Morven hillwalking and race route

Ruin at Balhennie

Around 50km east of Aberdeen, the picturesque village of Ballater sits in Deeside. A few miles to the east of Ballater, the A97 heads north from Dinnet, and around 6km up this road, a sign marked 'Groddie' indicates the way up a dead-end single track road.

The road travels through forestry and Auchnerran to its end by a split in the road below the buildings at Groddie.

Parking is available by the bins at the junction or 100m before the junction opposite a gate.

Trig point on Morven's summit

From the junction, head back down the road to where there is a gate in a wall. Head through the gate into a field (there may be sheep in this), then follow obvious ATV tracks uphill to the ruined house of Balhennie - this is where the hill-race route begins from !

Above the ruin, two gates are gone through, to reach the bottom of a heathery climb. Look to the right (north-west) and you'll see a faint path crossing across some grassy ground - follow this as it then turns west and cuts a route through heather climbing steeply uphill. The path twists and turns up 350m of ascent before the gradient easies . Some soggy ground is crossed, then the gradient toughens once again .

Another 100m uphill and the path avoids the bouldery ground around Little Cairn on its south side, then turns along Morven's wide crest, where terrain underfoot makes for delightful trail-running.

A little further on, terrain gets rough and stoney under Mid Cairn before the summit crest is reached with Morven's cairn in view ahead.

The large and untidy cairn on Morven's summit rests just south of a trig point. Situated in an isolated position, views from the summit are quite vast.

Cairn on Morven's summit

For most people, the return is simply a case of retracing steps back along the route taken up.

The hill-race route returns initially by retracing steps back past Mid Cairn (care needed if at speed) to Little Cairn . After descending 40m or so below Little Cairn, a rough, but obvious path heads off slightly to the right (south-east) . This path turns south, then south-west and as it does becomes more of a track.

The track meets up with Coinlach Burn , then swings east to make a fairly direct route back to the ruin at Balhennie - note that some of this last section of descent is twisty, fast and rough !