Meall na Leitreach and Meall Breac

[Jim777]

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Started off with the sky a clear blue and not a cloud in sight. There are loads of geese at the start of the walk at the moment - not certain if they are perhaps resident or if they’ll be gone in a few weeks. Basically ascended by the normal route from the railway crossing at Dalnaspidal. 99.0% of people doing this hill would go up it, come straight back down, and probably go on to do The Sow of Atholl. Noticed the mountain hares are still predominantly white but the blighters wouldn’t hang around to have their picture taken. However I wanted to do something different by making a circuit of it by doing Meall Breac which lies roughly 3.5 km East South East of the summit of Meall na Leitreach.
The descent South East from the summit of Meall na Leitreach down the Leachd nam Fuaran starts on quite good ground but soon deteriorates into boggy, tussocky, peat hag ridden ground.
As you approach the col which sits at 644m a track is encountered ascending from Coire Leathanaidh. On the 1:25,000 map this is shown as rising from 400m to a height of 510m at grid NN 665 710. In fact it carries on to just above the col at 650m where there is a large turning circle and then heads down the other side as if heading in the direction of Loch Meall na Leitreach.
Just yards away will be spotted the remains of an iron fence coming up from the South and then turning abruptly East NN 651 695 at which will be found a marker stone. This is the fourth and most Northerly of marker stones indicating the Errochty forest boundary. The stone is marked with A for Atholl on the West side and R for Robertson ( of Auchleeks ) on the East. The stone is very canted over now and it is only possible to clearly make out the A for Atholl.
From there it is approximately 2 km once again over peat hag ridden ground to the summit of Meall Breac at 685m. The last half kilometre after you pass the rusted gate to nowhere isn’t as bad as what has come before. From the summit of Meall Breac I descended directly North West and picked up the track on the opposite side of the Allt Choire Leathanaidh at NN 660 704. I descended down the track and at NN 672 715 spotted a rather posh looking bothy or more likely a shooting lodge for clients for the shooting season. From there it’s simply a case of following the track back to where you first crossed the Garry and then back to the car.

Geese at start of the walk

The Sow of Atholl

Dalnaspidal Lodge

Looking down on Dalnaspidal and Drumochter Pass

Looking down on Dalnaspidal and Drumochter Pass 2

Looking to A’ Bhuidheanach Bheag

Naughty frogs 😀😀

False summit at 740m, still, not far to go.

Summit of Meall na Leitreach

Loch Meall na Leitreach

Muirburn on Gualann Sheileach

Beinn Mholach

Fourth March stone with “A” for Atholl

March stone on right side of fence post with large turning circle at col seen in background.

Looking down on Loch Con

The gate to nowhere

Meall Breac trigpoint

Looking back to Meall na Leitreach

Looking back to Meall na Leitreach from Meall Breac

Looking to An Dun (L) and Creag an Loch (R)

Looking to Schiehallion

Loch Erochty with Farragon Hill (?) in background

Posh hut rear

Posh hut front

Definitely going to reach Dalnaspidal before me.

Dalnaspidal Lodge at last - Hooray