Capel Mounth Track

The Capel Mounth track from Ballater to Glen Clova via Loch Muick (15miles/7hrs) is an ancient drovers' road linking Deeside to Angus. along which cattle would be driven from their highland homes to the markets of the lowlands. It still has a certain atmosphere, and you can think on the lives (and, up here, hardships) of those who followed the track.

The track is best walked from Loch Muick, by the high Lochnagar massif, to Glen Clova (or vice versa): the long approach from Ballater is hard to identify and in any event would be pleasant but less thrilling walking.

It is some 10 km (3 1/2 hrs), or 8hrs there and back. The climb back out of Glen Clova is a steep slog, so you might prefer to linger on the brink and enjoy the view rather than drop down and clamber back again.

The Loch Muick Reserve is a protected area on the Balmoral Estate teeming with precious wildlife and rare and delicate plants. The hillsides are (of course) clothed in trademark heather, the high ground is boggy and peat haggy. Wildlife includes eagles, ptarmigan, deer and mountain hares.

The scenery is grand and beautiful (on a good day - it can be a tad dour on a poor one): high moorland, peaks, beetling crags and purple hillsides above glens and lakes.

The track starts from the roadhead at Loch Muick, and is immediately blessed with grand views over the wide bottom of Glen Muick, with its burn winding amid bog and heather on the floor. It gains views over the loch, dark pewter or a refulgent silver sheen depending on the light (although more often the former!) after a km or so, then turns left up the hillside, away from the valley bottom, for a long, steady climb up to the high plateau.

Lochnagar appears above the crags across the lake as the views open up. This is marvellous walking on a good day (it can be worth going elsewhere on a really poor one), with huge views once on the high ground to the north and west, of the high boggy moorland, with the great glacial Loch Muick cleft more suggested than clearly explained, and the grand Lochnager massif behind. To the north, blue ridges recede behind the Dee valley.

A very satisfying walk indeed. It is possible you will meet no-one once you have left the main Loch Muick track.

SEE OUR CAIRNGORMS PAGE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION (INCLUDING PRACTICALITIES) ON AND OTHER GREAT WALKS IN THE AREA.