The poor weather outlook was set to continue for at least another day, though by now I was itching for something a little bigger than a Graham, and decided that it was finally time, on my third visit to Braemar, to actually climb the hill which rises above the town: Morrone.
I left quite early on a Sunday morning, and the village was quiet; the wind was strong, and it was cold, despite being almost mid-summer, and there was the smell of a peat fire from one of the houses on the Chapel Brae as I walked up to the duck pond. The climb up Morrone is fairly easy, and short. It briefly crosses the birkwoods before continuing straight up the northern side of the mountain over what’s mostly a good path, though there are a few boggy bits. It’s not all that long until you’re well above the town, and the summit comes into sight, decorated with various radio masts, which I later learned are, at least in part, to allow radio signals to be transmitted into the deep Cairngorm for mountain rescue.
I climbed the big summit cairn, and visited the trig, but my time on the summit was brief thanks to the considerable wind, and I headed back off the hill via the landrover track to the South, and ended up back on the old military road which parallels the A93, and walked back into town.