Across Cairn Gorm’s Northern Corries
It looked like being a day in a million and, would you believe it, I only had a few hours at my disposal. How could I make the most of 4 hours on a day when unusually high pressure had brought freezing cold temperatures, stunningly blue skies and no wind?
I wanted to get up high but with a minimum of effort so I went to Cairn Gorm. No, I didn’t go up the hill on the funicular train; that’s against my conservationst convictions, so I left the upper car park in temperatures of minus seven and quickly warmed myself up with a steep climb up Cairngorm’s Sron an Aonaich ridge.
No sooner had I started than a couple of young lads started up the path behind me. In no time they had overtaken me but stopped for a breather about 50 metres ahead. I overtook them, then they passed me again as though all the hounds of hell were chasing them. A little further on they stopped again and I plodded past. One of them glanced up, smiled and made a remark about hares and tortoises. That made me feel good…
Cairn Gorm’s Sron an Aonaich ridge might be steep but it gets you up the hill quickly and I was keen to pass the ski paraphernalia as quickly as possible. The Ptarmigan station, with a tantalising aroma of frying bacon coming from it, came and went and at last I found myself free of the fences and ironmongery. Now I was walking up crisp neve snow towards the summit weather station and a surprise. Despite the incredibly beautiful weather behind me everything to the south, beyond the deep trench that cradles Loch Avon, was covered in a sea of cloud with the mountain tops appearing like islands. It was the most impressive temperature inversion I’ve ever seen.
This phenomenon occurs when the air is colder in the glens than it is on the summits and the cloud sinks, leaving the tops cloud-free. Beinn Mheadhoin, Beinn a-Bhuird and Ben Avon, Derry Cairngorm, Ben Macdui, Cairn Toul, Sgor an Lochan Uaine and Braeriach all thrust their rounded tops up through the fluffy sea, as they were all floating on an ocean of white candy floss.
My chosen route was ideal for the conditions, a cloud-free roller-coaster over the tops of the northern corries – over Cairn Gorm itself, then over the cliffs of Coire an t-Sneachda and Cairn Lochain. In summer this is a bit of a tourist route, skirting the broad expanse of the Cairngorm plateau, but in winter conditions it’s a short but rewarding outing offering full frontal views of the corniced, ice-bound cliffs of the two corries.
I stopped outside the stone-built weather station to drink my coffee and savour the unexpected warmth of the sun. The views were extensive, out over the Haughs of Abernethy and Cromdale towards the waters of the Moray Firth. Closer at hand the granite tors on the great whaleback ridges of Beinn Avon and Beinn Mheadhoin stood black against the sea of cloud and once I left the relative comfort of my shelter the great flanks of the Cairngorm Plateau dazzled white in the sun.
Descending from Cairn Gorm the snow was concrete hard and great sheets of ice tempted the unwary. The cliffs of Coire an t-Sneachda were loud with the shouts and calls of snow and ice climbers and by the time I reached the top of Cairn Lochain I could stand by the cairn and gaze down on hardy climbers negotiating the deep-freeze delights of the gullies and ridges.
Easy slopes drop down from Cairn Lochan to the flats of Lurcher’s Meadow but first I wanted to have a look into the deep trench of the Lairig Ghru. It was as I’ve never seen it in over thirty years of living in the shadow of these hills. It was as though someone had stuffed the defile, the pass that runs through the Cairngorms between Aviemore and Braemar, with cotton wool. Only the top couple of hundred feet of Braeriach, Sgor an Lochain Uaine and Cairn Toul could be seen. It was a remarkable sight.
Even more remarkable was that immediately below me, in the depths between the Sron na Lairige ridge of Braeriach and Lurcher’s Meadow, the cloud was moving, in a south-north direction, filling up the pass, bubbling and foaming like a river of floss, a swiftly moving cascade of cloud. And overhead the sun continued to shine from a deep blue sky and where I sat, overwhelmed by it all, there wasn’t even a breath of wind.
Map: OS Sheet 36
Distance: 4 hours
Approx Time: 8 mls
Start/Finish: Cairn Gorm car park
Route: From the car park in Cairn Gorm climb S to the Ptarmigan Bowl then to the summit of Cairn Gorm. Descend in a a W direction to just below the top of the Fiacaill a’ Choire Cas from where a footpath runs over the summit rocks above the cliffs of Coire an t-Sneachda. Descend to the head of Coire Domhain and then climb to the top of Coire an Lochain. Taking care the avoid the cliffs and the cornices descend in an ESE direction then veer N to gain the broad ridge that bounds the Lurcher’s Gully. Descend the ridge, cross the Allt Coire an t-Sneachda and follow the path back to the car park.