A group of enthusiasts set out from Coire Cas car park fairly early :  Alistair (leader), Maurice, Jake, Simon, David, Lenny, Babs, Ella, Shelagh, Graham, Annika, Rob.  At least, these were the starting numbers.

Alistair had done a previous reccy of the route and led us down towards the Sugar Bowl, out to Chalamain Gap, up (steeply!) to summit of Lurcher’s Crag, out to the plateau and onto top of Coire an t-Schneachda, up to Cairngorm summit, out to eastern tors, down to top of Coire Mhearaid and back down path to car park, a route of about 17k and much ascent.

Alistair had put a fantastic amount of work into the day, and was full of knowledge and learning.  However, Lenny nearly stole his thunder, and turned out to have an incredible knowledge of geology which complemented Alistair’s, so we were doubly fortunate.

I don’t pretend to have any knowledge of the subject, but being on a field trip and seeing such amazing examples on Cairngorm certainly gave most of us an appetite for geology. Amongst many things discussed and examples seen were:

Different periods of geology ( eg Dalradian)

Effects of the Ice Age on Cairngorms e.g. Truncated spur, Devil’s Point; glacial moraines, ice dam lakes (Loch Einich), glacial troughs and corries ( Coire an Lochain) kettle holes formed by melting ice blocks (Loch Morlich) Other features observed included soliflucation lobes on Coire an Lochain, etchplains and deflation surfaces on the plateau, the Tors on various locations and how they were formed, nivation hollows and ploughing boulders on Coire Mhearaid, metamorphosed Dalradian rocks.

Despite Alistair being a great leader and so much interest being shown, he somehow began to lose his group, most of the renegades claiming injury etc.  Firstly Lenny (including all his knowledge) dropped off, didn’t even stay for lunch, Simon and Jake were polite enough to have lunch with us, then disappeared via Lurcher’s, Maurice accompanied us to Coire Raibert and was last seen bounding down said Coire with large rucksack to go camping at Loch Avon.

However, less is more, so they say, and we enjoyed a lovely second break on the eastern Tors.  Ella was so exhausted with her learning that she fell fast asleep up there and had to be awakened for the descent!

Thanks so much to Alistair for all the work he put in to make this such an interesting day for us along with a great walk.  I hope he does another one sometime.

Report by Babs Kizewski