2017 TGO Challenge Day 7

2017 TGO Challenge Day 7

Glen Feshie Wild Camp (NN 844 918) to Braemar -  23 miles

Total Trip Miles: 124

Thursday, May 18th, 2017

Day7 part 1

Day 7 part 2

Day 7 part 3

 The dogs were still hanging around when Gary and I woke up, and realizing they weren't going anywhere, we gave them all the extra food we could spare.  We were both feeling bad that they hadn't eaten in the 18 hours or so they had been following us.  Freddie came down from his campsite about 7:30am and I wasn't ready to go yet, I told him and Gary to head on without me knowing I'd run into them at some point during the day.  The dogs went with them as well, as they seemed to follow whoever was in the lead.  

I got out of  camp around 8:15 and decided to follow Gary and Freddie's idea of crossing the River Feshie right where we camped.  The river was so low there was a huge rocky patch to walk over to even get to the water, and only about 12 feet of water to get across.  I managed to find one with enough rocks to hop across pretty quickly.  From there it was back on the path that I would follow the rest of the way through the glen.  

A little less than a mile into the day I came to a fork in the trail.  To the right continued along the river, and the left appeared to go up the side of the mountain a bit.  I kept right to follow the river since the map didn't show a branching trail.  Turns out the river had washed out part of the trail and it went directly through the river, which looked to be about knee high.  Looking up the side of the mountain I saw the other trail that went above the river.  I could see in the nearly verticle wall next to me where people had climbed up about 20 feet through the brush to reach the trail and decided to do that rather than get my feet wet.  It was a bit of a sketchy climb and I only slipped and almost slid all the way down once.

I caught up to Gary and Freddie when they were taking a break. We walked together for a while, and at the convergence of the River Eidart and River Feshie, rather than following the quarter mile track to the bridge we decided to rock hop across the river.  Of course, since I kept my feet dry earlier, I slipped and my right foot got soaked.  Happens every time.

The plan for the night was to make it to White Bridge and camp, and seeing as the path was straightforward all day we all walked at our own pace.  I stopped for lunch and was behind Freddie and Gary for most of the early afternoon.

I caught up to Gary along the Geldie Burn where they have an area fenced off for re-planting of trees, but there are gates for the walkers to go through.  We walked together the rest of the way to White Bridge, talking about music and various other topics as you do when you're walking with others.  My right pinkie toe was starting to hurt quite a bit (I had taped it the last few days as a minor blister had formed on it) but decided to worry about it once we arrived at White Bridge.

Abandoned building

At White Bridge there was no Freddie.  Or dogs.  We decided to push on to see if Freddie had camped a little further on.  He had not.  We decided to just do the slog into Braemar since we were feeling ok (other than the toe, which I continued to ignore) and figured we could push the final 6 miles into town.

Crossing over the River Dee

About the time we got to the paved road my back started hurting pretty badly.  I kept having to readjust my backpack for temporary relief, but it was quite painful for some reason.  At Mar Lodge we stopped at the building just outside the gate.  We weren't sure if they were doing tea and biscuits since it was only Thursday.  We decided it wasn't worth the extra walk to go and find out so we continued into town.  The final 3 miles into town took forever and I was walking slowly with my back pain.

After what felt like an eternity we finally made it into Braemar and stopped at the Fish and Chips shop in town where Freddie and a bunch of others were stopped.  Freddie had turned the dogs in at Mar Lodge, where the caretaker said they belonged to the Feshie Estate and believed the dogs to be stolen.  They were sending someone for the dogs and were happy to have them back.  We were all glad their owner was found.

We camped at the Braemar Caravan Park campsite.  Once I had my tent set up I finally got a good look at my toe.  The situation was not good.  The whole tip was an open, raw wound.  I figured I would have time to sort it out as I had made it to Braemar a day early.  I took some advice (and tape) from Freddie and Gary.  I cleaned the toe, but didn't want to wrap it yet so it could air out over the next couple days while I was in town.

A visitor outside my tent