For a long time, I have wanted to go hiking in Scotland. It has been at the top of my list for years. I would have gone in 2024 if the Svalbard trip hadn’t come up. Last year brought a lot to deal with, but this year I put it on the calendar and planned it out for the cool end of September.

One of the places that I planned to visit and hike is Cairngorms National Park and hike the mountain trails. In Cairngorms there is a mountain called Cairn Gorm, oddly enough, and I planned to hiked to the top. Cairn Gorm is a munro. A munro is a Scottish mountain over 3000 ft. and at 4085 feet, Cairn Gorm makes the cut and is the 6th tallest munro (according to Wikipedia). There are people who make a hobby out of climbing munros, with the goal of bagging all 282 munros, I’m afraid that I won’t have time for all of that. In addition to being a munro, if a mountain has a prominence of at least 150 meters, it is called a Marilyn (I’m not making this up). So, Cairn Gorm is both a Munro and a Marilyn, and I don’t think I need to connect the dots for that pun any further. Below is a photo looking up towards Cairn Gorm from the trail head.

There is a train that will take you up to a restaurant/gift shop part-way up the mountain. But, if you take the train, you cannot exit the restaurant and climb up to the peak. If you want to go to the peak, you have to climb a trail from the carpark up past the restaurant and on to the peak. The reason for this is that the environment up there is sensitive, especially during the summer months when the rock ptarmigans are nesting, so requiring people to make the long climb dramatically reduces the traffic up to the peak.

The climb up to the mountain top involves taking one of the most aptly named trails in all of Scotland – the Windy Ridge Path. The Windy Ridge path is a well-marked trail that constantly ascends, usually with stone steps, and winds its way up to the restaurant. From the time I started hiking the trail there was a near constant heavy wind with periodic strong gusts. And with this sunny day, the wind was just cold enough to make it uncomfortable in just a shirt, but not cold enough to make wearing a jacket comfortable. I found that I preferred being a little cold to being covered in sweat.

One very nice thing about this trail that I soon discovered was all the views of the surrounding landscape. It gave me several excuses to stop and catch my breath whilst taking photos. It was mostly cloudy for me on the way up around midday and there were mists forming in the valleys and blowing up with the wind. The photo below was taken during my ascent. You can see the clouds forming in the valleys and Loch Morlich in the distance and if you feel like squinting you can see the village of Aviemore far away.

The image below is taken from the Windy Ridge Path as you approach the restaurant near the top. You can see Cairn Gorm shrouded in clouds in the distance.

Once I made it to the restaurant, I rested for a few minutes at an outdoor picnic table before making the final haul up to the peak. There was a couple with a pair of little spaniel dogs that hiked up about the same time I did. I tried not to let the dogs make me feel bad with all of their energy climbing the trail, but they weren’t even carrying 25 pounds of camera gear, the wimps. Anyway, a granola bar later and I headed for the peak trail. As you can see from the photo, it was a bit like hiking up into a cloud. And it may not look all that steep from the photo, but it was a steep enough steady climb whilst being buffeted with a strong wind. I don’t know the wind speed, but the gusts made me lose balance a couple of times and I’m quite a bit of live-weight.

At the top of Cairn Gorm is a cairn, if you can believe it. There is also a weather station with an antenna. I sat in the lee of the weather station for a few minutes to get a break from the steady cold wind. I was hoping to get beautiful views from up there, but I mainly got to hang out inside of a cloud with my glasses condensed over with water. Not far down below the cloud, it was relatively sunny and you could see for miles, but I couldn’t see much from the peak.

After that I stumbled back down the trail to the restaurant and had some coffee and a sandwich. There is a walker’s entrance you can use, but you have to ring a bell to get someone to let you in and you have to sign a sheet so they will let you back out. The train riders only had access to an observation platform outside of the restaurant.

The walk back down was certainly a lot easier, using all of the potential energy I had gained on the way up. I had to stop for several photos as the skies had become a bit clearer. The image below is looking down the trail toward Loch Morlich (where I went for sunset) taken with a polarizer.

All-in-all, this was a strenuous hike for this old man, especially carrying a camera backpack up the mountain. I suppose this will be my only munro and my only marilyn. My legs were a little wobbly after I was done, but I rested up a few hours at the hotel and felt fine for sunset.

I also subscribed to AllTrails for this trip and was able to download the trail and track my progress. Using GPS, AllTrails is pretty helpful with keeping you on the right path. Below is the stats it gave me for the hike. The time includes time spent at the restaurant before heading back down. It looks like I spent about an hour and ten minutes not moving, either at the restaurant, or stopped along the way. I also sat at the peak for a while to just live the experience.

Thanks for reading. I hope to have more to post from Scotland.