Morrone from Braemar

Little Loch at top of Chapel Brae in Braemar

This route starts from Braemar, which sits on a sharp turn on the twisty A93 road, equidistant between Aberdeen to the east and Perth to the south.

In Braemar, head westwards along its main street to the Braemar Brewery and Patisserie. Veer left and continue uphill along Chapel Brae. The end of the public road is reached by a duck-pond where there is a large car-park.

Parking here is currently free, though there is a barrier preventing access to high vehicles such as motorhomes into the car-park.

Cairns on Morrone, only 100m more to climb !

On foot, head back out the car-park and turn left to walk around the duck-pond. The road becomes a track and meets with a split with a signpost. Keep left, over a cattle-grid (gate at side) and continue on the track to Woodhill Cottage.

At the side of the cottage there is a shortcut over grass aiming directly uphill that rejoins track higher up. Slightly further on, another shortcut leads to a bench and cairn in a clearing, shortly after which a sign by the track points to 4 directions.

Take the path indicated by 'Morrone 1½ miles' and follow it through a lovely birch woodland. The path climbs around 50 metres uphill and out of the woodland to meet a gate in a deer fence.

Through the gate, follow the now rough path as it climbs fairly gently south-westwards up Morrone's north-eastern arm. Higher up, the path turns southwards and just above the 700m contour meets with a line of 4 cairns - there's just 1km to reach Morrone's summit and on a slightly more gentle incline than on the hillside so far.

Masts on Morrone's summit

Masts on Morrone's summit

Landrover track down the southern shoulder of Morrone

The most direct return is to about-turn and re-trace your steps back to Chapel Brae. Beware if hill-running as the path seems a lot more technical on the downhill compared to the uphill !

A fine, if slightly longer alternative is to head south-west from Morrone's summit and follow a land-rover track downhill. Just under 1km after leaving Morrone's summit, the track climbs a few metres over an un-named minor hump , turns south-east for 500m, then aims vaguely eastwards to descend around 400m to the narrow road by Clunie Water , from where there's a flat walk of 3km along tarmac back to Braemar and short-cut up Manse Road to return to the duck pond and car-park.