2018 TGO Challenge Day 9

TGO Challenge Day 9

Dail Dubh (NJ 179 073) to Ballater - 18.5 miles
 Total Trip Miles: 135.1

Saturday, May 19th, 2018

Day 9 part 1

Day 9 part 2

We woke up to another sunny day in Scotland...and also to a rodent who had chewed through a plastic bag holding Leslie's trash.

We did our normal routine and were packed up and out of camp around 8:30.  The first section of the day was through Glen Builg.  We had a nice track and made pretty good time.

We had to cross a few streams, most of which were pretty easy to navigate.

rock hopping to keep the feet dry

Then we got to a deeper one.  We spent some time trying to figure out the best place to cross.  We should have gone with the row of rocks right near the LRT, but it had a drop off next to it.  We went across up towards the fenceline.  

As I stepped off the second to last rock I was using to get across, my foot slipped and I fell forward onto another rock, stopping my momentum with my shin.  At first I thought I was fine, but then I could feel something was wrong.  I pulled my pant leg up and my shin was swollen quite a bit already.  Luckily I brought my own nurse!

This is after applying pressure for a while

We used a river rock to put pressure on the wound

After a couple minutes the swelling was almost completely gone.  Kenny wrapped it with a compression bandage and we continued on.  My fall in the river led me to think about how hiking/backpacking seems like a "safe" sport but it can actually be really dangerous.  I was lucky that I didn't hurt myself worse.  We were out in the middle of nowhere and it would not have been easy to get me out of there if I was seriously injured.  It was a good reminder for me to be mindful of what I'm doing when backpacking, because a serious injury is just one mis-placed step away.

We passed by Loch Builg and a few small, unnamed lochs before meeting up with the River Gairn.  We also came across some signs that talked about the wildlife and the restoration efforts going on in the highlands. 

Loch Builg

We took a short snack break alongside a small ruin by the river.  Shortly after that we came to Corndavon Lodge, which appears to have a stable a short ways from the actual lodge itself.  

The LRT we were on followed the river most of the rest of the morning.  We stopped for lunch shortly before we were due to hot the B976 crossing.  I unwrapped my wound to take a look, and surprisingly it was not swollen at all and was simply a nice-sized cut where the skin had been taken off.  

After lunch we all needed water.  The map showed us crossing a stream right before the road, but that went to through sheep pens so none of us felt comfortable drinking it, even filtered.  We decided to knock at the house at Braenaloin.  Nobody answered despite there being a few cars out front.  There was a tap on the wall of the garage so we helped ourselves.  

Once we crossed the road it was a climb straight up to Gaellaig Hill.  We gained 1200 feet of elevation over 2km (just over 1 mile) so it was pretty steep.  It did afford us some nice views though.

****Also of note, somewhere right around where the picture below was taken, I hit a pretty big milestone:  500 miles backpacked in Scotland.  Obviously this is including the 2016-18 Challenges and the Ben Nevis walk****

This was taken about halfway up the hill. In the center you can
 see the house where we got water and started the climb from.

The summit!

Leslie at the summit (On her birthday, nonetheless!)

We didn't stay on the summit too long as the wind intense up there.  We followed the ridgeline over to Creag na Creiche and then skirted around Carn Dearg.  Our route had us camping somewhere in this area, but with the wind and only having about 6km to get into a town we decided to push on.  

The trick to this part was finding a way down to the road from where we were.  First, according to the map there was no path that took us SE towards the road, but in reality there was a path to a couple other minor summits on the SE side of the hill.  From there we had a bit of off-path navigation, but soon found a 4x4 track that seemed to take us the direction we wanted to go.  

We managed to find our way through a bit of forest and then over a crumbling wall that took us into a farm.  We walked across the farm and then hit a gate that was tied up.  We could see the farmhouse and tried to untie the gate and re-tie it without being noticed.  

The gate

We managed to escapt o the A93 without being noticed and headed towards Ballater, dodging cars for a while before we made it to a sidewalk.  We managed to make it into Ballater about 6pm.  

Ballater selfie!

The campsite told us they were full but said they'd squeeze us in since we were challengers.  Thanks Ballater campsite!  After pitching our tents we headed back into town to get dinner at the chip shop.

Dinner!

After dinner we stopped for a pint at the bar but we were all exhausted so ended up heading back to the campsite relatively early.  Since we had come in a day early we had a whole day off the following day.  Ava and her family would be driving down in the morning and Ava would be rejoining us for the last 4 days.  We also had a cottage booked for the following night in Ballater so we were all excited for that.