This year we thought we might try the Cairngorms so, without any plans other than Ben Macdui, we headed for Aviemore. Up at 7.30, a leisurely breakfast and off to Coire Cas. We decided to go up by the Fiacaill ridge and took the clear path off to the right. A fairly easy walk onto the ridge and up to the scramble. I had what is becoming my problem (or excuse) that I found it difficult getting up onto the spine of the ridge and ended up doing most of it on the alternate path. This still had quite a bit of hands on but was not the purist route which Graeme took. He thoroughly enjoyed it and we were both very soon at the top. There is a path from Cairngorm to Ben Macdui but coming up the way we did meant we had to find it. No real problem - you just keep walking towards Ben Macdui and you can't miss it. Well I suppose you could if there had been mist but today was perfectly clear. Mind you there still was quite a bit of snow and much of the path was covered by this. Ben Macdui is an insignificant mound on the plateau and it was just a long, easy slog to the summit following the path and cairns all the way. The summit is a bit like Ben Nevis with cairns all over the place and lots of stone shelter cairns, in one of which we had our Guinness and Stella. I wandered around and had a look at the viewpoint indicator. With distant mist and too many items on it there was little to spot. By far the best view was that of Braeriach looking tremendously steep and still covered in a mass of snow. I know this is another plateau mountain but it is a magnificent looking one from this angle.
Maybe it was because it was a Sunday but this place was almost as busy as Ben Nevis. Back down the path and reaching beyond the place we had originally met the path we went over a series of huge snow patches. The last one in particular had to be 1/4 mile by 1/4 mile in size. Snow patches are a delight to walk over but energy zapping and the snow makes your eyes water. We came down at the point the path reaches the cliffs over the Coire an t-Sneachda and followed the path down. Actually it was not quite as straightforward as that as first of all snow on this side made it difficult and slightly hairy to find the steep path but we got there OK. Also we found ourselves veering too much to the right and had to do a bit of manoeuvring to find the correct path. Once on this there was no problem - this has to be one of the easiest and best made paths we have come across, very simple to walk on and we were soon at the car park.
