free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Last Saturday I was due to meet up with my friends at a lodge near Perth, after dropping my daughter off at her grandparents. It was quite a round trip to go Glasgow - Ayrshire - Perth in one morning, and after humming and hawwing, I decided to book a Megabus from Glasgow to Perth. It was obviously greener, and almost certainly cheaper (An £8 bus then a lift home vs. 140 miles of petrol? No brainer.) The plan was set in place, and I left Prestwick with well over two hours to go until my bus left Glasgow.
Arran just about visible in the morning sunshine.
Then things started to go a bit awry. I stopped off at Tesco Silverburn to try and buy a wallchart for the *slightly* controversial World Cup in Qatar, but the only glossy one was in an equally controversial red-top tabloid, so I wasn't up for buying that. After wasting 10-15 minutes there I left empty-handed, and decided to use the paper one from the Metro that my Dad had donated to me in Prestwick.
After driving back to the East End, doing all the dishes, showering, packing etc., the inevitable happened. My X19 to the city centre never showed up, and I missed my Megabus.
This was obviously gutting, but I didn't panic, since the ticket only cost £8. How to turn a negative to a positive at the last minute?
Climb a G****m (Fiona!) instead!
There was still some sunshine around in Crieff, but behind the Highland Fault Line it looked like a wall of cloud. Oh well, I've made my choice now, so better commit.
Oh. It was raining when I arrived at the Griffin Forest car park, but it was just a passing shower so it was gone by the time I finished lunch. This was such a late start (1.30pm) and such a short walk that I had the luxury of having lunch before I left. Less to carry! Well, technically you're still carrying it, but just not in the rucksack...anyway...
Of course I'm GeoSafe. I'm a geographer and I'm safe. Usually...
I've thought about climbing Meall Dearg for years, mainly because it's quite close to Glasgow and has a high start. But I thought I would have to head in from the East, straight past General Wade's Military Road and up the rough Eastern slopes. Then the access roads for Calliacher Wind Farm appeared on the OS maps, and I realised it would be much quicker and more stress-free to head in from the car park to the North-East. Also it has a head start of over 390m, which I'd never really clocked.
Meall Dearg appearing out of the mist in the distance.
I think there were some forest paths/tracks here before the access road too.
In 20 minutes I reached the left turn off the main wind farm road.
Just across the wee bridge, the map says there's a path off to the right, parallel with the stream. I guess this is it...?
I took a bit of a wrong turn here. There was no signal whatsoever, and the path was faint, so I guess this was where you turn left up the hillside. In reality the left turn is a bit further up (this was only three minutes after the bridge), at a more obvious firebreak and stream.
Woops.
Just under 10 minutes after entering the forest, I finally reached the firebreak. There was, indeed, a faint path here, so I was probably back on the right track.
You've seen better days. I know how you feel, frankly.
The path shows a fence here, and for years I had wondered how high it is. I had a feeling from Bing Aerial etc. that the path wasn't very clear, so in my mind I pictured a huge impenetrable deer fence (if the wind farm roads and grouse tracks were new, maybe the fences were new? Maybe the landowners didn't even know about this faint old path?) In the end the fence was pretty high, but somebody had punched a massive hole through it. Thanks for the assist.
That must be Lawers or Glen Lyon in the distance.
It was a great relief to hit the grouse track, with its flatness and bridges and stuff.
Soon it was up into the mist after the right turn at c.500m. I kept thinking it was time to leave the track, but my signal came back at this point and I worked out I had to stick to the track for a bit longer (until a big obvious left turn just after 600m).
This is where you leave and head up to the right for the short rough climb to the summit. It almost looks like a phone-box... but..for...grouse.
Gotcha! A surprise bonus hill. It's not exactly been a prolific year, but nine mountains (Munros / Corbetts / G****ms - Fionas) is actually my best year in half a decade. A Lot Has Happened.
Just under 1hr 15mins after leaving. Most of it is very straightforward (high start, wind farm road, grouse track, short climb at the end). Technically the trickiest bit was the forest, and that was just because I turned left a bit too early.
Given how undistinguishable it is from afar, Meall Dearg has a surprisingly clear summit. I thought it was going to be like one of those Borders hills where you can't even tell the true summit, but the trig point is perched on a bit of an outcrop right at the top. Would maybe make a good Last Fiona for some people? If you can find your way through the bit in the forest.
Oh this. Fell in a massive hidden ditch on the way down.
Managed to get the whole left trouser leg soaked, and dirtied some of my jacket. Must have been quite a splash.
After that fall, it was a relief to reach the track again, just half an hour after leaving it (that includes the summit KitKat). There was still over an hour of daylight left, and just over 200m of descent to the car. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
A very, very Meall Dearg view. This is looking down the steep section of track to the 500m junction. Here I turned right, with the idea that I could pick up General Wade's Military Road and head through the forest back up to the car park.
This looked like the makings of a good little round trip. There is no bridge across the river, so when you reach the T junction it's not appealing to head straight on, as tempting as the road is (also it would probably be 500m of very boggy ground). So the logical choice was to head left. General Wade's Military Road is marked on the map. The internet tells me it's a clear stony track in the Rannoch Moor style. This should be a piece of cake, right?
Ok, we start with a stile. Looks promising enough? This was just under 2hrs from leaving the car park, so only about 3.30pm. Plenty of daylight and an obvious route lies ahead.
Uh. What?
Within 5-10 minutes the boggy path had fizzled out into nothing. I was following another fence, but the military road wasn't on the other side of it, (a) because I couldn't see one and (b) because the OS map shows it on the right side. What's...what's going on?
After lobbing this awkward combination of fences, I hoped that things would pick up.
How wrong I was.
The only option here was to try and hold onto the fence and use the wooden bit at the bottom as a makeshift bridge. But the fence wasn't in the best nick, and apparently half of Scotland was underwater (I saw it in the newspaper stand at Silverburn, while I was missing the Megabus). So wet feet were unavoidable here.
I fought my way through a load of really high grass. I remembered how I had missed the bus, and left the house in such a hurry that I had forgotten my spare shoes. And had no spare socks. At least I remembered some jeans!
I mean......
Oh for G****m's sake!!
It was essentially just a river by this point. Or at least a massive swamp. Whoever decided that General Wade's Military Road runs through here was having a laugh at my expense. Or did Wade himself come to Glen Cochill and rip it all up, once he was finished with his General duties?
I looked back along the firebreak (How had this taken 20 minutes already? I'd hardly made any progress.) Way back there is the Military Road, beyond the stile. Or was that another grouse track? Was there ever a Military Road?
Perhaps the real Military Road was the friends we made along the way.
I mean, fallen trees are dangerous but if anything this is an improvement. And anyway, I had recent experience of lobbing fallen trees, after accidentally wandering into a "closed" forest at Millstone Hill last week.
Then randomly, I stumbled across some old ruins. There are no shielings marked here (although there are some to the South, outside the forest). Was this General Wade's gaff? Where is he when you need him?
Ok, now it's so dark my auto-flash has switched on.
There was actually a trace of a path around the shielings, but it wasn't clear if I was still on it or not. And there were so many fallen trees it wouldn't have mattered by this point. I would just try and head up to the right and find the road, to cut my losses. If this was at the end of a 10-hour walk I'm not sure I could have coped with that amount of time in a swamp, followed by lobbing multiple trees in a darkening forest. But at least I was out of the Military River.
A slight clearing in the forest. I could hear a car. Was this...civilisation???
Thank G****m!!!
The fence didn't have a proper hole this time, but there was a bit of a gap at the bottom of one section. That would do. I lobbed the rucksack over the top and climbed under. I had actually forgotten my walking poles this time (because it was all so last-minute), but I don't know how much they would have helped me in the swamp. Maybe a bit?
Don't worry, I will!
And 2hrs 46mins later, I was back at the car park. Piece of cake. Don't know what all the fuss was about...
I finally reached the lodge in Stanley, and was able to borrow some working shoes / socks (luckily!) from one of my friends. But what was that on the wall? An OS map. And what was it showing me?
"General Wade's Military Road"
Eh yes please.
At least dinner was good.
In hindsight I should have done more research. I'd thought about climbing this hill for years, but most of my research involved just scouring OS maps and Google Earth / Bing Aerial. Maybe if I'd checked WalkHighlands reports a bit more, I'd have found people with a similar experience of the "Military Road"? Maybe it was worse because of the torrential rainfall on the Friday (and the constant rainfall for about six weeks before it?) But even then, it's a mystery to me. The photos of the military road further South in Glen Cochill are exactly what you'd expect - a big, wide, dry, stony track. Anyone thinking about this hill would do well to stick to the wind farm road and the grouse tracks from the North (there's only the one tricky bit in the forest). Or maybe some of the new tracks from the South would do?
Just not the "Military Road". Take it from me. If a Military Road disappears in the forest, and there's nobody there to see it, was it even there in the first place.........?
