Glenmore: a hike and a swim

The last two days were pretty uneventful, hence no blogs. John returned to Loch Ness on Sunday and we spent the afternoon planning walks, stopovers and meals for the week ahead. Yesterday, we travelled to Aviemore, stopping at Tesco on the way. We had lunch and then browsed the many kit shops, treating ourselves to some clothes we ‘needed’ for our forthcoming hiking trip to Switzerland.

Today has been much more eventful, with a 17 kilometre hike up Meall a’Bhuachaille and a swim in Loch Morlich.

Having spent a peaceful night at Loch an Eilein, we drove to Glenmore where we parked at Loch Morlich and had breakfast before setting off on our hike.

We took a track that rose gently through the pine trees of Glenmore Forest Park, until we reached pretty An Lochan Uaine (meaning the green lake). Legend says the loch is green because the fairies and pixies do their washing in it! 🧚

Soon after, at a bothy, we turned off the track and headed more steeply uphill. Much of the path had recently been repaired with stone steps and we now climbed quite quickly with views of the Rothiemurchus estate and Cairngorm mountains opening up all around us.

After a couple of hours, we reached the summit cairn on the highest mountain of the day, Meall a’Bhuachaille (810 metres), where we had our lunch in the shelter. It was quite breezy on the mountains today, but very warm… not what we’d expected for April in Scotland! ☀️

From here, the path meandered up and down along the shoulders of a series of mountains… Creagan Gorm (732 metres), an un-named peak (711 metres) and Craiggowrie (687 metres). The rocky path through the heather reminded us of our local hills, the Clwydians.

Finally, we turned down hill towards the forest. It was much boggier underfoot now, although it wasn’t too difficult to negotiate the wetter patches thanks to the recent dry weather.

Once we reached a fairly level track through the forest, we still had another 5 kilometres to go to get back to Molly Moho. This did get a bit tedious by the end but, overall, we enjoyed the hike. It’s been good to get a long walk in, especially back to back with a higher mountain tomorrow, because we (I!) need the practice before we tackle the Walker’s Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt in July.

Back at Glenmore, we couldn’t resist trying out the real ale in the Pine Marten Bar. Then, back at Molly, we changed for a swim in Loch Morlich. We weren’t in long because the water was cold and we didn’t wear our wetsuits, but at least we don’t need to shower now! 🤭

Tomorrow we’re climbing Sgòr Gaoith, a Munro that is 1115 metres high. We’re both looking forward to that, and maybe I’ll have time for a dip in Loch Insh afterwards 🤞