Carn Mor

Rising above the upper Don valley near the steep Lecht Road, this rounded moorland summit offers a classic Aberdeenshire hillwalking experience. The terrain is dominated by thick heather and peat, leading to a quiet top with clear views across to the massive plateau of Ben Avon and the historic Corgarff Castle.

• •The name derives from the Gaelic Càrn Mòr, meaning 'big cairn' or 'big rocky hill', a common descriptor for the bulky, rounded profiles found throughout the Highlands.
• •From the summit, walkers gain a distinctive aerial perspective of the star-shaped curtain wall of Corgarff Castle, a 16th-century tower house once used as a government base to hunt Jacobites and whisky smugglers.
• •The hill is frequently approached from the A939, a road famous among Scottish meteorologists for being the first to succumb to snowdrifts whenever a winter cold front arrives from the north.
• •Standing at 604.7 metres, the summit falls just five metres short of the 2,000-foot mark, a geographical near-miss that successfully keeps the peak off the more crowded peak-bagging circuits.