Meall Alvie

12 March 2012

Participants - Neil and Ben
Where - Meall Alvie, 560m/ 1,837', Sub-2,000' Marilyn, OS 44, NO 203919

Sunshine has been in short supply in the west of Scotland this year and I was starting to feel deprived. The forecast for the North-east was much better so I decided to spend a couple of days in that area on a Marilyn bagging expedition. Meall Alvie is a tree covered hill just east of Braemar, it is not a big enough hill that you would travel to do it specially but it is one of these that is a handy stopping off point for a couple of hours on the way to or from somewhere else. Fortunately, the trees were mainly Scots Pine rather than Sitka Spruce so the going was not too bad, although the heather was a bit tangly underfoot in places. As promised, the weather was much better in this neck of the woods, blue sky and warm sunshine and it was extremely pleasant walking along the track from the car park at Keiloch. This is the view of the hill from there.....

It was only about 0.5 mile to the restored cottage at Felagie which was where I took to the hill. An old wall headed up hill and I followed that; there was no path but there were grassy gaps in the heather so it turned out to be not too bad an ascent.....

The trees thinned out a bit higher up although it was not obvious where exactly the highest point was.....

I didn't know if there was a cairn but after a bit of searching I found one, actually quite close to the wall.....

With all of the trees there wasn't much of a view. The best of it was towards the snow covered corries on the east side of Beinn a'Bhuridh.....

It was back the same way. Going down, a herd of about 10 deer crossed the hill below us, I think that Ben either saw or smelt them but after a short chase he returned to praise for responding to my call. Back on the track, there was a good view towards Lochnagar, a hill that is on the list for doing again some day.....