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Despite
being a climbers' paradise, with a huge wall of granite cliffs and gullies,
the mountain's name is derived from the small lochan in the coire, being
the "little loch of laughter or noise".
To start,
take the public road up Glen Muick to the terminal car park. Continue
on foot for 250m to Spittal of Glenmuick and turn right to cross the glen,
passing Allt-na-giubhsaich and continuing westwards along a pine-girt
track. This leads to a track which leads to the col at the head of Glen
Gelder. Leave this track now and go SW, crossing a slight dip before going
uphill to reach the Fox Cairn Well just over 1km from the dip.
Ahead lies
a steep section called The Ladder. It's worth making a short diversion
to the west to reach the col to the south of Meikle Pap, as from here
there is a grand view of the great cliffs. Continue up The Ladder, safer
amongst the rocks near the coire edge, to gain the summit ridge. A short
drop across a broad col and a final 70m of climb finds you on the near-level
plateau.
Enjoy the
walk along the coire rim, passing the cairn of Cac Carn Mor, rounding
the exit of the Black Spout, and finishing the climb at the summit boulders
of Cac Carn Beag. The summit trig point will be found within the boulder
pile.
As an interesting
aside, the Gaels made a rare error here, as they named the lower point
Mor, whereas in fact it's about 6m lower than the higher point. Also,
cac is a corruption of cadha, which is a slope or path up a slope. Cac
has also led to the Scots word keech, which in polite language would be
called faeces, so here we have the big and little cairns of, er, cac!
To descend
by an interesting round trip, take the path down by the Glas Allt, passing
a waterfall and then by a zig-zag section to the wood sheltering the royal
hideaway at Glas-allt-Shiel. A foot-burning stomp along the road takes
one back to the end of Loch Muick. Either continue by the road to Allt-na-giubsaich,
or if conditions allow, cross the outflow of the loch which is a few minutes
faster but perhaps with wet feet.
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