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When we were on The Cairnwell a couple of weeks ago we had some nice views across the A93 to Creag Leacach, Glas Maol, Cairn of Claise and Carn an Tuirc, I thought at the time it would be nice to split the four Munros into two shortish walks so, when we got home, the map was out to see how it could be done.
Doing a bit of research on WH Creag Leacach and Glas Maol can be done from the little car park near the Devil's Elbow on the A93, Carn an Tuirc and Cairn of Claise can be done from the car park by the old bridge off the A93 at NO147799, both giving opportunities for circulars without any backtracking, all we had to do now was wait for a couple of decent forecasts to do them
The forecast for Monday 11th was good, just a little breezy on the tops so we decided to give Leacach and Maol a visit
We set off from home a little later than usual heading for the viewpoint car park near the Devil's Elbow, it was empty when we arrived, so no problems parking. The views from car park are a good start to the day, we could see Creag Leacach towering above us, it's a fine looking mountain, steep sided, reminding us we've got 500m of climbing to get to the top
We set off from the car park down to the ford about 20m below us, we were going on the path above the
Allt Coire a' Bhathaich as far as another ford at NO145751 where the path drops down to it then starts the climb up
Creag Leacach.
This path is fairly steep so a steady plod was adopted, it's easy to follow and heads up to the bealach between Meall Gorm and point 943m. The views from the bealach are worth taking a breather for
the path is not shown on the OS map which is strange because it's well established,
Meall Odhar and our descent route down Leacann Dubh from the path
From the bealach the path swings left and continues the steep climb eventually going over point 943 where it joins the wall for the final climb to the summit. It was more exposed here, the breeze felt a bit more than the forecasted 16mph
we wondered at which point a breeze becomes a wind, we must have been pretty close to that, whatever it is
The "breeze" was quite strong on the summit which made standing still for a photo a bit of a challenge
We could see Glas Maol ahead, a big grassy lump, in total contrast to Creag Leacach which is very bouldery, we set off from the summit, keeping the wall on our right, taking care not to get blown around too much.
We made steady progress, enjoying being out, by now the weather had improved and the sun was out, we found the shelter marked on the map at NO160754 and had a look inside, it has a small entrance and is quite small inside, I can imagine it's quite a welcome space to be in if you need to get out of poor weather conditions it could be quite snug if there's a small group in there, much better than being in the open.
From the shelter we left the boulders behind and started the climb up Glas Maol.
The wall was on our left now and the path had become a wide grassy track, we left the wall at about NO160759 taking a good path heading NE up the gentle slopes of Glas Maol. This took us directly to the summit shelter and trig point, the wind was a little less strong so we decided to sit down in the shelter and have lunch.
I tried to get some views, Creag Leacach
Lochnagar, I think
East
After about 20 minutes on the summit we were getting a bit cool so we finished our lunch and set off down.
We were heading NW towards Meall Odhar and then the Landrover track heading down Leacann Dubh, this took us to the top of the Ski Tows and the access tracks for the maintenance vehicles on Meall Odhar, they're not as ugly as the infrastructure and tracks around Carn Aosda and The Cairnwell and they are soon left behind as you descend towards the mountain hut lower down.
It's a straight forward walk back to the car park and the views are nice along the way, especially to Creag Leacach and down Glenshee.
It was nice to get back to the car in the early afternoon after a fairly relaxed walk in the mountains, I tried to get a decent shot using the little camera siting post at the view point but found it difficult to get a decent exposure
As we were getting our boots off and our gear in the car a transport plane flew overhead, I don't know what it was but it made quite an impressive sight.
An enjoyable outing, we didn't see a soul all the time we were on the hills which was unusual considering the popularity of these mountains. Carn an Tuirc and Cairn of Claise are next on the agenda, a nice crisp clear day would be nice
