An old right-of-way runs from Bellabeg in Strathdon, over the Ladder Hills, to Glenlivet. As the route climbs out of Glen Nochty it passes an old house that goes by the curious name of Duffdefiance. History has it that a local character by the name of Lucky Thain once squatted in the house and refused to move even when the laird himself, a gentleman by the name of Duff, came and tried to make him move on.

Another good cross-country route, the Steplar, runs from Glenlivet to the Cabrach for about 13 miles, crossing Thiefsbush Hill and Dead Wife's Hillock. I gazed down on this storied landscape and wondered what tales were behind those names.

From my lofty perch on Carn Mor, the highest of the Ladder Hills that form a high boundary line between Donside and Glenlivet, I looked down on the greens and browns of the Braes of Glenlivet, an unseasonably pastoral scene that was marred only by the 30-odd spinning giants of a distant windfarm, as out of place in this setting as graffiti daubed across a Constable.

Beyond the Braes lay Scotland's whisky mountain, Ben Rhinnes, and its close neighbour Corryhabbie Hill, whose southern and eastern flanks ease into some of the most undervalued hill country in Scotland, the wonderfully rolling hills of upper Glenlivet and Glen Fiddich, names that are well known to those who enjoy the occasional nippy sweetie.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries this area hid numerous illicit whisky stills operated by local people. To evade government regulations many of these stills were secreted in secluded parts of the Braes and the illegal whisky was smuggled south and east using remote hill tracks.

I had followed one of these old "whisky roads" earlier in the day, as I climbed from the Well of Lecht, on the A939 Tomintoul to Cockbridge road, on to the slopes of Carn Dulack.

The car park at the Well of Lecht is a convenient start and finish point for the ascent of Carn Mor, 2,639ft/804m and its Corbett neighbour, Carn Ealasaid, 2,600ft/792m. In the 1730s iron was mined here and the ore was taken by pack-horse to Nethy Bridge for smelting. In 1841 the mine was reopened to produce manganese ore and the present building was built as a crushing plant, driven by a water wheel. Today, the building is an empty shell.

The comparatively unfamiliar Ladder Hills had attracted me simply because the weather forecasts had reckoned the eastern Grampians would see more sun than anywhere else. They were right. While the high tops of the Cairngorms appeared as a lumpen mass of hodden grey, the lower, rounded, snow-covered tops of the Ladder Hills sparkled brightly in the sun. The temperature was hovering around freezing when I left the car but higher up the hill, the strong north-westerly wind reduced the windchill factor to an uncomfortable level.

I traversed the hillside above the old mine building, following what remains of the old whisky track through heather that was patched with snow. As the old road crossed over the ridge of Carn Dulack to begin its long descent to Glenlivet, I left it and followed a line of fence posts around the head of the glen and on to the peat-hagged bealach between Carn Liath and Monadh an t-Sluich Leith. Beyond the latter's snow-covered, dome-like summit, a narrowing ridge descends to another col before climbing steadily to Carn Mor and its trig point summit.

In the strengthening wind the summit wasn't the place to linger, so after a few moments contemplating the place-names and the history of the glen below me I retraced my steps over Monadh an t-Sluich Leith before climbing to the summit of Carn Liath. From here old Argo-Cat tracks led me back down to the Well of Lecht.

A longer route, taking in both the Ladder Hill Corbetts, follows the A939 to Blairnamarrow where a footpath runs south on to a high col just west of Carn Ealasaid. It's an easy climb from there to the summit.

Descending north it's easy enough to skirt the south-east slopes of Beinn a'Chruinnich down to the ski grounds at the Lecht then follow the line of the Ladder Hills all the way to Carn Mor. It's quite a long day, a good 14 miles, but the shorter route from Well of Lecht to Carn Mor is ideal for the short daylight hours of December, especially when the wind feels as though it's freezing exposed flesh.