Mount Keen, 4th July 2020

Lockdown. For months most of us had been stuck at home without any hill time, and it was starting to affect most of the walkers that I know. I've been fairly lucky however, when we were allowed to travel up to 5 miles for exercise, I was able to get out on the Kilpatricks and for the last few weeks that couple of hours of exposure to the wild places has managed to keep me fairly sane.

On the 3rd July however, most of us in Scotland would be able to travel further than 5 miles for exercise and so we all anticipated that this weekend would be a busy one on the hills.

Toezi and I mulled over some routes, with a view to avoiding the worst of the traffic and making sure we were able to get back home at a reasonable hour.

In the end we plumped for Mount Keen. It's a long drive from Glasgow, but we planned on taking a car each (can't social distance in a car!). So we both left at 0615 and it was a pretty decent morning weather-wise.

I drove non-stop and we met up in the car park in Glen Tanar near Aboyne at 0905. We got the bikes off the cars and headed off on our first post-lockdown adeventure at 0920.

The going on the bikes was great, good tracks, not a lot of gradient and very light winds. We were in t-shirts all the way onto the hillside. We stopped for some photos at the halfway hut:

Toezi at the Halfway Hut

Mt Keen and the Mounth Road in the distance

My bike on the trail

From there it was over the Water of Tanar a couple of times, again on great tracks, then we headed onto the Mounth road and where it became too steep to cycle, we dumped the bikes off the track in the heather and started walking. Still in t-shirts, and at about 1035.

As if you needed it...

We wandered easily enough up to the summit, and it started to cool down quite a bit and a squally shower came in. The rain stayed on for about 30 mins and then it started to clear again. We were on the summit at 1130.

Summit

Toezi having lunch

Me on the summit

Views from the summit

We hung around and had lunch. There were about 7 other folk on the top as well, mostly coming from the Glen Esk side. I'd say the hill was busier than usual, but not overly so.

We headed back down the way we came up and got to the bikes at 1230. 

The return journey to the car park was a hoot, a slow downhill gradient and a light tailwind meant we covered the ground easily and were back at the car at 1305, and had dried off by this point.

Here's the video:

Relive 'Mount Keen with Toezi'

Distance: 29.9km
Time: 3hrs 31mins
Ascent: 824m
Munros Completed: 162