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After the not particularly successful trip in May I still had three hills to the west of Drumochter to do - as I said at the time, I had at least made it possible to pick up the remaining hills from the bus stop at the Dalwhinnie junction, so that's what I did, getting the first bus north from Barnton and getting to Dalwhinnie just before 10.
It had been spring then, but it was summer now - not as busy with flowers and birds, but a lovely day, with the hills much greener.
- Drumochter hills
Two miles or so down the cycle path brought me to Balsporran, with a signpost giving distances to the various hills, and an absolutely gorgeous view over the wee river.
- View from Balsporran
When I was planning to start at Dalnaspidal I obviously had to go round clockwise, but I realised now that there was really no reason why I couldn't go up Geal-charn first and stick to the direction of the WH route, so that's what I did.
A good track runs up the hill ahead, but very confusingly - it's not the right hand track as seen below which joins onto the track seen higher on the hill, but a branch of the left hand track.
- Three tracks
If I'd actually read the walk description I would have known that, but instead I didn't find it out until I found myself going up the wrong side of the Allt Beul an Sporain. I didn't retreat all the way, just finding a place to cross the burn and head across the hillside until I found the right path, which stayed good for a while and then petered out into a boggy line.
The other side of the pass is supposed to be dull, but I quite liked the shapes of it, heavily scored and with an odd low hill running in front.
- The other side of the valley
The slope was a bit of a slow slog for a while after that, wetter than I thought I'd been promised, and getting nowhere fast.
- Muddy track
The Drumochter pass is quite contained within its own slopes, so one of the interesting things about climbing out of it is seeing the surrounding hills begin to rise above the tops of those slopes
- Hills coming into view
Eventually the slope eased and everything became dry and stony underfoot, and I made my way over to the cairns perched above the pass to eat my elevenses, despite the fast that it was now going on for half past 12.
- Cairns on the shoulder
The actually summit was still a decent walk away, but it was more like a walk now, up a gentle slope to another stony space with a shelter cairn and a view down the southern part of Loch Ericht.
- Geal-chàrn summit
As promised, the dominant view from here was the hills around Ben Alder on the other side of the loch - no longer looming menacingly in the haze, as when I was here before, but laid out tantalisingly under some lovely clouds. Even with a car these must be some of the most difficult hills to get to, but they do look tempting...
- Ben Alder hills
The far side of the hill stays stony rather than grassy, with a path leading down through the stones - looking back the hill looks white for the first time, so presumably this is the side that gave it its name.
- The white side of Geal-chàrn
There was a good track running through the gap between Geal-charn and A' Mharconaich, heading for nowhere in particular - since I was heading for Beinn Udlamain I did think about just following it to its end, but I wasn't sure what the climb out of the corrie would be like, and decided it was probably easier to do the climbing on the path on A' Mharconaich.
- Joining the track
It's a good path too, all steps winding uphill - a bit surprising compared to the path on the first hill.
- A' Mharconaich steps
Somewhere after the point where the steps ran out and an ordinary path began I left it and began to contour directly towards the col between A' Mharconaich and Beinn Udlamain - just a plain short grass slop. I'd aimed slightly too low and drifted a bit uphill as I went, eventually ending up on a tiny path, so straight that it was probably made by sheep, who seem to like to stay on one level, and then onto the col.
- Contouring
There must be a fair number of people who join all four hills, or some odd combination like me, because I was back on a clear path. I had a good view now of Sgairneach Mhor on the other side of the valley, showing off the corrie whose edge leads to the summit, and looking a bit grander than it had seemed while I was on it.
- Sgairneach Mhor
The slope I was on wasn't particularly distinguished, but it was well decorated with the remains of a metal fence - sometimes almost buried in the ground, but quite often gathered into weird and wonderful sculpture.
- Fence post art
As so often the focus of the view had changed - there was still a good view of the Ben Alder hills, but the most striking thing now was the fringe of hills to the south, Ben Lawers and the hills around Killin and west to Crianlarich.
- Southern hills
The summit had more strange collections of fence posts and a shelter where I sat down to eat a belated lunch, before moving on to leave it to someone who was coming up from the Sgairneach Mhor side.
- Beinn Udlamain summit
Heading back I cut the corner across the top, meeting the path again where a worn line crossed it and then cutting that corner on a smaller path to meet the main path part way down the slope.
- Descending Beinn Udlamain
I've been told off before for comparing the Scottish hills to the Lakes, but the next stretch did remind me a bit of some of the hills north of Helvellyn - not too much down and not too much up to carry on along the ridge. There didn't seem to be an obvious way down at any point for people only doing the two hills, either - the main path definitely kept going over the col, climbing very gently onto the new hill.
- Path across A' Mharconaich
At one point there was an odd movement by my foot, and when I looked down I discovered that a frog had jumped onto it and bounced again - I really wasn't sure what a frog would be doing on this crinkly-dry hill!
- Unexpected frog
The path got broader as it headed for the summit at the northern end of the plateau - smallish cairn at what seemed to be the true summit, and much bigger cairn at the top of the slope.
- A' Mharconaich summit(s)
The view had changed again, looking north now over the spurs of the Drumochter slopes to Meall Chuaich and the Cairngorms.
- Northern view
This was one of the places where the path down isn't obvious at first - the instructions said to head north, so I had a look at the map and figured out that that meant for aim for the end of The Fara, and that did produce the spur with the path running down it, a bit too steep and loose at first, and then just a long way down before crossing wetter ground and finding a way over the burn back to the Balsporran track.]
- The way down
With the afternoon sun behind them the hills were looking better than they had in the morning - I know they're not particularly admired, but I didn't think they were looking bad at all.
- Afternoon sunshine
At Balsporran a man sitting in the garden asked me if I was heading north or south - since I was walking to Dalwhinnie I completely misunderstood the question and told him north, so he told me I would be fine as the road south was closed. But I was fine, once I figured out that bus tickets had changed into train tickets - a train at 8 rather than a bus at 7ish meant I had time to walk up into the village and get some of the last food in the diner, which was frazzled but impressively cheerful after a hectic afternoon.
There were an amazing number of people piled onto Dalwhinnie platform - I don't know where they'd all come from, because they wouldn't usually be on the bus either - but the train only opened one reluctant door just the same, forcing everyone to file in. I wasn't sure if I'd have to change at Perth, but the ticket acceptance was valid right back to Haymarket, which was convenient, although it was starting to feel like every time I went somewhere something would go wrong with the roads...
