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After my failed attempt, on the previous Monday, to gain entry onto these hills via the Chesthill Estate I returned armed with two very positive influences. Firstly on the Saturday I phoned the estate office and a very nice lady said I would be very welcome in Invervar and thanked me for taking heed of the notices warning of deer stalking ( I didn't think I had a choice!!!) and secondly I would not be alone my husband Garry would be joining me on this one- yippee!!!
After a rather disturbed sleep due to my fellow Ruglonians deciding to celebrate the clocks going back by letting off an awful lot of fireworks (don't know why they couldn't just stick to Devil worship like the good old days!
), we managed to get ourselves organised and on the road by 7am. We followed the same roads as before, yes through Buchany but this time the curtains were already open! I told Garry to drive faster but he didn't listen!!!
We arrived at an empty carpark at 9am and got away pretty sharpish. The weather was lovely, so just boots and gaiters, no jackets and waterproofs- fantastic! A quick look at the map and we headed through the gate opposite the carpark- ooops wrong one- private house! The correct one is opposite the red phonebox and is a big metal fence type of gate and is tricky to open.
Up through a small wooded area and through another two similar gates.
- What is this wee beast? Stretch says its an ATV?
After a short while the track crosses a wooden bridge and the views begin to open up a wee bit. Instead of continuing along the track we climbed up a steep, slippery slope to find somewhere for a quick coffee. The sun was out so we thought we may as well enjoy it.
Looking down the track we could see another two bodies coming along and it was good to know we would have someone to chat to later. We followed the hill round until it met the path again and dropped down to cross the shooglie bridge.
The path pretty much follows the Invervar Burn all the way to some grassy slopes and then up onto the ridge.
It was on the final pull up towards the summit of Carn Gorm that the sun disappeared and was replaced by damp, misty clag
It was fab to reach our first summit of the day and our chance to talk to the two boys we had seen earlier. Really nice guys and after a quick discussion about routes, weather etc they continued on their way.
We were now feeling a bit cold, so it was on with the jackets, hats and gloves, a quick sandwich and then we were off in search of summit number two. Because the weather had been so fab earlier it was our intention to take in An Sgorr also but we changed our mind with the visibility getting increasingly worse. Its a shame because it would only have been a slight detour. Anyway we opted for the path that goes around it and came to the col on left side and for once I actually noticed the cairn that confirmed that we were heading in the right direction. Things were clearing up again and we could see the line of rusted fenceposts ahead of us. We followed them over some boulders , okay maybe more like big stones, and through the mist we could see the weirdest summit cairn I have seen yet!!! Yes the piece of modern art is the summit of Meall Garbh!
They may look ugly to some, but these fence post were our wee pals as they guided us safely along to another cairn on the summit (?) of Meal a' Bharr. The wind was working itself up a fair bit so a quick photo of a rather cold Garry and then we were off again.
Keeping with the fenceposts we headed onwards towards Carn Mairg and as a wee thankyou for not complaining too much about the conditions the weather gods decided to give us a 10 minute sunshine break. We looked up to see gorgeous blue sky and drank in the fabulous views before us. 'Wowsers there's Schiehallion!' I thought (cheers Kev for confirming this- correct spelling this time?)
Like many magic moments they can't last for forever and soon our views were replaced once again by clag, but not before we could see the mega rocky ridge type of structure that lay between us and our next summit. Fortunately the path kindly took us very safely around this beast and with only a slight ascent we were almost upon the top of Carn Mairg. It was here that we met up again with the two boys from earlier. They asked if we had met the other walkers that they had seen doing the horseshoe in a counter-clockwise direction but we had seen no-one else. We had seen lots of bootprints pointing in the opposite way from ours but I just assumed they had put their boots on the wrong way
The weather was pretty crappy but I had to stop long enough for a quick kiss of the cairn and a photo of Number 50! And a warm congratulations from Garry too !!!
Treated myself to one of the white rocks as a wee momento and then off to seek out Meall nan Aighean (Creag Mhor) or summit number 4 as we opted to call it!
The descent down is not very steep but it is tricky over the slippery stones so as usual I took my time. No rush to get a sore behind! We headed South along a pretty good path until we reached a crossroads of many paths, it was like Spaghetti Junction, and took one that led us to the top. Garry was ahead, as usual,
(my wee stumpy legs are no match his long lean machines!) and he searched around for the cairn. He soon found it atop one of the tors on the summit.
It was good fun exploring these big lumps but we realised that we would need to head back soon. All this wandering about had caused us to lose our ascent/ descent path, we checked on our GPS that we were heading in the correct Westerly direction and continued confident that we would eventually meet a path. We were walking for about 20 minutes and still no path! This was really unfortunate timing because for a good bit of the walk you're walking in troughs deep enough to develop trenchfoot
I was beginning to panic a wee bit but Garry was smashing and agreed that as long as we kept losing height and using the compass and GPS we would be fine. By now it was about 16.15 and it was getting dark, ironically this was to be a help because car lights began to come on and we could clearly see them going along the road and even better the lights in the estate house indicated that we were nearly finished. All that was required was a swift, but steep descent down the heathery slopes and soon we were back on the tarmac!!! Double yippee!!!
As we walked the 0.5km back we discussed about how daft we were to lose the path and how crazy it was to still be out and about when it was dark. Needless to say we were shocked when we got back to the carpark to find that alongside our car (which I had visualised sitting there all on its ownsome) were three other cars!!!
Where on earth were all these people? I was really worried about the two boys because they had a good 10 minute start on us at the third summit and they didn't look the type to be larking about! A few minutes later I could hear voices and could see head torches coming towards us. 'That's the boys now, thank goodness' I said. 'No its not' said Garry. He had asked them earlier and they said they didn't have them. Drat! Anyway a quick chat with the illuminated couple and they said they hadn't seen them either! I was wondering how long we should wait until we phoned someone and then at last the boys appeared
They couldn't find a path either!
Given that it was only 5pm, it felt like a lot later, we had plenty of time to stop off for some refreshments and still be back in time for Downton Abbey
And so where did we go??? The Lade Inn of course
All this path losing/hunting/losing again had made me hungry! No soup this time- a gigantic plate of fish and chips!!!
Yummy !!!
