I had a strange experience at Braemar Youth Hostel last night. We had a rowdy drunken Glaswegian scumbag in a our room, who eventually I decided to have "words" with when he wouldn't shut up. This quickly escalated into a nasty aggressive confrontation, which gave me the perfect excuse to go and find a deserted room at the top of the building for a nice peaceful night's sleep.
In the morning we cleared off early and had some breakfast with Kate and Andy Kitchin in Ballater, before heading out on the bikes. It was blummin cold and windy, so we decided against cycling to Banchory and instead headed up Glen Muick, where I expected to bump into Spyke and crew on their Munro Round record attempt.
There was no sign of them in the Glen, so we headed on up to Loch Muick where we bumped into Owen and Ursula Bass hard at work cutting and chiselling some rock for some sort of map of Lochnagar. We cycled to the far end of Loch Muick, until the good track runs out, then turned back, but still no sign of Spyke's van. Somewhat baffled, we returned to Ballater and immediately spotted the van in the central car park. We then found Sam, JC and Mike Nelson at the Brown Sugar Cafe who told us that Spyke had headed for Mount Keen via Glen Tanar. To me this seemed like madness, since it is 4 times further than approaching Mount Keen from Glen Muick. And not only were they approaching via Glen Tanar, they were also returning this way, which essentially adds 30 miles onto their day!!
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, going once by Glen Tanar could be regarded as a misfortune, but going twice looks like carelessness... I'll await to hear whether their 30 mile detour paid off... somehow I doubt it, and suspect that they will be seriously late setting out over Lochnagar this afternoon/evening.
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