Creag Dubh

Peaks: Creag Dubh (756m)
Area: Badenoch, Central Highlands
My birthday, and therefore the only day of the year I can feasibly 'force' the offspring to join me in the hills. Creag Dubh is the real signature peak of this part of the Spey Valley, and as we were staying in Laggan it seemed essential and the obvious choice for a family outing on the morning of my birthday (a short route doesn't try their patience too much). It was supposedly the battle cry of the local McPherson clan, and is a sharp and rugged little mountain with a famous roadside crag above delightful Lochan Ulvie: the Scottish 'Tremadog' perhaps. We set off by skirting the crag, then up a very tenuous path through a large boulder field. Amazingly difficult route-finding for such an obvious peak, possibly because it fails to achieve Corbett status, although surely people are not that shallow. More likely, the steep and rough terrain puts people off, as a tiny path then heads up the edge of a plantation steeply before disappearing completely among dwarf birches. We continued up, as I picked a route through to gain steeper bracken and then, finally, the main ridge with a properly defined path. The children and Kate didn't complain too much, although the ridge then contained multiple false summits. Despite this, some very mild scrambling interspersed with very pleasant ridge walking made the top section ideal for our purposes today. Although it was cloudy, Creag Dubh benefits from its isolated position and has unusually varied views: wild over the Monadhliath range to the west, which really captured my attention, and tranquil and green over Speyside to the east. After descending, the weather cleared nicely for a picnic on the green shores of Loch Insh, looking out to the high Cairngorms.