My plan was to do a circuit I've done a few times before, on various bikes and on various trail conditions from rather damp to bone dry. It follows three well known passes:- the Minigaig which is one of the harder routes south too North from Tayside into Speyside; the Feshie / Geldie crossing, well known to all who have done the Cairngorms Loop; finishing down the excellent Glen Tilt trail. Its a classic route and well worth doing, given the variety of trails it covers and the fabulous scenery that is the southern part of the Cairngorms. I got the bike out of the car and hit the dirt. The next tarmac would be 8 hours and 50 miles later, very close to my start point....
For a change, instead of doing the direct climb from Atholl estate up through Glen Banvie wood, I followed a new (to me) trail up the north side of the Banvie burn over to Glen Bruar via the Alt Shiechechan bothy. Frost was a-plenty in the shade but the strengthening sun promised much warmth as the day progressed.
Alt Shiechechan Bothy, small but comfy looking.
The descent down to Bruar Lodge was decidedly damp so in future I'll stick to the climb up the other side of Glen Banvie and the nice track down past Ruichlachrie. After the lodge, the track gets much rougher as it climbs the ever narrowing Glen Bruar until it stops at the confluence of three water courses which form the Bruar water. From this point the route follows a narrow trail which climbs steeply up the hillside.
The climb out of Glen Bruar. This pic was taken on a very dry day in 2013
The last time I was here travelling north there was still much snow about after the winter of 2015. The 'trail' ended up being a fabulous ride across large fields of snow. Today the climb was hot work however stunning views all round made the effort well worth while. As I noted in my post back in July 2015 about my southbound traverse of this route, the path seems to be getting little use these days and is starting to fade out in places. It was fairly wet after the somewhat damp summer but overall its a good route, as long as you are prepared for a bit of hike-a-bike.
The only tricky nav is where the route crosses a burn which flows down into the Caochan Luib. An obvious path follows this side burn down to the main stream but avoid this and stick to the line on the map. If you aren't using GPS follow your nose, avoid losing any height and you'll be fine.
This pic shows the bit where you have to watch your Nav. In February 2015 I came through here and it was full of snow...
This route was an old drove road and surprisingly, you often see evidence of this as the now single track follows a wider eroded corridor, overgrown but still clearly visible.
The route tops out at the Minigaig pass, some 830-odd metres above sea level. At the summit of the pass it was decision time. A rough and fairly faffy descent down the minigaig route would see me in Glen Tromie and the Gaik for an easy run back to the car. I did this with a mate in about 2004 and it was mostly good. A couple of years later and it had started to fade away and the last time I did it in about 2009 it was very vague and hard going. The reason for this is that most people doing this traverse now cut across to the Feshie which makes for better views and easier going, albeit with a couple of extra climbs. This was my other option and what I'd planned that morning.
Given the weather I was encouraged to stick to this original plan and head for the mighty Glen Feshie. You turn right at the pass summit and follow the ridge up to the unamed peak at 912m. There is no path as such but the going over the short heather is easy enough. Views all round were out of this world....
From this (oddly) un-named hill you descend to another bealach and then climb steeply up to the summit of Meall an Uillt Chreagaich. I've used various ways to get up this and the best one is to head for the small ruin marked on the 1:25k OS and then head west-north-west from this to pick up a double track which goes up to and over the summit. You can see this on aerial photos. The line shown on the OS 50k is sort of there but steep and rough so worth a miss.This double track descends steeply to a small bealach at Loch an stuic where it joins a more substantial way that bombs down to Glen Feshie. Once into Glen Feshie I did have the option to head north to the bottom end of Tromie and back through the Gaik but given the weather I was set on continuing south for the hard climb up the Glen and over the famously boggy trail linking the Feshie catchment to the Geldie.
In the way was the river Feshie itself. This would require at least one crossing and its got quite a reputation hereabouts. Burns on the southern side of the Minigaig weren't too bad but were definitely higher than normal so I was a bit worried. The Feshie has created some real epics over the years and I was well aware of my isolation. Fortunately the northern catchments seemed to have missed the heavy rain of last week and the river was low. Not only that but the devastation of the storms at the end of last year / beginning of this had dramatically widened the bed of the river making for a wide but shallow and easy crossing. Rather than chance two more crossings I took the path on the east bank and had the easiest crossing of the landslip area I've ever had! A far cry from what it was like post Hurricane Berth in '14.
Onwards and upwards goes the track before ending at yet another burn crossing and the start of the single track. Its tempting to follow the obvious Argocat track from here but this is seriously wet and best avoided unless conditions are droughtlike. The single track was wet but generally stony and much more fun.
I stopped for a late lunch at this small Houwff which would make for a good shelter if you fancied this route as an overnighter. What I first thought was litter was a pack of freeze dried muselli hidden in this rough shelter - something that could be a life saver in this wild place. Another K of hard trail saw the Eidart bridge and the mandatory photo
After this the trail is pretty boggy and very wet this day. I'm an old hand at this route so knew not to follow the line on the map but rather a more direct line that misses out the loop of path shown on the map. This is all easy stuff on the fat bike of course but I keep thinking that this route would benefit from some path work along the map marked line (which is drier) as its a popular route these days and starting to show signs of serious erosion in places.
The watershed - the trail improves somewhat after here having been worked on by the NTS in 2006. Me and two friends rode through here in 2007 as part of a large circuit from Aviemore via Bynack more, the fords of Avon and Glen Derry. The path work was fairly new and after a dry summer the trail was easy going compared to today. The direct line to the bridge didn't exist in those days and we roughly followed the vague line of the path shown on the map. Its changed quite a bit in the intervening ten years.
I picked my way through the route at a steady pace but by the time I reached the track by the Geldie I was starting to feel the distance. The second major river crossing of the day was the Geldie itself. I've had a few difficulties crossing this in recent years and whilst the level looked low I expected wet feet. However I was greeted with a pleasant surprise - a wide flat bed over which the river was running mostly at about ankle depth and easily rideable. In the old days this crossing was via 2 engineered channels, the shallower one acting as an overflow for the main one. The problem with this was that it didn't take much water for this to be deep and fast flowing. Hurricane Bertha in 2014 trashed most of this and left the river as a confused mass of channels and rocks but it looks like Storm Desmond scoured most of these away to leave this:-
Compare with this image on geograph which shows the crossing as it once was - the central grassy island is now totally gone.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1127964]http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1127964
The double track continues, getting increasingly rough up to the ruins of Bynack Lodge. There are two crossings of the river here buts its a much smaller flow before the Geldie joins it so no bother this dry evening.
This photo was taken on my 2013 traverse of this route near to the point where the double transitions to singletrack. Its one of my favourite places in the UK. Hard to say why - the isolation of a wide open glen, various surrounding hills, the river, the ruined lodge and the woods seem to chime well with me and I always pause to savour this view.
Amazingly the single track over the water shed into Glen Tilt has had some work done on it through the boggy section with, even more amazingly, pipe bridges over the various water channels rather than the usual wheel wrecking stone channels. Could the NTS finally be acknowledging bike use??
The tilt descent is a classic and a great way to end the day.
It gets a bit narrow in places....
Definitely one of my favourite descents and also one of my favourite through routes. I first did this as part of a large circuit from Pitlochry in about 1991. We'd ridden across to the Spittal of Glen Shee, up over the Cairnwell and were using the Tilt route as a way back to Pitlochry. Thanks to a late start, short days and slow progress, it was getting dark as we commenced the descent, fortunately not getting full dark until after the start of the double track. In those days of rubbish lights this was of serious concern. That didn't stop the same scenario developing on several occasions subsequently before we eventually twigged to get an early start and do the route in the summer!
Mandatory Tarf Water bridge shot. This is pretty much at the end of the single track. The OS 1:50k shows a chunk more single track than what is on the ground (which is a relief when its getting dark!) This is part of the appeal of this route, the way the trail progressively improves as you descend down the glen, getting easier as you get tireder. I stopped to eat the last of my food in the now warm evening sunshine and the final roll down the big track from forest lodge was a fine way to relax and reflect on a fabulous day.
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