Great balls of fire and a big chopper on Derry Cairngorm and Ben Macdui

After a fantastic night's sleep and cooked breakfast at Gordon's B&B in Braemar, I was tooled and fuelled up for a big day out in the Cairngorms. I drove along the lovely road to Linn of Dee and parked up. I was travelling relatively light though I did have the waterproofs just in case. Conditions were excellent being cool, slightly overcast and just enough visibility to suggest some good photaes later on. I pegged it down to Derry Lodge and began the ascent up Derry Cairngorm. I had noticed a helicopter circling around the area and while it wasn't long before I was up at the 900m mark, neither was it long before the big chopper emitted a flare not 50 yards from me. What was going on? I continued on before out of nowhere the bloody thing came down to land not 100 feet from me. Were they going to take my camera from me? Was this someone's sick idea of a joke in trying to prevent me from bagging some more hills? No matter, I took off and proceeded up the final slopes of Derry Cairngorm and it's large boulder cairn. There wasn't time to waste and I ran down towards Carn Echtachan. By this time, I had began to experience some mild irritation in the scrotal area and as I pushed on past Coire Sputan Dearg, it became worse and worse. I had never experienced baw-chafe before but it was becoming very sore. I tried everything to alleviate things. I opened my trouser zip and ran thinking the cold air would help. I stopped and exposed all for at least 5 minutes but while that cooled the affected area, God also made woman in man's image. As the weather turned much colder, I began the last climb up towards the huge cairn and OS trigpoint, keeping a look out for the Old Grey Man. Fortunately, I arrived just as a fellow bagger was leaving and he managed to take a shot of me looking all happy at the top. I managed some lunch in a great wee shelter and then took off down the Sron Riach ridge. As I walked like John Wayne down the glen, I wondered how much damage had been done to my future weans. The walkout was long and relatively uneventful apart from a couple of Bambi experiences but once I got back to Chris Bruce's B&B I partook of a fine Cairngorm ale with a hearty meal. An excellent day out although singe-ing in the shower was not a pleasant experience.