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I fancied a bit of a challenge this day and decided to take on these 4 following the Walkhighlands standard clockwise route.
There's not much to report on this walk in terms of things to look out for, or dangers. Its very straight forward and fairly easy despite the fact your dong 4 munros. Once your up its quite easy....OK the last one was a bit sore as you may start to tire by then.
Park in the car park below the phone box and find the path opposite the phone box or the directions to the detour through woods. You'll eventually come out of the woods, follow any signs and the path along side the burn, eventually crossing the burn and again follow the signs and path taking you away from the trees and up the hill. You can't go wrong from here, assuming you can see the path OK or follow GPS. The last bit of the climb is fairly steep and you'll be glad to see the summit.
On the way up here i thought i'd taken on too much as I kept looking over my shoulder at some of the massive hills I still had to climb (Creag Mhor a.k.a Meall na Aighean) and all the time walking away from them. Once you're on the hills though - you'll be surprised at the distance you cover.
- Carn Gorm Summit (1 of 4)
Came off the first summit and not too much of a drop to climb, although very rocky, back up before getting to the next summit. I imagine this would be quite scary looking in different conditions
- Meall Garbh Summit (2 of 4)
- Schiehallion in the distance just leaving Meall Garbh Summit
- Ben Lawers with An Stuc and Meall Garbh right in the forefront
The walk over to the next hill is a long one and I must have drifted off to sleep on my feet - I actually thought i'd climbed another Munro here, but it was just a top (I realised later).
- Schiehallion in the distance again. Think this is Carn Mairg - Meall a'Bharr top.
Walk gets more interesting here and quite rugged looking, Awesome boulders and out-cropping here.
- This part of the walk is quite impressive, my photography does not do it justice (can you see the wee people ?). You have to go on that "tor", because its there.
- Carn Mairg summit (3 of 4) looking back to the tor
Due to my earlier miscalculations I thought I was done with the "up" bits of walk and was celebrating in my head how easy this was and taking in the views and more pictures , but all the time knowing it couldn't be that easy. Went over the route again to make sure and yeah, there's one more to do and it looks like a big one. Dammit !
- Looking down over Glen Lyon
- Looking back from the TOR at Carn Mairg
- Looking back at the hills just walked from the TOR at Carn Mairg
The way down from Carn Mairg summit needs a bit of care, you have to go east and then south east to descend to the col so that you avoid the steeper section of the way off. When you look back you'll see why. At this point I noticed a guy who'd been ahead of me for miles heading off in another direction - turns out he's been doing all the munros
and the tops so he was taking in Carn Mairg - Meall Liath as well. I eventually caught up with him on the last summit and walked part of the way off the hill - but of course he detoured to do another top on the way off
- Meall na Aighean summit (4 of 4)
All in all a good walk and very satisfying to bag 4 munro's. Compared to other recent walks this was not too tiring at all.