First walk out of Lin of Dee

Lin of Dee is a starting point for many great walks in the Cairngorm mountains. We went with Dan to attempt Carn an Fhidhleir and An Sgarsoch. The pronunciations of many of the Munros are quite interesting. We just stopped trying for fear of sounding ridiculous. Dan had biked as far as the river at Geldie Lodge (a ruin) and turned around without a way to cross. We were ready this time. I had wetsuit booties, Aoum had gum boots and hefty bags and Dan had snowshoes and hefty bags. All three methods worked well. Our problem was that we got a bit of a late start and did not think the snow would be as thick as it was. The bike ride was easy for the first third with only iced over puddles to crunch through. The second third got interesting. The track got covered with snow with tire tracks where a truck had made a groove. It has only as wide as a tire and slow going, but faster than walking. We got to a place where the truck turned around and from there it was not worth taking the bikes much further. We were still 2 miles from the planned crossing when we ditched our bikes and walked through up to knee deep snow. It was bright and the clouds were above all of the summits. The views were SPECTACULAR! We saw many deer on the far side of the valley. When we crossed the river we saw what we were convinced were hunters. Dan had a run in with hunters (landowners) which made him not want to continue as they have the right of way and we had not checked to see if they were hunting on the land in advance. It turned out, after 45 minutes of sitting having lunch, that they were not people but deer! We could have sworn they were people. Anyway, with short daylight hours and no headlamps, we turned around and made our way back to the car park. It wasn't disappointing as it was so beautiful.