2016 TGO Challenge Day 11

2016 TGO Challenge Day 11

Ballater to Tarfside (16.75 miles)

Total Trip Miles: 147.75

Monday, May 23rd, 2016

Day 11 part 1

Day 11 part 2

We left the Ballater campsite around our normal time, about 8:15am.  Between my blisters and Kenny's blisters, we were moving pretty slow.  Once out of town we had a chunk of somewhat level terrain.  The pain from my blisters subsided a bit the longer I walked on them, but it never went away totally.  

Just over a mile into our day we had a climb up Pannanich Hill.  It was basically straight up the hill.  It took us a long time.  My feet hurt and Kenny was really struggling with the blister on his heel.  We took a short break at the top of the hill and Kenny decided he couldn't continue in his boots so on went his Keen sandals.  Luckily they were pretty rugged sandals with a closed toe and a strap along the back.  He could feel every rock he stepped on though.  He also got a new nickname, Jesus Sandals, even though they were not really Jesus sandals.  

Jesus Sandals sighting!  Thanks to Ava for the pic!

View from the climb up Pannanich Hill

View from the climb up Pannanich Hill

Statue on the top of the Hill

Panarama from the top of the hill, Mt. Keen almost center

From the top of Pannanich Hill we had about 4 miles to get down to the Shiel of Glentanar.  Looking at the map it seemed as if this would be easy cruising, but it turned out to be anything but.  The map shows a LRT for the first couple miles, and while there was a pretty good track to follow there were a lot of different tracks going multiple directions.  We often had to guess which was the correct track and when we were wrong we'd have to cross bog to find the correct one.  After a time we turned off onto a small track that half the time faded into a mostly invisible line of gently pushed down grass.  Added to that I was constantly in pain from my blisters whenever I stepped on uneven turf.  Kenny was also doing his best to avoid water/mud as he was in sandals.  

Kenny and Ava heading down into Shiel of Glentanar with Mt. Keen looming above

We got down to Shiel of Glentanar around 1pm and stopped for lunch at the bridge over the Water of Tanar.  This means we did 5 miles in 4 hours, or 1.25 miles per hour.  Not good considering we had almost 12 more miles to do.  

After lunch we had a 1,200 ft climb over about 1.25 miles up to the bypass of Mt Keen.  My original plan had been to summit Mt. Keen but seeing as I was in a pretty good amount of pain (and the weather wasn't great)  I decided to do the bypass as well.  

Looking back down into Shiel of Glentanar from the shoulder of Mt. Keen before the bypass

The trail down from Mt. Keen was pretty rocky and made for more slow going for me and Kenny.  Ava was limping because her knee was bothering her, but she was in the best condition by far.  The rain came down again as we made it down into Glen Mark.  From Glen Mark we figured it would be a pretty easy walk into Tarfside, but we were wrong again.  

Looking down into Glen Mark from Mt. Keen

The path down to Glen Mark right before the sky opened

 There was lots of water on the LRT and we spent a good amount of time and energy avoiding it.  We also had two raging rivers to cross that weren't on the map (or there when Kenny and Ava had summited mt. Keen previously).  One of them we had to throw our packs across and then leap across the quickly moving water.  After an already long day having to figure out how to cross two fast-moving streams at the end of the day was exhausting. 

The Queen's Well in Glen mark (this is Ava's picture taken on a previous trip. I had put my camera away due to the inclement weather)

We eventually made it to the parking lot at Auchronie and the final push to Tarfside.  This last leg was a nice jaunt through sheep pastures, but we were all so exhausted from our long day that this section felt like it took forever.  By the time we made it to Tarfside we must have looked exhausted because multiple people commented how spent we all looked.  

At Tarfside a hiking club cooks hot meals and run a little hostel for the challengers (all the money raised goes to the hiking groups).  The hostel was full, since noon apparently, and we missed both sittings of dinner.  The volunteers were nice enough to let us eat at the third sitting with them, and 4 or 5 other challengers who came in late also joined us.  The town also lets the challengers use their sports field as a campground so that's where we slept.  We stopped in at the little pub they open for challengers but we were all so exhausted we only stayed for 5 minutes...plus it was cramped and hot in there. I was alseep shortly after my head hit my inflatable pillow.