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Munros: Carn Mairg, Meall Garbh.
Date: 07/04/2022.
Distance: 25 km.
Ascent: 1380m.
Time: 7 hours, 35 minutes.
Weather: Cold! Breezy with some snow showers and sunshine.
David was up in Scotland again for the week and we agreed to do some walking somewhere. While initially looking at the weekend, I thought I spotted some slightly better weather on the following Wednesday so suggested that. He was striking out from Edinburgh so it was a battle of wills see how far north I could persuade him. In the end he suggested Carn Mairg from the north - sounded interesting - and once I spotted a couple of wayward Munro tops that I had missed I was sold. In the lead-up to the day, the forecast did all sorts of horrible things and we changed to Thursday instead. Didn't make much odds as I didn't have anything particular on at work either day, so could put in some leave at short notice.
The drive down was not promising. Immediately out of Inverness, I encountered the deepest snow and worst conditions I'd driven in so far this winter. The dual carriageway was down to one clear lane in each direction and the car in front was doing a steady 40mph. I thought about turning round and giving in, but there was a jack-knifed lorry blocking the carriageway near Daviot in the other direction. Might as well carry on then! Fortunately the snow was less severe south of the Slochd, and the rest of the drive was uneventful. However despite leaving earlier than planned, the slow start had eaten into my spare time and I finally arrived at our agreed parking spot 15 minutes later than intended.
David had stayed in his van nearby the previous night so for once he was actually ready to go immediately! We re-positioned the vehicles on the far side of a clearway sign. Annoyingly the parking area we had chosen was just within one of Perth & Kinross Council's temporary clearways and a local informed us that he'd seen cars ticketed for parking there before. No issues with the verge 20 meters away though, despite it being an inferior spot
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We were finally on our way by 9am. A short walk along the road took us over the Innerhadden Burn where we climbed a gate into a field. After dodging round a couple of other gates we picked up the path shown which takes a rising traverse across the western slopes of Creag Mhor. This disappeared briefly and we crossed some grazing to pick it up again higher on the hillside.
Craig Varr 
Tired tree The path ends at a shelter - a rather draughty wooden structure with an earth floor. But before we reached that, there were some cows to pass.
Highland coos on the way up Geal Charn The path pretty much ends at the bothy but we picked up a faint ATV track heading upwards towards Geal Charn. This disappeared but the ground wasn't too bad and we were soon on Geal Charn itself. It was pretty breezy - a sign of what was to come on the high summits. We went hunting for the stone shelter marked on the map - this was pretty big inside but a bit leaky. Great view of Schiehallion from the door though.
Today's destination finally in sight 
Stone shelter near the summit of Geal Charn 
Carn Mairg from Geal Charn 
Schiehallion from Geal Charn The next section required a heathery drop and rising traverse into Coire Dubh a' Chluarain. I had assumed this bit would be the most unpleasant of the day when looking at the map, and I wasn't wrong! We broke through snow crusts, disappeared into bogs and smashed through heather as we made our way towards the high ground. This was mainly because I wanted to go up Meall Liath - we could have gone more directly to Carn Mairg and probably had an easier route.
Gaick Pass hills Not being a Marilyn, David had little interest in Meall Liath so he made directly up the back of the corrie while I took a slightly more easterly line to hit the summit. Nice views to Schiehallion (again), Glen Lyon and east, but even more wind. This summit is such a short detour from the usual Carn Mairg route that I'm not sure why I missed it out previously
.
Ben Alder from Meall Liath 
Carn Mairg from Meall Liath 
Lawers hills and Glen Lyon from Meall Liath David had found a rocky outcrop to shelter behind and I caught him up there for lunch. We continued towards the final slopes of Carn Mairg, deciding after a couple of pokes at the snow that crampons would definitely be needed to get up it. As it was windy, we retreated back to the outcrop to put them on - I was glad we had brought them now.
David on the last ascent to Carn Mairg - crampons required The slope was quite steep and the snow very hard. Perhaps we could have found a way around this section but it hadn't looked promising, so a direct line with crampons was worth the effort of putting them on.
Carn Mairg summit The cloud moved in briefly at this point and as it was also pretty windy (a cold wind at that), we didn't hang around long on the summit. We kept crampons on for the initial descent - I couldn't remember whether there was anything as steep on the western side as what we had just come up. There wasn't so we were soon able to ditch them.
Ben Lawers from Carn Mairg After getting off some annoying boulders, it was an easy walk over to Meall a' Bharr. I hadn't decided completely on my next move yet - David had no interest in the top of An Sgorr or the next Munro (it isn't a Marilyn), so was going to drop off into Glen Sassunn from Meall a' Bharr. I was keen to reach An Sgorr, but wasn't sure whether I would be fed up of the wind by this point. With the appearance of some sunshine, I decided I would carry on to An Sgorr. As we had previously agreed to be done by 4:30pm due to David having another engagement, I wasn't sure if I'd see him again - it would depend how rapidly I managed to get to An Sgorr!
Loch Rannoch from Carn Mairg (Ben Nevis centre) 
Meall Garbh from Meall a Bharr 
Beinn a Chuallaich Meall Garbh must be the least distinct Munro in this group, but with increasing sunshine and views across Loch Rannoch becoming better by the minute, I didn't mind going over it again. I accidentally missed the path and took an extra summit in, meaning I also missed greeting the only two other people I saw on the hill today. They passed a short distance below me on the path.
Meall na Aighean from Meall Garbh 
Showers and sunshine over Loch Rannoch 
Geal Charn and Schiehallion Carn Gorm was looking good from here - sweeping corniced ridges - and even An Sgorr looked quite interesting in front of it. I have previously missed out on the summit of An Sgorr on two separate occasions. On the first I just followed a contouring path around the northern flank; on the second, a group of us were hell-bent on catching up the faster half of the party ahead and followed the contouring path again. Being in the cloud and in a rush, we managed to do a complete circuit of the hill and start heading back towards Carn Gorm before anyone noticed what was happening! We probably only missed the summit by a couple of minutes
. So after contouring this numerous times, it was nice to actually get to the summit...
An Sgorr and Carn Gorm 
NW ridge of Carn Gorm 
Looking back to Meall Garbh 
Carn Gorm from An Sgorr 
Ben Lawers from An Sgorr I retraced my steps to the An Sgorr/Meall Garbh col and headed north, contouring the hillside until I found myself on the NW shoulder of Meall Garbh. The weather had improved further now and the hills around the top of Glencoe were looking impressive.
Ben Alder 
Loch Ossian hills and Grey Corries 
Zoom to Bidean nam Bian and Beinn a Chrulaiste I took a straight line towards the end of the track marked in Glen Sassunn - ended up in the glen a little early and had to hop over a few hags. But eventually I picked up the track and was surprised to meet David again. He had taken a 30 minute break at the bothy nearby, and was just about to head off. A fluke of good timing meant we were able to finish the walk together.
Upper Glen Sassunn The clouds had been building up in the east again and as we walked down the track back to the road, it began to snow. There were a good 20 minutes where it was being blown directly into our faces before it relented a bit and eventually stopped as we hit the road. Back at the cars only a few minutes after our imposed 4:30pm deadline we drove around to the eastern end of Loch Rannoch for a quick cup of tea. Certainly not the most relaxing of days in terms of weather, but an enjoyable day out approaching some fairly popular hills from a more obscure direction.
Loch Rannoch I had hoped for an easier drive home, but ended up stuck for 2 hours on the south side of the Drumochter Pass due to an accident. Even when the road was cleared, it took a good 20 miles before the traffic was moving freely at a sensible speed again.
