Lochnagar is one of those mountains that is popular to all, regular hill walkers keen to bag a Munro, mountaineers keen to climb gullies in the depths of winter, and possibly the Queen given it is a stones throw from Balmoral and Queen Victoria had a cottage at loch Muick nearby.
But even on a sunny day in March Lochnagar is a challenge, looking majestic and easy from the long wide track, easily accessible from a car park (with a visitors centre open even out of season!) it can fool the uninitiated. The mountain is impressive with three peaks – the summit, Cac Carn Beag, is on the far side from the usual route up.
Once on the top of the ridge the wind was battering and walking across the top to the far side to reach the trig point required walking with a lean to prevent being blown away. In those conditions I’m grateful for walking poles to keep me upright. The wind was against me, throwing up spindrift into my face and pushing me back.
Despite the conditions I wasn’t the only one up the mountain – it was a glorious sunny spring day when I left the car park, and the snow line still being around 500m there were plenty of people out making he most of the conditions. A mix of climbers, desperate to get up a line and almost running past me on the path, mountaineers heading for the summit, and of course day walkers carefully slide their way back down without crampons and axes.
I resisted the urge to tell them off – a mountain rescue incident waiting to happen, they’ll have learnt something valuable from the experience once back down and will be better kitted out in future. She looked at me embarrassed as she slides past me on her bum as I’m donning my crampons heading up. I also meet two winter climbers at the top of a gully – they’ve had an fantastic climb and I look at them in awe as we chat.
Lochnagar summit has a fantastic view of the rest of the Cairngorms and out to the sea to the south, it’s clear why the Victorians liked to head up here. I wipe snot across my gloves as I pull my buff up round my cheeks. I can see grey wet weather heading my way and head back down, avoiding the cornices over the gullies.
