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Ideas for hiking in Cairngorms near Grantown-on-Spey.

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joe86 04 Apr 2017
Hi everyone,

I'm going to stay in Grantown-on-Spey for a week this Friday. I've been to the Cairngorms once about 10 years ago so don't have much experience hiking there.

Can anyone give me an idea of a few things I was wondering about:

How much snow will there be at this time of year? From reading around it has ranged from some patches of snow remaining, to snow still falling in lowland areas but not sticking.

Can anyone recommend some day hikes, in the Grantown-on-Spey area? Looking for fairly challenging hikes but also potentially will be taking a fit Golden Retriever (regularly does 13 mile runs), so options without sharp scree slopes and prolonged heavy snow would be preferable.

I've not decided whether the dog will come at this point so if there are must do options which are not dog suitable let me know!

How do you get an idea of the paths? I'd noticed there are very few paths marked on maps and assume this is because there is a right-to-roam in Scotland. How do you know where to start off from therefore?

Any other tips/ information you can give would be gratefully received.

Regards,

Joe





 tony 04 Apr 2017
In reply to joe86:

Do you have transport (a car), to take you places, or are you restricted to starting and finishing in G-on-Spey? If you do have transport, you've got loads of options in the Cairngorms. (There may be buses from Grantown to Aviemore/Coylumbridge, but I've always had a car when I've been in the area.) There's very little snow at the moment, and any that is lying can either be avoided or walked on (with the obvious exceptions of any lingering cornices).

For ideas, you could do a lot worse than look at the walkhighlands website https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/ and Steve Fallon's website http://www.stevenfallon.co.uk/ and of course the route cards on UKHillwalking.

Paths may or may not be marked on maps. Most of the major ones are marked on the OS maps - you may find they're marked as dotted black lines, rather than the green dashed rights-of-way you might be more used to in England. As you say, access laws are different, and you can make up your own routes more easily than south of the border, but sticking to paths does make life easier.
 Andy Nisbet 04 Apr 2017
In reply to joe86:

Joe, The nearest hills to Grantown are the Cromdale hills, which aren't particularly high but will be clear of snow. Not particularly popular so not many paths and rough going in places, but feel bigger than they are and have great views of the main Cairngorms. I wouldn't have said Scotland didn't have many paths, but if so, it's nothing to do with right to roam, just there aren't so many people in the Scottish hills.

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