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Another Golden Oldie WR that I didn't get round to writing up in 2023, what with daughters getting married and suchlike
! This one was a bit of an epic, to cross the Moine Mor - "The Great Moss" - from Glen Feshie, to bag those two remote, massive misanthropes in the depths of the Gorms, namely Monadh Mor and Beinn Bhrotain.
Encouraged by a moderately good forecast (well, moderately good for August which is always a wet month
), I drove up from Glasgow on the Friday night to stay with friends in Aviemore, then set off bright and breezy on the Saturday morning. I got parked good and early at the big car park in Glen Feshie, and set off on the long and winding way to the two Munros. At least the start of the route is fairly unmissable, with a big boulder to the left-hand side of the Achlean Farm track now sporting a big metal nameplate, pointing the way down a side track for "All [Hill] Routes". When I was last here, the boulder just had "Carn Ban Mor" painted on it with an arrow leftwards; the metal nameplate seems to be a new touch...
The start of the route felt deceptively easy, with a very gently graded Autobahn-style approach path, heading almost imperceptibly towards the distant Cairngorms plateau, and with plenty of that Bonny Blooming Stuff to lift one's spirits.
The path gradually gets steeper and enters some forestry, but it's terribly well engineered - a sort of very gentle stone staircase - and although it's a long way, it makes easy work of the initial ascent.
Eventually, I was high enough to enjoy a nice hazy view down over Glen Feshie:
Soon after this, I hit the bottom of the Clag (which hadn't entirely lifted at this stage of the day), but I was relieved almost immediately thereafter to reach a big cairn which I remembered well from the last time I came up this way, to do Sgor Gaoith and Mullach Clach a' Bhlair a couple of years earlier. The cairn is a major route junction, with no less than five paths branching off in various directions. Sgor Gaoith had been a sharp left; this time I took the shallow right turn to attempt the Crossing of the Big Moss.
The path quickly becomes well established as it leaves the cairn, and although it's a looong way, it makes fairly easy work of crossing the vast Moine Mor plateau, at least in relatively good weather conditions such as I enjoyed. Eventually, it reaches a Landrover track at a small cairn: it's a left-hand turn here if one is heading for Monadh Mor.
The Landrover track continues for only a fairly short distance, however, before coming to an abrupt end at a turning circle just short of the headwaters of the River Eidart. Fortunately it's no more than a tiny burn at this stage, and easily crossed with dry feet.
On the other side of the River Eidart, this route immediately takes a much more remote feel, with a vague, boggy and indistinct path making its boggy way vaguely in the direction of the vague and boggy Munro Top known as Tom Dubh. Did I say "vague"? Or "boggy"
?
Tom Dubh is rather famous in its way. In Alan Dawson's "Relative Hills of Britain", he quotes Irvine Butterfield on Tom Dubh: "one for the real enthusiast, the most meaningless 3000 foot 'top' in all Britain, for here lies the ultimate in desolate wilderness, a landscape so featureless that it almost defies man's ability to use map and compass". Well, give it the Hard Sell, Irvine, why don't you
! Actually, despite my own ability to use map and compass being all-too-easily defied, I must admit that I rather liked Tom Dubh: it has a pleasing back-country feel, and despite being completely dwarfed by the substantially higher Cairngorm Munro giants that surround it on all sides, it's actually a Top with a bit of character. It's got quite a cute wee cairn nowadays, too.
Tom Dubh, I presume?
I must have been overwhelmed by Tom Dubh's sheer pointiness or something, because I now seem to have completely stopped taking photos for the next bit of the route. It proved to be a bit Interesting, however, involving crossing another waterway immediately east of Tom Dubh, the Allt Luinneag. This was much more substantial than the River Eidart, and required a bit of a paddle - so I'd have wet feet for the rest of the day
! After that, I trudged uphill for what felt like a while (but probably wasn't, at least in terms of distance
) to gain Monadh Mor's broad north ridge.
So, here we are, suddenly as if by magic at Monadh Mor's summit cairn. First Munro in the bag, and no more than 5 hours or so from the car
!
I headed onwards, now with vestiges of a path, to Monadh Mor's southeast Top, which is known as Leac Ghorm, with a hazy view of Glen Geusachan just starting to emerge to the east:
I was initially slightly stumped as to the whereabouts of the second Munro, as the Clag had momentarily thickened, but after taking a compass bearing and walking a very short distance in the general direction of where it should be, Beinn Bhrotain duly started to emerge from the Clag.
Just a wee bit further on, and this remote monster of a Gorm was looking decidedly formidable, with precipitous northern cliffs flanking the impressive Glen Geusachan!
Although a clear path now emerges on both sides of the Monadh Mor / Beinn Bhrotain bealach, it's quite steep and loose, and requires a bit of care. There are however some very stirring views by way of distraction, down Glen Geusachan towards The Devil's Point and the rest of the Cairn Toul group
.
Almost down at the bealach now, and with Beinn Bhrotain rather unexpectedly looking a real Beast of a Gorm
!
It yielded to a steady plod, all the same, and soon enough I was up at its rather cluttered summit environs, with several separate cairns, including a windshelter one surrounding the Trig Point which I think marks the true summit.
BHK at Beinn Bhrotain trig point, and looking well chuffed to have made it!
Now it was a mere matter of re-tracing my steps for, oh, fifteen kilometres or thereabouts
... No time like the present, then, and I got going.
Heading back down to the bealach, and it was now Monadh Mor's turn to look steep, massive and unexpectedly impressive:
The re-ascent from the bealach was a steep one, but again there were excellent views for distraction. This was perhaps the best view of the day, with The Devil looking formidable on the left side of Glen Geusachan, with Cairn Toul's improbably trapezoidal profile glimpsed a bit further to the north:
Further up now, and another view of The Devil, but now with Cairn Toul much more clearly visible over his shoulder:
Back at Leac Ghorm cairn, but now blessed with a grand view of Cairn Toul
:
This was my second visit to Monadh Mor main summit cairn, I think, with Sgor Gaoith putting in an unexpected appearance away in the distance to the north:
Back down again to the rather formidable Allt Luinneag (it was deeper than it looks in this photo, and I got wet feet again
!)
...And a second visit to Tom Dubh, with Sgor Gaoith looking unexpectedly close to the north:
Although the ongoing route from here back down to the Glen Feshie car park was very straightforward, it was a long, long, long way and I was knackered by the time I finally got back. I was delighted to have completed this rather epic route, however, and I'd have to say that these two Gairngorms giants proved to have far more presence than I'd have given them credit for
!
