Times are my own pace, with Chase. The recording cut off and I restarted it late, so these figures are short of the full walk.

Same rule as always before anything else: always go back down the way you came up. If you’re not sure of the ground, that’s the way you know.

A warning for this one before anything else: The Buck is very boggy. Not a wet patch here and there — marsh for roughly three quarters of the climb, with no visible path through most of it. Wear proper boots, take care crossing it, and avoid the deeper sections.

The Buck is a Graham of 721 metres, in the hills between Tomintoul and Banff. This was the second hill of the day for me and Chase, after Mither Tap in the morning, and the mist hadn’t lifted for either of them. Not much in the way of views again.

Getting parked

The app did its job and took me to a layby at the side of the road.

About 150 yards back from the layby there’s a gate. That’s where you go through, and from there you follow a narrow path — visible for now, at least.

The single track road running up over the moor, a car parked in the layby ahead

The wooden gate at the roadside, with the hill and the heather beyond it

The narrow path

From the gate the path runs for around five to ten minutes straight on through the heather, which was out purple the whole length of it. That’s the one bit of colour you get on a grey day.

The narrow grass path running out across the moor, hills fading into cloud

Purple heather either side of the path with the mist sitting on the hills behind

The path narrowing to a strip of peat between the heather

The path climbing through deep heather with the shoulder of the hill under cloud ahead

The marsh

Then things start to get boggy, and you struggle to see any path at all from here.

When you reach this point, look over to your left and you’ll see fence posts. Zoom into the photo and you’ll pick them out — three of them running across the middle of it. Be careful crossing the marshland here and try to avoid any deeper sections.

Where the path runs out. The fence posts are over to the left, small
in the frame

From the fence posts there’s a path that you follow straight up to the top. No turns. Just marsh, for roughly three quarters of the way up.

Churned black peat and standing water between clumps of heather and grass

The path climbing between the heather with the fence posts standing in the mist ahead

I put two notes into the app on the way up. At nine minutes: “Steeper climb here and hopefully the end of the boggy patch.” At ten thirty nine: “NOPE! STILL BOGGY BOOTS ON!!”

Even the dog wasn’t impressed.

Chase in the marsh, soaked to the belly and staring off into the
mist

Where it dries out

Things do eventually get drier. You’ll know it when you see a slight bump in the climb with a white rock over to the right.

The bump in the path with the white rock on the right, and something
standing up on the skyline ahead

The top

Just after that point you’ll see the trig point, standing on top of rock. It needed a wee extra push to get up.

The summit rocks coming out of the mist with the trig point on top of them

Looking up the granite at the trig pillar and its flush bracket

Wasn’t so easy for the dog, mind you. Chase got his treat at the top this time, but he couldn’t get up the rock to do his usual pose. He’s happy enough about it either way.

Chase lying on the rock below the trig point, treat in front of him

Me at the trig point in the mist, hood up

Not a hill I’d come back to in a hurry. But it’s another summit reached, and another star off the map.

Getting parked

The narrow path

The marsh

Where it dries out

The top

Take the tick list with you.