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A9 detour up a heathery lump with a clear path

A9 detour up a heathery lump with a clear path


Postby gld73 » Tue May 11, 2021 10:01 pm

Fionas included on this walk: Blath Bhalg

Date walked: 10/05/2021

Time taken: 1.9 hours

Distance: 7 km

Ascent: 330m

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Driving south from Inverness late afternoon, the weather had got pretty awful in Perthshire - windscreen wipers on the fastest speed, rubbish visibility and nothing tempting me to stop and get out of the car, let alone go up a hill. But as I reached Pitlochry things cleared up a bit (temporarily....) and I made a last minute decision to leave the A9 and do the short detour a few miles along the A924 to Blath Bhalg, a graham I hadn't done before but which I remembered reading was a short, straightforward walk from quite a high start point.

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Room for a few cars to park in the rough parking area though I was on my own today. Reading older reports, it seems there used to be a mast through this gate, but there's nothing there now (mobile phone mast on the other side of the road though). I headed through this gate and followed the nice track, which then quickly turned into a very wet, boggy track. I was glad I'd put wellies on...

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A lot less boggy on the slopes though. Things were looking nice and clear looking back down to the start of the walk and across to nearby Ben Vrackie.

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A heathery lump, but the path heading up this first stretch to Dalnacarn Craig was easy to follow (as in fact it was all the way to Blath Bhalg's summit)

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Flat section is reached with the next bit of ascent in sight up ahead. The path goes to the right a bit here, then left again to join up with a fenceline

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Path heads to join the obvious fence

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Followed the fence all the way to the summit (the centre-right bump in this shot). Weather still dry...

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Still dry when I got to the summit, but clouds were coming in and obscuring all surrounding hills

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Low clouds were rapidly approaching from the direction I was about to head back towards. A nice hill walk so far, just not one for great views in today's changeable weather.

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Looking back up towards Blath Bhalg as I headed towards Dalnacarn Craig, summit views would have been worse now! It rained or hailed all the way down, but I'd added waterproof trousers and jacket to my wellied attire once I'd felt the first few drops hit, so I stayed warm and dry under it all. Not the longest or most exciting hill walk, but a nice easy break on the journey and glad I stopped off to do it :)
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gld73
 
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Location: Inverness

Re: A9 detour up a heathery lump with a clear path

Postby KatTai » Wed May 12, 2021 11:43 am

Sounds like a nice simple one to do, thanks for the report :D
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KatTai
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Re: A9 detour up a heathery lump with a clear path

Postby Gordie12 » Mon May 17, 2021 2:58 pm

Hi

Thanks for posting this.

It was a good reminder that I had planned to do this hill a few years ago but never got round to it so headed over this morning and did it.

Not the hardest or longest walk in the world but a nice wee hill even if the weather was rubbish (till I got back to the car when the sun came out).
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Location: Nr Forfar

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