro.
Some past intrepid campers had erected some rock walls nearby to protect their tents from the wind. I decided to seek shelter behind one of them and have a quick bite to eat. Similar to Ben Nevis, the lunch break was quick because it was very cold. The forecasted wind chill was -1. Fingers now properly numb, I fumbled my way through my pack straps and set out towards the day’s second munro.
I backtracked a little bit then turned off onto the trail to Cairn Gorm. It was more of the same, relatively flat terrain covered in fog that every now and then would lift a bit.
Below the tops it was rather pleasant conditions. Despite the clouds there was no rain, and the wind was quite a bit lower down here. Of course, I was here to reach the tops, which meant exposing myself to the opposite of the conditions I was enjoying. If only I could see what was around the mountain…
A quick climb up an NZ-esque straight up path brought me to my fifth and final munro for this trip, Cairn Gorm. A typical cairn was located a stone’s throw away, but what first met me at the top was a weather station. Unlike the ruined one on Ben Nevis, this one was automated, installed here by a local university.
To my surprise, the track off the summit was very well built, made from… I don’t want to say paving stones, I can’t think of the word for “natural stones that have been deliberately placed together at even heights and spacings”. Anyway, that was what it was like, even the sides of the path had rope handrails. It finally twigged that I must’ve entered the ski field.
Past this building I was back to the nicely graded dirt paths, and even better I was now below the clouds so I had some actual glorious views!!!
That’s what I had been missing all day, it was fantastic! For the rest of the hike I got to enjoy the Scottish scenery, so I guess I have to come back here sometime when the weather up top is also good.
In no time at all I was back at the ski centre. That was a problem as the bus back to Aviemore was over an hour away. I killed some time by grabbing a hot chocolate from the cafe and, well, just waiting. Back in Aviemore I made myself feel human again with a shower and change of clothes before going to a pub for my last meal in the UK. There was so much more I wish I could’ve done in this country, but there is more to explore in Europe beyond Great Britain, and I planned to see some of it.
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