I was residing with friends who had rented the property at The Knock in Inverey, Braemar, for a week to enable them to climb various Corbetts and Grahams in the area. I had climbed all of these notable hills, some several times, so on our first day I decided to just join them on the ascent of the Graham, Creag Bhalg.
We left this accommodation, walked down to the minor Braemar to Linn of Dee Road then east along this road to Victoria Bridge.
Once across the bridge we followed the private road through Mar Lodge onto the minor Linn of Dee to Linn of Quoich Road which was crossed onto a narrow path through longish heather heading north-west on a gentle gradient.
On reaching a junction of tracks we continued north-west then later north on a vehicle track to just beyond a large wooden post where a small cairn marked the narrow path onto Creag Bhalg.
Initially it was through longish heather but became shorter with height gain. A large cairn was reached then a smaller one which was apparently the highest point of this Graham.
To make for a longer walk I had planned to include the North-West Top, a deleted Sub Dodd, and was surprised that others in the group wanted to come along. We returned to the large cairn and descended north-west through fairly short vegetation making for easy walking. Lower down the vegetation was longer and softer making for slower progress.
A vehicle track was reached and followed briefly before continuing north-west through more soft vegetation, avoiding the bog pools, as we ascended Creag Bhalg North-West Top. The summit area was fairly flat but we located a small mound which was supposed to be the summit.
We descended south-east through more wild vegetation to join the vehicle track used briefly on the ascent of the North-West Top.This track was followed to the point we left it to climb Creag Bhalg so then it was just the case of returning to our accommodation via our approach route.
- Time taken – 5 hours.
- Distance – 14.5 kilometres.
- Height climbed – 420 metres.