Grant and Ian set off on a day trip to the most easterly of the Munros – Mount Keen. The unrelenting climb to the top was just too much.
By Ian
9th November 2021
Our planned meeting time at Emock Road was 9am. Grant arrived at 9:20am – apparently delayed in Morrison’s as he was unable to locate the pecorino cheese. That’s OK then, as long as it was nothing trivial.
Our plan was to climb Mount Keen. It took about 50 minutes to get to our start point at Invermark so it was around 10:30am when we left the car. The weather was clear and sunny, and the light was great.
It was about 2 miles flat walking until we reached Queens Well. Another half mile and were at the big stream which we had to cross. There was quite a bit of water on the path but we managed to get across the ford without overtopping our boots.
A relentess climb
At this point the walk started uphill and in fact it continues relentlessly uphill until the summit is reached. Ahead we could see one person in a high-vis jacket.
Our pace was fairly solid, but soon after the five mile mark I was conscious that my ankle stability was reducing so I decided we should turn back before we got to the top. We were probably about 20 minutes away. It was around 12:45pm.
Remember, it’s November
As we headed down the sun hid behind the clouds and the wind came up, dropping the temperature. We stopped for lunch and both had soup and a sandwich.
Arriving back at the car around 3:30pm we had done around 10.5 miles. So we celebrated with a custard doughnut before driving back.