A bad start to the day. I couldn’t find Vera’s hat. My Great Aunt Vera knitted me a woolly hat 30 years ago and I wear it most days in winter. Have done for years. I wore it when I fell down the cliffs and it padded my head so that I only had a terribly, serious head injury. Silly old get.

I’ve lost it several times and it causes me to panic. A condition with which I am sadly familiar and which is largely controlled by citalopram and occasionally temazepam.

I didn’t feel comfortable about starting the Lairig Ghru today either. It had been a cold night and tonight was forecast to be minus 8C on Cairngorm. Any snow would be icy. Nevertheless I shouldered my rucksack and took off.

The first stage was walking through the Rothiemurchus forest for 8 or 9 miles to the start of the pass. A lovely starter.

It was cold up this Glen despite the sunny periods, and I came across a couple of local hikers. They expressed concern about the snow in the Lairig Ghru and that at nearly 3,000 feet the summit of the pass is likely to be frozen snow on the boulder fields. My enthusiasm for three days of snow trudging with a heavy rucksack subsided.

I got a clear view of the mountains and the snow was at a lower level than I remembered. Let’s give it a go anyway. I’d rather not slip on ice in a boulder field with a heavy rucksack on my back. Or freeze to peckin death in a tent. But it is a great route.

After a mile I moved aside for three middle aged mountain bike riders who stopped and expressed interest in where an older bloke with a big pack might be headed. They felt that the pass would be difficult with the recent snowfall and suggested that it might be better to live to fight another day. This sounded like genuine concern for someone who would be committing himself to 40 miles of climb and fall and climb and fall. And surprisingly I was very happy to accept their advice and return to Aviemore. What has felt right for several weeks, and seemed very right yesterday, didn’t seem right today.

I returned to the Coylumbridge hotel via a roundabout route through the forest.

One advantage is that I can rest my shoulders now. And Vera’s hat had been handed in to the hotel. Thank God.

It didn’t feel right to carry on. Too many old buggers think it’s easy because they’ve got experience and it won’t happen to them. But it happened to me where there was lots of help and immediate medical attention. If it happened in these conditions eyed beef act. It’s no country for old men.

I’ve done a good run up the full 82 mile length of the East Highland Way and that was great. I’ve climbed up 4,000 feet to the summit of Cairngorm in fairly deep snow and looked over the Cairngorm range from the top. And I’ve reacquainted myself with a childhood favourite location. The Lairig Ghru remains on my to do list. A blessing not a setback. God bless Scotland.

Night night.

The snow was too much to set off on the remote route to Blair Atholl today. I’m wise, if a little boring. Bugger it – I’m going to do it tomorrow. Should complete it in three days.

But for today I’m aiming for the summit of Cairngorm, at just over 4,000 feet it’s higher than any mountain in England or Wales. If I can I’ll try for Ben Macdui as well, the second highest mountain in the UK.

I got a bus from the hotel to the car park on Cairngorm. There was an awful lot of snow and no ski lifts were working for hillwalkers, only tows for skiers.

What a sense of freedom.

This was a tough climb without crampons or snow shoes. In fact there were a lot of occasions where the snow was so soft and deep that my feet sank in up to my thighs. And other times where it was compacted, icy and steep. I slipped three or four times, ending R Suppards. Undignified but injury free.

Near the summit the honking of a large flock of geese grew louder and they appeared out of the light cloud, at around 5,000 feet above sea level. Hardy migrants.

The last half a mile was really exhausting as the snow got deeper and the slope got steeper. It was starting to snow again as I reached the cairn marking the top. And the world was white.

Ben Macdui was over to the left of this photo. I would have no chance of reaching it so I settled for one munro today and set off back to the car park below.

I hitched a lift to the hotel and prepared my kit for the morrow. The passage of the Lairig Ghru. I’ll be out of signal for a few days but I’ll catch up when I reach landfall.

Night night.

It had been snowing even more in the night and I woke up to a white world. Nothing wrong with winter at the end of March in the Cairngorms. Long may it continue.

I had worn the same clothes for 4 days at the beginning and even the recent ones were dirty, so I needed a launderette. I completed the East Highland Way to Aviemore, just a couple of miles from the hotel, and found the launderette.

I cleaned my clobber, stocked up for the second leg of the trek and found a fishmonger with some interesting contents for a barbecue. I also found a disposable barbie at the BP station. All set. Completely ignoring my namesake Chipper.

The snow was still heavily on and off but I knew there was a river behind the hotel with a shoreline under trees where a bbq could be protected from the wind and precipitation. Looking the other way, in the direction of my next stage through the Lairig Ghru, it looked a bit dodgy.

Looking down to the river it looked perfect.

Get a barbie going and top it up with local wood.

Get some Scottish langoustines on for a starter. Kismet Hardy. With packaged salt, pepper and butter from the hotel.

Get scallops, crab and smoked haddock cooking in milk, parsley and garlic.

Drain it off and add three eggs, double cream and matured cheddar.

Call the ambulance before you have a thrombie. But it’s stunningly beautiful. And now keep the fire going through snowfall, starry sky and nightfall.

Brilliant food, brilliant fire, brilliant day.

Night night.

At this late stage of the trek, and with the weather worsening, you should get your rucksack on, gird your whatsits and crack on. I’ve enjoyed some of the warmest and sunniest days this part of the world has seen in March, and now some balance is required. Hello snow.

For a hotel that is fading a little, the breakfast was magnificent. A buffet, and I whacked down tons of haggis and black pudding. The Scots know how to live…and how to die with a diet like this. Fatties!

Oy! I am 14% Fatty so quit the wisecracks you Sassenach! And onward down the Spey valley.

The Way today starts on tarmacked road to the east of Kingussie and into the foothills of the Cairngorm mountains. It passes the Ruthven Barracks, three hundred years old and built to house the English oppressors of our Jacobite brothers and sisters. Rebellious Scots to Crush eh? Didn’t see yez trying to crush the rebellious Scots at Hampden Park ye Sassenach bedwetters!

Head down, carry on. The wind is racing up the Spey valley, right into my face and I need to crack on.

High road bridges cross the wild torrents that tumble from the Cairngorms.

Then the sun came out, and later went back in again, playing hide and seek behind the clouds. And it’s coming ready or not.

The snow showers became longer and more intense. But the sun held its own when the showers died down.

There are certain grassy fields that contain lots of migratory geese. This one had thousands roaming across it. Such a shame that I haven’t got a shotgun in my rucksack. I think that wild goose is the best meat I have ever tasted.

And the torrential rivers kept coming.

Nearly 50 years ago I was on holiday here with Maggie and my sister Deborah one Easter. We drove down this dead end road to Glen Feshie and my old Morris Minor packed in during a blizzard. I told the girls to stay safe and I set off to find a phone to call the RAC. This is the phone box I used all those years ago. I just couldn’t understand the woman from Inverness at the RAC centre there, it was so strong an accent that it was like a foreign language. I gave up and was walking back to the car when I heard it coming down the road. Maggie had kept trying to start it and had succeeded. She didn’t know how to drive but managed to get it moving in first gear and drove two miles down the Glen in first. What a catch!

Cutting across country the rapid snow movements were catching up with me, and getting more intense.

I really wanted to follow the last part of the Way down to Loch an Eilein, a beautiful Loch with a historic castle ruin on an island. But the snow got worse and I’d promised Maggie that I’d stay safe. It normally doesn’t bother me, even after my head bash. But my darling looked after me last year so I owed her much more than one. I cut through the hills to the road and marched as fast as I could on the tarmac.

Nearly there and I aimed for a hotel I knew, rather than the campsite. The snow was going to be too much for ma wee tent! Made it.

Night night.