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“Park in the layby on the east side of the A9, marked no. 94…”
That thing where you have to count the laybys on the A9: I can’t make up my mind whether it’s annoying or strangely comforting, But it’s harder than you think, because it's easy to get distracted from the task by, well, traffic. And some of the laybys don’t seem to have numbers, either that or the signs are missing. And you’re also thinking as you drive north: is there a system here? Northbound even, southbound odd? But nope, I think they’re just numbered consecutively south to north.
It was fine weather winter on the day I climbed Meall Chuaich. I left the car - at Layby 94! - at 9am and walked up the hydro-electric track that runs alongside the aqueduct. The walk felt a bit ‘industrial’ to start with, what with the wee power station and the noise of traffic on the A9 behind you. You notice the pipeline in the foreground before you notice the mountain in the background!
Things get a bit more mountain-esque once you get past Loch Cuaich and leave the track behind. You strike up leftwards (north-east), and there is a path that makes its way through that familiar Drumochter mix of heather and bog. Fortunately for me, most of the boggy wetness was boggy
iciness so the going wasn’t as soft as it might otherwise have been. However, I was anxious that the iciness might be less helpful when the time came to come back down…
Somewhere round about the 750 meters mark, the ground became pretty much entirely snow-covered. But it was nice snow, and the route wasn’t steep, so there was no need for crampons. Once the top of Meall Chuaich's south-east shoulder is reached, you then start heading more directly east, towards the Munro summit. And at that point the conditions just felt so much more wintry. As the colour palette switched to monochrome I heard a curious croaking noise from close by and was thrilled to see a ptarmigan at close quarters. It was brilliantly camouflaged, I only managed to spot it because of the noise it was making.
There’s a pretty massive cairn on the summit, and the views towards the Cairngorms are excellent. If only I could name the tops I was looking at! (I find it hard to get my bearings looking at the Cairngorms from the southwest, can I see Braeriach and Ben Macdui here or am I looking in a completely different direction?)
The route back down was a re-tracing of steps. The good news was that by the time I got down to the icy-boggy bit (it was about 1pm by now), the ice had all melted. So it was squelch-squerch instead of slip-slide.
I’d had the ascent – and the summit – all to myself, but I met quite a few people on my descent. Meall Chuaich was my first Munro of 2024, and it was a pretty easy day. I was back at the car in Layby 94 by 2pm, so it was just a five-hour up-and-down trip.
