walkhighlands

Share your personal walking route experiences in Scotland, and comment on other peoples' reports.
Warning Please note that hillwalking when there is snow lying requires an ice-axe, crampons and the knowledge, experience and skill to use them correctly. Summer routes may not be viable or appropriate in winter. See winter information on our skills and safety pages for more information.

Glen Lyon Horseshoe

Glen Lyon Horseshoe


Postby Jmarr4 » Wed Jun 23, 2021 4:44 pm

Route description: Càrn Gorm, Meall Garbh, Càrn Mairg & Creag Mhòr

Munros included on this walk: Càrn Gorm, Càrn Mairg, Creag Mhòr (Meall na Aighean), Meall Garbh (Càrn Mairg)

Date walked: 19/06/2021

Time taken: 8 hours

Distance: 11.5 km

Ascent: 1302m

1 person thinks this report is great.
Register or Login
free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).

I’d seen these hills from Shiehallion a few weeks previous and the current Mr Jen had mentioned on our FaceTime call at the top of Shiehallion that they would be good for me to do at this stage in my Munro journey. I still had to rearrange a walk with my friend from work, so I suggested the Glen Lyon horseshoe and we decided to keep an eye on the weather and do these if it looked decent. For the whole week in the lead up to our planned day the forecast was to be some clouds with VG visibility. Until the night before. :roll: It had changed to some rain and visibility had gone down to just Good. My friend Douggie had also said he fancied coming along so the night before, just before the Scotland game started, I messaged both of them asking if they wanted to go somewhere else where the weather looked better, or go later in the day, but they were both keen to just go with our original plan. So I missed the end of the footie to try to sleep as my alarm was set for 0445. :o (I’m getting earlier!). I left the house at 0515 to pick up Lesley and we got to the car park at the post box at 0710 and waited for Douggie. While we were getting booted up, a guy came running into the car park and told us the visibility was awful up there, and that if he hadn’t had his GPS watch with the route on it, he def would have taken some wrong turns. Douggie asked him how long it took him to run the 4: 2hours 25mins. :shock:

We started to set off and I got myself all disorientated already, not a great start, I’m usually good with directions and getting my bearings but on this occasion I felt like I was walking in the wrong direction, even though the way we were going was right, I just couldn’t shake that feeling all day. I had the route on my Komoot, Lesley was in charge of our WH Route description and both Douggie and I had a map so I was pretty confident between the three of us, we’d be fine.

We started our ascent. It was actually a very pleasant path, and we spotted some deer in the distance. The cloud was coming in though, and by the time we arrived at Cárn Gorm, the mist had well and truly taken over! As you can see from my photos, the views were spectacular! :lol:

F11B4597-38CC-41E2-B86B-48A459BDFD36.jpeg
Heading up past a stream

3A559009-2AED-4ABE-9F8E-1555B60AB0CA.jpeg
Heading into the clouds now

7A8CF7BB-0DFC-4519-8E6A-D617B61C6044.jpeg
Broken trig at top of Cárn Gorm

115EA660-8F07-42DE-8388-185B67B2ED80.jpeg
Amazing views


the walk from Cárn Gorm to Meall Garbh was short. I think we got there in about 40 minutes. The path was easy to follow and it wasn’t too steep. We were quite surprised when we found the iron made cairn at the summit. The views here were just as lovely as the first summit! :roll: :lol:

F745ED6D-7217-4995-83E4-1B3905613032.jpeg
Fence post decorated summit cairn

DC816B90-580C-498F-A25E-6F340531F9E9.jpeg
Lol


Douggie had his dram (which he does for every hill) and I had a yoghurt and a square of dark chocolate. We decided to have more food once we got to Cárn Mairg so we plodded on. The distance between 2 and 3 is a lot longer than 1 and 2 and because we couldn’t see where we needed to be, getting there was a bit tricker, since the path disappears while going over some boulders. We muddled our way through and eventually made it to Cárn Mairg. Or at least I thought… Douggie thought the tor to our left was the actual summit as it seemed to look higher (when the clouds moved). Mr Komoot said it was where we were, but I was happy to go along and see. We went over and clambered over the rocks and boulders. No cairn. We checked the map and I got my compass out. We looked to where we had been and the clouds suddenly cleared briefly which showed us where we were was actually higher! 😂 I remembered I had downloaded the OS locate app so checked it for our location and altitude. We were definitely not high enough, so we traipsed back, but not before the clouds had covered our target again.

C0D35237-A0F8-4A46-B429-9D5BA8DBBC45.jpeg
The summit cairn

5B768C80-F8D3-411B-9E4F-AB21AD15BA81.jpeg
Or was it?! 😂


Hurrah! 1041m!

683011B3-5D11-40F4-90D2-9F1A58CFF78F.jpeg
It was!


Photos were taken then lunch was had. It started to get cold so we made our way to Meall na Aighean. It wasn’t a long walk, and the track wasn’t too difficult to follow, but we didn’t get off to a great start when we did completely the opposite to the WH route description to avoid the crags and steep section! 😂 once we had navigated our way down the boulders, we got on track to our last summit of the day. We definitely didn’t want to waste time wandering around wondering where the highest point was again as the confusion on Cárn Mairg cost us a good 30 minutes so when we arrived at the point I thought the cairn was at, I got my OS locate app up again, and climbed on top of the tor and found the cairn. I checked my app: 981m! Boom! I think we actually cheered! 😂 We took some photos and decided it was time to get back to the car.

BD22F780-F7D8-493F-B509-AAA31D70C0E3.jpeg
Pea soup

85663072-A09E-433A-BCD0-F1D236608BD6.jpeg

561BE1C8-EE70-464E-92AD-49B00C26BAF0.jpeg
4th Munro of the day!


We retraced our steps until we got to the fork in the path where we take the left to make our descent. I contemplated while we made our way down. Despite having literally zero visibility for the whole day (thanks for the warning, met office!) it really was a fab day out, with brilliant company. As we descended down the south side of Allt Coire a’Chearcaill, the clouds started to part and finally we got some views!

DE7F4509-9150-47F3-BA6B-90DA3C45C220.jpeg
Peaking through the clag

05612A69-6E84-4E82-BDBF-6DB74F18FF38.jpeg
Blink and you’ll miss it though

9666DE0B-E184-48E7-B9A8-79D3FD459E0E.jpeg
Finally, a clearer view!

64A0302E-D799-45B2-8F91-2059F497390C.jpeg


The descent was tough on my knees so I was relieved to get back to the main path again. We got back to the car and there were a few cars parked at the side of the road with tickets. It def helps to get in early and get parked in a proper space. We agreed that despite the weather, we did the right thing to start early. A (pea) super day! 100% would do again, but on a clearer day.
Jmarr4
Mountain Walker
 
Posts: 12
Munros:124   Corbetts:3
Fionas:3   Donalds:4+3
Sub 2000:8   Hewitts:2
Islands:3
Joined: Apr 26, 2021

1 person thinks this report is great.
Register or Login
free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).



Can you help support Walkhighlands?


Our forum is free from adverts - your generosity keeps it running.
Can you help support Walkhighlands and this community by donating by direct debit?



Return to Walk reports - Scotland

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 77 guests