Everything worked out very well today.

Trains were on time … the plane arrived 15 minutes early in Glasgow. I made it to the city center and bought the only thing that I still needed, the camping gas! What a fantastic store …

Then I bought the train ticket and bridged 2 of the 3.5 hours waiting time at the MERCHANT CITY BREWDOG the largest craft brewery in the world … with me as a very minor shareholder since 8 years.

Tomorrow I will attempt to leave by 8:30am … I have 32 km to cover and want to be at my camping site by latest 18:00 … I will report!!

Packed everything — total of 12.8kg to carry. Lighter than last year … but not as much as I hoped for 😥.

Tomorrow at 06:20 I will take a local train to Essen and then with an ICE to the Frankfurt airport. I should arrive at 12:00 local time in Glasgow where I have to buy the cooking gas cartridge. After that I plan on going to the BREWDOG bar — a must as a proud shareholder for many years. The train to OBAN – my starting point for the trip – leaves at 15:30 from Queen St. station arriving at the west coast at around 18:30. I will stay at the local Youth Hostel, which is also the sign-off point for the TGO challenge.

Everything is checked and working … just some minor items are missing, which are ordered and should arrive in time … i hope!

I will do a test-sleepover tonight — supposed to go down to 4 degrees C … about the expected temperature in Scotland. Getting quiet excited now …

I have everything together now — total weight including food for 3 days and some cloths that I will wear = 12kg … that is already 2.5kg less than last year.

Main reason is the DURSTON tent and the THERMAREST quilt both saved 1.75kg.

⁃ Durston Tent – 911g

⁃ Thermarest 0 Degree Quilt – 643g

⁃ Tent ground sheet and hooks – 543g

⁃ Iso-Matress – 632g

⁃ Coolmax sheet – 262g

⁃ Crocks – 451g

⁃ Cooker + pots – 305g

⁃ Pillow – 174g

⁃ Cloths (1 longsleeve + 2 shortsleeve Merino, 1 shirt, 1 pant, 1 shirt pant, 2 Merino underwear, 2 pair socks, 1 hat, 1 vest) – 2.256g

⁃ Rainjacket – 759g

⁃ Tolietries and First Aid – 350g

⁃ Misc. – 400g

⁃ Battery Pack, cables, charger – 675g

⁃ Walking sticks – 310g

⁃ food for 4 days – 1235g

⁃ backpack – 2250g

TOTAL — 12.156kg

Did not want to do it again after the completed 2022 challenge. But hey … what else should I do in May?

I learned from my experiences from TGOC 2022 — bought a new tent (DURSTON MID) with only 800g, and also a down quilt instead of a normal sleeping bag (500g) — see LEARNINGS SUMMARY TGOC 2022 — or better just see the post below.

I got a DURSTON tent (800g) and a 0 degree quilt (Thermarest) and planned an overall trip with just few MUNROS (mountains over 3.000 feet), but typically 30km per day.

I will spend Night 3 in a super-remote Youthostel (Loch Ossian), Night 6 in a clamping unit in Blair Atholl, and Day 10 in a nice Hotel (Glen Glova) … all other nights in my one man tent.

I will travel on May 12th by train to FRANKFURT airport and then fly to GLASGOW. Transfer to the QUEEN STATION train station for the scenic ride to OBAN, where I should arrive early evening. If I still need supplies I will be able to buy them in the morning and then off I go for a long first day (10 hour hike).

12 actual walking days plus one break day in Braemar — 325 km, roughly 10.000 altitude meters, total walking hours = 100, 6 days wild camping, 1 day in a bothy, 1 day in campground, 4 days in a B&B / Hotel, average 4.750 calories per day burned and significantly less taken in … I expect 3kg weight loss! 6 days with rain, 3 with lots, 1 day with very very heavy headwinds (up Glen Roy) and several with heavy winds … the rest actually Ok (including some of the ones with heavy winds). It was also colder than expected never really exceeding 16 degrees C and typically dropping to anything between 2 and 8 degrees at night.

Learned: my sleeping bag was not sufficient, the tent was too small (thanks Gordon for the tent company you recommended … will get one!), the first two days were planned too strenuous. The break day in Braemar saved me .. it helped me to recover … especially my poor feet needed some rest in CROCS. Lot of the challengers liked to leave early, while I actually rarely started before 08:30 — with 9/10 hours to go that still allowed me to setup the tent, cook and get ready easily before 21:00 … if you arrive at 14:00 you still have 6/7 hours in the wilderness before going to bed. Not so easy! Another thing I should do is to get the locations of the MBA and open bothy’s and plan them in as potential alternatives or at least for cooking. Another thing that I would like to do is spend a night at Lochcallater Lodge and at St. Drostan … next time.

Also, if something looks like a cool route, but has absolutely no path and goes though the peat, then it is not a good idea. My 10k from the Shieling of Marks bothy to the base of Mount Keen were so unbelievably strenuous … and I was lucky as it had not rained for several days – otherwise the peat mud would probably have swallowed me or worn out before I could have reached safe terrain.

Everyone I met was super super helpful and willingly gave tips and routes to take or avoid and placed to stay.

And finally thanks to the entire TGOC team — great job and I will certainly do it again. I think 2024 or 2025 would be a good year!

Anyone up for it?

08:15 start for the last day — with some sidetours just 16km mainly downhill, the first 8k along a street though. In Hillside I turned in a smaller sideroad that brought me to a malting plant and then to the famous strawberry farm.

And then it was just a few more kilometres to the beach (touched the water) and then on to the headquarters at the Park Hotel in Montrose.

Wow! I am excited and now we are on to take the train to Edinburgh!

Was a really nice evening yesterday. We went to our tents around 22:30 and I slept again very well.

Morning started with precooked breakfast … water added. The Decathlon Muesli is really good, the milk rice just OK though.

This was the first day that I walked with others. First with Neil from Sussex to Edzell and subsequently with Mark from Ohio to Edzell castle (quite nice) and then on to the Northwaterbridge campground.

Mark and I decided to make a small detour to visit Edzell castle. Closed! But we decided to trespass and saw some very nice and impressive ruins.

Next stop Northriverbridge campsite where a lot of challengers decided to camp tonight. On the way we also saw the first rainbow on this trip.

It was raining on and off today and it looks like it will be the same tomorrow. After an extensive clean-up (wonderful showers here) we cooked and started with the beers that Daniel bought in Edzell.

Daniel was still limping … and it does not seem to improve. He wants to continue though. The first destination was the Shielin of Mark bothy. Nice setup for maximum 5 people inside but plenty of camping spaces outside.

The 4 km took 1,5 hours – pathetic!

So I asked Daniel to take a different tour via Glen Lee while I was going the planned route towards Mount Keen and we would meet again later when both paths and his would meet again.

Mine was so damn exhausting! 12 km in the peat without any path … I enclosed some video to give you an impression on the conditions.

But at least I was compensated with great wildlife views. Many many grouse pairs, deers that were hidding in the peat holes that realized the human intruder quite late.

And then I saw a Golden Eagle. What a great sight and wonderful animal. Stunning with Lochnagar in the background.

I eventually arrived at the smack center for the ascend to Mount Keen. With paths left and right I decided to leave my backpack at the bottom and go up directly.

Up to now decent weather! Within 10 minutes it turned and started to heavily hale. I got completely soaking wet and of course I forgot to protect my backpack – also wet 🤬. By the time I made it to the camping ground in Tarfside the cloths at least were dry again.

And then – after I met Daniel – we continued to Tarfside. First a short stop at St. Drostans with a short energy reload (Apple, Banana, Cake 😁). The camping ground was another 200m and we were so happy that the local masonic lodge were open offering BBQ burgers (I had 3) and beer. Awesome, no premade dried food!

Excellent breakfast – thanks Jennifer from the Ivy B&B … 5 stars – and then we took off a little after 08:30 in light rain.

Less than 2 hours later we arrived at the Lochcallatar Lodge. TGO tea and some familiar faces. What a neat setup … would like to come back here and experience a couple of nights and the infamous men‘s bar.

Then we started out Lochnagar range munro bagging tour. Initially it was really aweful … rained a lot combined with heavy winds.

The Munros (in the order of ascent) that we climbed: Carn an t-Sagairt Mor (1.047m), Carn an t-Sagairt Beag (1.044m), The Stuic (1.098m), Carn a Choire Bhoidheach (1.110), Cac Carn Beag (1.156m), Cac Carn Mor (1.150m), Cuide Crom (1.083m), and finally Meikle Pap (980m) before descending into Glen Muick.

And we really were lucky with the weather. While it was very heavily blowing up on the ridge and peaks it even turned sunny towards the evening.

Enclosed some pictures of Cac Carn Beag from the peak and during the descend down into Glen Muick.

Unclear what will happen tomorrow – Daniel is complaining about heavy knee pain. The youngsters! Anyway, gave him some IBU pain cream and let’s hope it is better tomorrow. The last Munro on the tour – Mount Keen – is something I really wanted to include that one. Then I would finish with