An Over Ambitious Bivvy

Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th September 2016

The Cairngorms

We were up at about 8am on Monday morning in case the car park warden or forest ranger was looking for naughty overnight campers, so we could pretend we hadn't stopped over at all and had just arrived for breakfast. The forest ranger did turn up, but completely ignored us, and left after after 10 minutes of litter picking. I hasten to add that it was not our litter that she was collecting.

We were just boiling the kettle when a lady wearing pyjamas ambled over looking shifty. She'd stayed in a van on the next car park and had woken up to find the battery was flat. Having had battery problems with George in the past (OK, problems with forgetting to switch the lights off), we agreed to go and help them after our breakfast.

We arrived at the next car park to find that it was a far better overnight spot than where we normally stay. We got their van going with the help of George and his jump leads and then headed up to the top car park by the ski centre at the base of Cairn Gorm mountain.
After a fair bit of faffing with rucksacks and contents we finally set off on foot at about 11.30, which was a bit late in hindsight. We'd never planned to be particularly early, but 10.30 would have been better.

Our plan was to follow the mountain plateau on the nearest side of the Lairig Ghru (a deep, steep sided glacial valley), ticking off a few Munros on the way, then after a wild camp cross the valley, climb the mountain on the other side and follow the mountain ridge on that side, ticking off even more Munros, to eventually arrive back at George in the afternoon of the following day. That was plan A, which was a round trip of about 36 miles and 8,000-9,000 feet of ascent.

We'd started on the same route up a couple of years ago when we went up Cairn Gorm, so we knew what was in store for the first couple of hours. A relentless trudge uphill, with little reward until the views of the mountain range on the other side of the Lairig Ghru came into view after a few miles. We stopped for lunch when they finally did come into view, and then pushed on to bag our first Munro of the day, and a Trail 100 hill to boot, Ben Macdui.

Looking back on the way up

The view across the Lairig Ghru

Ben Macdui is the second highest mountain in the UK. It's a lot easier to climb than Ben Nevis however (mainly because you start half way up it at the ski centre), and in my opinion, it's probably not quite as impressive once you reach the summit. Our Summit Selfie wasn't as good either.

Ben MacDui Summit Selfie 

Ben Nevis Summit Selfie

We headed off downhill (obviously) to bag the Derry Cairngorm - our second Munro, which was an addition to the route which seemed like a good idea the night before whilst looking at the map.

The Derry Cairngorm viewed on the way down Ben MacDui 

On the way up the Derry Cairngorm

It took longer than we expected, with more uphill than we expected and a lot of boulders and ankle turning rocks to clamber over. We reached the summit at about 4.15pm, absolutely ravenous. After a slightly better summit selfie and some food we headed back down the way we'd just come.

Ben MacDui from the Derry Cairngorm

The way down

By this time it was gone 4.30pm. We were meant to be going most of the way back up Ben Macdui (not as bad as it sounds but still quite a lot of up), going back down the other side, pitching the tent, and then nipping up a third Munro and back before dinner. We decided on the way down the Derry Cairngorm that we should reconsider our plan as we weren't sure we'd have enough daylight (or energy) to do all that before darkness, and didn't think there were many good overnight camping spots en route.

So we stopped at a great little overnight spot by a glacial lake called Loch Etchachan, surrounded by mountains. I'd thought on the way past earlier that it would be a good place to camp. There were a couple of guys in a tent there already but we pitched up round the other side and only really saw one of them when he came out to change his trousers. At least, that's what I think he was doing.

Looking back at our overnight spot

The only trouble with the change of plan was that we were now a bit early. There's not much to do once the tent's pitched and dinner's eaten. The midges were zoning in on me so we retreated to the tent with our Kindles and hip flasks at about 7.30pm.

Neither of us had a very good night's sleep. We were both cold and both woke up numerous times during the night. However, we somehow managed to oversleep until 8.40am (probably because we'd finally warmed up when the sun came up).

We have quite a slick routine in the morning after a bivvy or wild camp. I do breakfast whilst Claire packs all the sleeping stuff up. Breakfast consisted of instant coffee and porridge sachets made with boiled water from the stream. We were on our way just over an hour later.

We had already reverted to plan B (climb the third Munro and then either retrace our steps back to the van, or drop down to the valley and follow that back). We'd decided to save the hills on the other side of the valley for another day when we'd got up earlier and were a bit nearer to them in the first place.
However, part way up the re-ascent of Ben Macdui, Claire announced that she wanted to adopt plan C - just go straight back to George via our approach route, get clean, and get warm. I got the distinct feeling that it wasn't worth arguing, and besides, I was feeling pretty cold and scummy myself. So we bagged Ben Macdui for the second time in two days, and had a fairly leisurely amble back to George, arriving at about 3pm after having enough breaks to eat and drink all our remaining supplies.

Some Ptarmigans we spotted on the way back

We both felt a lot better after spending some time in the toilets with some baby wipes and the deodorant, and after sorting all our kit out we headed back down to the new spots by the lake we'd seen yesterday morning whilst rescuing the other van. We've got a spot with great views across to the hills we spent last night amongst, and have our own picnic table outside for breakfast if the midges keep away. At the moment there are no other campers in sight!

We've finally warmed up after two glasses of red wine and a curry each. Tomorrow we're having a "rest" day (i.e. no mountain climbing and some stocking up on essential supplies in Aviemore).

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