free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
3 days of beautiful sunny weather on the 3 days I'd been working in Kingussie ....then Monday morning came, and so did the rain and clouds. Grrr! Still, it might not have been a day for munros, or maybe even corbetts, but there was a quickie graham nearby I still hadn't done and conditions were good enough for that - Creag Ruadh. It had never been on my radar when I'd been down the road on previous occasions to do the munro or corbetts from Garva Bridge or Melgrave, otherwise I'd have done it already as an easy addition on the drive there or back.
Quickest way up and down would be to park at Sherrabeg on the Laggan to Garva Bridge minor road, though just to make it slightly longer, I parked a couple of kilometres away, near the Spey dam, and walked along the single track road to Sherrabeg. I knew the route involved heading for a gap between forestry areas, but as I approached Sherrabeg, I couldn't for the life of me see a gap. And even when I went through the gate into the field (sheep and lambs in this one) and headed over to the next gate, I still couldn't see a gap.
- View west to Creag Ruadh and Sherrabeg from the walk along the road
- Through the first gate and into the field ...still not an obvious break in the forestry visible, but it is there as you follow the track
Fortunately the grassy track is easy enough to follow and goes up alongside the trees, avoiding ploughing through the forest. There are some traces of paths continuing towards the hill after that, but by then the hill is directly in front and I just made my own way over on a fairly direct line (one deer fence to climb over). The terrain was quite pleasant walking all the way, nothing too swampy or too deep in vegetation.
- Looking back once I'd passed all the forestry area and climbed over that deer fence
The wind increased markedly as I emerged on to the summit area, so I wandered over to the trig point but didn't hang around for too long. When I'd originally thought about doing this hill I'd intended to make a circular route of it, but the rain reappearing made me decide heading back the same way was the most appealing option today.
- Creag Ruadh summit trig - view down Loch Laggan
- Heading NE back down the hill, looking over to Glen Markie and Beinn a Chrasgain