The Fara from Caochan Woods entrance

[gld73]

Fantastic weather, would have been good for a multi munro hike if I'd had the day free, but I'd left the house at lunchtime to drive to Edinburgh and so made do with stopping off near Dalwhinnie to do a quick walk up The Fara. I'd only done it from the (recently now closed) level crossing in Dalwhinnie before, and in more wintery conditions, but was prompted by a very recent walk report by strathlassie doing it from another direction to do that.

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Parked at the entrance to the Caochan Woods road - gate adorned with signs about no parking. Fortunately there's room for 2 or 3 cars off the road / entrance on some stoney ground to the side, so I parked there, out of the way in case any forestry trucks needed access (none on the way up, but 2 empty lorries parked on the forest side of the entrance when I returned).

Walked up the road into the wood until I came to an old bench on the left, so looked for the firebreak heading up from near there - bit soggy, but nothing bad. Came out from the forest at the deer fence and saw the gate up to my left, climbed over it no bother, then headed up to the vehicle track I'd seen when doing Meall nan Eagan a couple of years ago. Stopped to eat blaeberries on the way, then when on the track just continued up it to its end at the turning circle. Still a fair bit of the way to go, initially up through heather and then nice easy grass / low heather / moss. Got to the large summit cairn and thought about walking the length of the summit plateau which I know is an enjoyable walk, but needed to get on my way to Edinburgh so just headed back. Great views though, every hill in the area looked like a good one to be up today.

Summit

Summit view NE to Dalwhinnie and across the A9

Heading down to wards the track I could see what a benefit it was for that lower section of the hill, the ground was quite peat haggy all around it but the track avoided all those obstacles.