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This was quite an occassion, my mother had come over to mind the kids so it was the first time in ages that Mrs D and I managed to get out for a hill walk and as we didn't want to go too far afield then Ben Chonzie was the perfect option.
The common description of the route up Ben Chonzie from Glen Lednock has always put me off so we decided to take it on via the dam at the end of Loch Turret. Dunfermline is only about an hour from Crieff but the journey up the single track to the car park at the turf dam takes another 15 minutes so having left Dunfermline at the back of 8 we started marching along the side of the reservoir at around 9:30. The track was fairly easy going but as there had been quite a bit of rain overnight the burns were flowing quite high so we required some dexterity to navigate over them without getting too wet (if we had known the troubles futher along we wouldn't have bothered being too precious about it).
Unfortunately we had camera problems. We couldn't find the charger for our main camera and my phone was acting up (now completely fubar) so I only managed to take a few along the way (this involved restarting the phone for every photo). The first photo was as we climbed up from the lochan towards the saddle. In was really rather boggy but with some care we didn't have too many problems.
Glen Turret
We then on carried up to the saddle which was the steepest part of the day. A short scrambly part followed by another short but steep grassy climb and we were on the saddle. Once at the saddle we turned south east to follow the hill up to the summit of Ben Chonzie.
Looking back to the cairn on Biorach a Mheannain
The walk up to the summit is fairly steady but never gets too steep. We came across a couple of ptarmigan who didn't appear to be that bothered by us (although we did give them some space so as not to spook them).
Onto the summit. We hadn't seen another sole on out ascent but when we got to the shelter cairn it was full
. Fortunately one couple we just finishing up so they let us have their seats.
Mrs D putting pressure on the occupants of the shelter.
A view down Glen Turret from the summit.
After sharing a couple of chicken wraps and some mini pork pies we were off again and were keeping the height along the high moorland to Carn Chois. This looked like an easy path but we were really caught out by how boggy the path was. However we were treated some fantastic wildlife along the way. I have never seem so many artic hare before, they would hide until we were almost upon them and then jump out and race away to a safe distance.
We also saw a couple of raptors that were circling and were very close at times. It was at this point I was cursing the lack of a usable camera as we were unsure what kind of birds they were. We thought they might be osprey as the heads were lighter than their bodies and there was white patches towards the end of their wings on the underside. Also the tail was forked in a way I had not seen before. It wasn't until I got home and looked up my book that I realised that they must have been Red Kites. I am no ornathologist but I got a real buzz when I found out what they must be as I hadn't realised that they were in Perthshire.
The walk through this section was really rather boggy and at times we had to take big detours as the path was thick with deep mud. However the views opened up rather nicely towards the east and we got some views of Ben More and Stob Binnien and also Ben Vorlich.
View to Carn Chois
From Carn Chois it was just a case of dropping down to the loch side to catch the land rover track back to the dam. We really enjoyed the walk and the wildlife but at times it was really tough going. The mud was deep at points and there were times that the path was not very clear so the GPS was used to get us back on track.
