The Snow Roads: two passes, three artworks and Braemar
Two days by car, from Blairgowrie to Grantown-on-Spey.
The route
The Snow Roads are the high roads over the eastern Cairngorms, from Blairgowrie in Perthshire to Grantown-on-Spey, and these two days drive them south to north.
Day one climbs Glenshee to the Cairnwell, with a summer chairlift at the top, comes down Glen Clunie to Braemar for the afternoon and runs on down the Dee to Ballater for the night. Day two starts with coffee in Ballater, then turns north at the Bridge of Gairn onto the Lecht road. It passes Corgarff's white tower and Cock Bridge, crosses the Lecht to Tomintoul and runs down over the moors to Grantown. It's a trip for the road itself: two high passes, wide heather moors and the Snow Roads' three works of art, at the Devil's Elbow, above Corgarff and outside Tomintoul.
Before you go
Book a bed near Ballater
Ballater is where day two starts, with coffee on Bridge Street, so sleep in or near the village. It's small and its beds go early in summer: book once your dates are set.
BallaterDarroch LeargA hotel
7 miles awayTower O'EssSleeps 2
Glen TanarWoodendSleeps 4
AboyneJoiner’s CottageSleeps 4
AboyneRowan CottageSleeps 2
Glen TanarButler's LodgeSleeps 6
GlenkindieTornahatnachSleeps 5
GlenkindieGreenstyleSleeps 6
GlenkindieDalgrassickSleeps 4
GlenkindieHome FarmSleeps 6
GlenkindieChapeltonSleeps 6
StrachanNo 4 Steading CottageSleeps 7
19 miles awayNorth Lodge and River CabinSleeps 6
Glen DyeCuttieshillockSleeps 6
StrachanGamekeeper’s CottageSleeps 6
StrachanNo 2 Steading CottageSleeps 4
StrachanThe Coach HouseSleeps 12
StrachanThe Corner HouseSleeps 6
19 miles awayThe Bothy, GlendyeSleeps 2
StrachanThe Hay Loft at GlendyeSleeps 4
19 miles awayNo 5 Steading CottageSleeps 7
Day one
Cairnwell
A day over the first of the two passes, up Glenshee from Blairgowrie to the Cairnwell. There's art to sit with at the Devil's Elbow and a summer chairlift at the top, and the afternoon belongs to Braemar, down Glen Clunie on the far side, before the night in Ballater. Set off from Blairgowrie at half past nine.
1 hr 20 min at the wheelAbout 50 miles
Connecting Contours
It's 40 minutes' drive up the A93 from Blairgowrie, by Bridge of Cally and the Spittal of Glenshee, to the car park at the Devil's Elbow. Here is the first of the Snow Roads' art, Connecting Contours, by Daniel Smith and Philip Zoechbauer. A paved path curves down into the hillside, lines etched in its slabs to echo the contours of the hills, beside a long, slatted seat that follows its bend. Sit a while and look south down Glen Beag, the way you've climbed.
2 min by car
Glenshee Ski Centre
An attraction
The top of the pass is 2 minutes' drive on, at the Glenshee Ski Centre, where the road reaches 670 metres, the highest main road in Britain. From June to September the Cairnwell chairlift runs every day the wind allows: buy a return ticket at Tea@TheShee, the café at its foot, and ride up over the ski runs for the view across the hills. The car park is free for the first hour, or with a lift ticket. Have lunch in the café before you drop into Glen Clunie.
13 min by car
Braemar
An attraction
It's 13 minutes' drive down Glen Clunie into Braemar. Coming in on Glenshee Road, look for the plaque on number 3, a private house, where Robert Louis Stevenson spent the summer of 1881 writing Treasure Island. Park by the Clunie Water, where the low walls of Kindrochit Castle, Robert II's hunting seat, are free to wander. Browse the shops, then stop at Braemar Castle, just along the A93 as you leave, and drive on down the Dee, past Crathie and the Balmoral turn, to Ballater for the night.
If it rains
In rain or low cloud the views go first, and the chairlift stops in high wind, so keep Connecting Contours short and give the time to Tea@TheShee, the ski centre's café, and to Braemar. In the village, Braemar Castle, just along the A93 towards Ballater, is under a roof, open 10am to 5pm, daily from May to September and Wednesday to Sunday in April and October, and the Fife Arms serves afternoon tea to anyone who books.
Worth a detour
- Linn of Dee
The Linn of Dee, 12 minutes' drive west of Braemar up the river: the whole Dee squeezes through a narrow rock gorge below the road bridge, with an easy path from the National Trust for Scotland's car park. It's the short afternoon from Braemar, and kinder to small legs than Loch Callater. Parking is £5, free for members, with toilets from Easter to October. Hold small hands at the edge: the water is deep and fast.
- Loch Callater
The walk up Glen Callater to its loch, from the Auchallater car park on the A93 by the bridge over the Callater Burn, 3 km south of Braemar. A good track follows the burn up the glen, the start of Jock's Road over the hills to Glen Doll: about 11.5 km there and back with 180 metres of gentle climbing, three to three and a half hours. There's a charge for the car park. On a fine day it fills the afternoon before Braemar. It's a long walk for small children.
Day two
Lecht
The second day leaves Ballater after coffee on Bridge Street and turns north on the A939 by Gairnshiel, past Corgarff's white tower and Cock Bridge, and over the Lecht. Beyond the pass it drops to Tomintoul and on down to Grantown-on-Spey. Set off from Ballater at ten.
1 hr 8 min at the wheelAbout 39 miles
Ballater
The day starts in Ballater, the granite village on the Dee. Park in the middle of the village and walk down Bridge Street, past its shopfronts, to Bridge House Café, a small family-run café of brunches and home bakes. Have a coffee before the hills, and fill up here: it's the last fuel on the road before Grantown.
30 min by car
The Watchers
An attraction
It's 30 minutes' drive to the Watchers: back west a mile and a half to the Bridge of Gairn, then right onto the A939, narrow and partly single track, so allow longer. At Gairnshiel, cross the Gairn on the new road bridge beside the old military one. Pass the turn for Corgarff Castle, go through Cock Bridge and climb just under a kilometre. John Kennedy's four hooded seats of folded steel stand beside A Moment in Time, Louise Gardiner's standing stone sculpture, looking down on the castle's white tower.
7 min by car
The Well of the Lecht
It's 7 minutes' drive over the top of the Lecht, 637 metres up by the ski centre, and down to the Well of the Lecht. Beside the spring, a stone of 1754 records that five companies of the 33rd Regiment made the road from here to the Spey. From the car park an easy track follows the burn, the stream, up to the old Lecht mine, where iron was dug in the 1730s and manganese in the 1840s; its crushing mill still stands. Allow half an hour there and back.
9 min by car
Tomintoul
An attraction
It's 9 minutes' drive down into Tomintoul, which the Duke of Gordon laid out in the 1770s on the military road: one broad street running through a grassy Square. It's said to be the highest village in the Highlands. Park in the Square and stay for lunch. The Whisky Castle on Main Street has hundreds of malts on its shelves and a café, and the Discovery Centre on the Square tells the story of the village and the glens around it.
3 min by car
Still
The lay-by below Still, the last of the Snow Roads' works of art, is 3 minutes' drive out of Tomintoul on the Grantown road. Angus Ritchie built it from the spoil of the quarry here, stone packed into wire gabions, with mirrored sides that catch the village and the hills around it. Climb the short path up to it for a last look back over Tomintoul.
19 min by car
Grantown-on-Spey
It's 19 minutes' drive on the A939, down the steep bends to Bridge of Brown and up again, then over the moor to Grantown-on-Spey, where the Snow Roads end. Sir James Grant laid the town out in 1765 round its long Square. Stretch your legs in the Anagach Woods, the town's own pinewood, from the end of Forest Road. By the A9, Perth is about two and a quarter hours away and Inverness just over an hour; Blairgowrie is about two hours back over the two passes.
If it rains
The Watchers' seats are open to the weather and the tops of the Lecht can sit in cloud, so keep the art short and leave out the walk to the mine in heavy rain. Corgarff Castle, below the Watchers, has roofed rooms to go round from Wednesday to Sunday, May to September. In Tomintoul, the Discovery Centre on the Square and the Whisky Castle's café on Main Street are both indoors, so give Tomintoul the longer stop.
Worth a detour
- Corgarff Castle
Go inside Corgarff, the white tower at Cock Bridge that the Watchers look down on. Built in the 1500s and burned by Jacobites, it was made a government barracks after 1745, ringed by a star-shaped wall, and its soldiers later hunted the whisky smugglers. It's open 10am to 4.30pm, Wednesday to Sunday from May to September and Friday to Sunday in April, shut 12.30 to 1.30pm, with last entry at 4pm. From the car park it's 350 metres up a steep gravel path. There are no toilets, and no dogs but assistance dogs. Allow an hour.
- The Glenlivet Distillery
The Glenlivet's distillery, about 20 minutes north of Tomintoul on the B9008, with a visitor centre and tours booked ahead on its website. Going on to Grantown from there adds about half an hour's driving to the day, and the tour on top.
Where to eat
Bridge House Café, a café in Ballater.
Nethy House, a café in Nethy Bridge.
Photographs by Zubair Khalid, Andy, Capper Pass, Gary Insch and Daniel Muccio via Google