Area: Glenshee, Scotland
My Highlands model is now so refined that it follows the same schedule, and as such I am always seeking good options for short post-drive outings. These fitted the bill to perfection, undistinguished hills but ideally suited to a brief leg-stretcher after the drive. I left home at 7am and drove to Glenshee via stops in Lancaster and Stirling. In 2020, I did a painful trot up Glas Maol and its neighbour from Glenshee (having already traversed Beinn a'Ghlo in the morning - a reflection of the joy of being released from Covid confinement combined with the related fact that there was nothing else to do, everything was still closed!). An even more painful memory is connected with the hills on the other side of the pass - Carn Aosda, Geoidh and the Cairnwell - as I did these the day after breaking three hours for the first time at the Edinburgh marathon of 2008. Today's hills are accessed a little further down the road on the Braemar side. Carn an Tuirc is an obvious objective, a scree-covered dome, and pleasant jogging along the river led to a direct path up the front. The highpoint comes soon after, just 44 minutes from the road. Then comes grassy running down to a broad col and then another grassy slog up the very dull hill of Carn of Claise, on which I saw a sandpiper well away from its conventional habitat. Some nice valleys make the views here much more interesting, however: the Caenlochan Glen, for example, is surprisingly deep. I contoured another grassy valley (Allt a Garbh Coire) and then headed along the very old Monega Pass route which takes the wonderful grassy spur down to the pointed top of Sron na Gaoithe. This was superb, and led to a steep drop-off and more good running back to the road. Around 1.45 for the circuit, a quick invigorating bath in the Clunie Water, and then to camp outside Braemar.
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