Mount Keen

Mount Keen from upper reaches of Glen Tanar

Glen Tanar

Lochnagar from Mount Keen

Mt Keen summit

Bike shed below Mt Keen

Wednesday 17 August 2011
810 metres of ascent, 36 km cycling, 10 km walking, 5 hours 20 minutes

Mount Keen    939m      2hrs 15 mins

Mount Keen is the most easterly munro and is usually accessed by Glen Mark from the south east or Glen Tanar from the north east.  The latter is a longer route and is greatly aided by a bike and that was the plan today. It was a glorious morning and we were in Aboyne before 9:00am trying to hire an extra bike so that Gregor could accompany me on the ride up Glen Tanar as we had done in October 1997.  On that occasion as we descended the track in the twilight at a speed well in excess of the braking capacity of our Mountain Bikes we narrowly missed wiping out an old work colleague of mine, Dame Sue Bruce. I had not known who it was at the time but she asked me a few years later whether I had ever descended Glen Tanar on a bike and been abused by a couple of walkers, and if so that I was even more reckless than she had thought.  I suspect I could get sponsorship for repeating the manoeuvre nowadays from quite a few folk in Edinburgh.

Subsequently I have made two more ascents of Mount Keen from Glen Mark, once on an icy winter day and once in mid summer, so it was time to revisit Glen Tanar.  Unfortunately no bike could be hired for Gregor so we briefly considered taking turns at riding and jogging along the track but Gregor decided to go to Glenshee instead. He was returning to Glasgow later in the day and he climbed the three munros to the west of the Glenshee ski car park.  He managed this in 1 hr 31 minutes, a lot quicker than the ascent of Mount Keen.

He dropped me at Glen Tanar House which has restricted access so I cycled up the hill and circumnavigated the House to get back to the Glen Tanar track. Once on the track, Glen Tanar revealed its full glory, the river was quite full and gargled through the beautiful native forest with scots pine and silver birch in prominence.  I passed three or four walkers coming down the glen after what had been a night in the hills.  The gradient was steady all the way and the track was wet from overnight rain which meant I was well dappled with mud spots.

I reached the end of the forest and continued along  the track, over the first bridge, past the estate house and eventually abandoned my bike when coming face to face with a digger that was ditching and had chewed up the track ahead.  I was left with a couple of kilometres to walk before reaching the new bridge where the Mounth road joins the track.  High above, an eagle was circling above Hare Cairn as I began the climb towards Mount Keen along a deeply scarred path that nevertheless made for an easy climb.  The last couple of hundred of metres of ascent was up the steeper final slopes of Mount Keen.  The distant views of Lochnagar were very clear and I added a small cairn to the the trig point of Mount Keen. I enjoyed the isolation, the views to the Cairngorms and the many glens that radiate from here, it was still late morning and it felt good to have completed the walk in such good weather.  Surprisingly I saw no one else on the hill despite it being a fine summer's day. There seem to be less hill walkers around this year.

The journey down the path was quick and when I reached the bike, I drank and ate an orange before starting out on a 27 km cycle back to the holiday cottage above Kincardine O'Neil.   The descent was all I remembered, fast and downhill almost all the way and only the occasional dab on the brakes was needed before reaching Glen Tanar house and this time taking the track round to Belrorie and then descending to Bridge o' Ess.  Cycling through Aboyne, I passed a Fish and Chip shop and stopped for a bag of chips before the final 11 km. cycle back to the cottage.  I was back for 2:30pm and felt ready for an afternoon nap as the bright early morning weather was replaced by showers.