Carn Mairg circuit - 1st report and 1st 4-bagger!
Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 8:28 pmMy first report and I'm stuck for words as most of this circuit is well covered already.
Couple of tips for the start:
1. If the small car park just before the red phone box is full (as it was when I arrived at 09:45), you can park about 100 metres back down the road in the entrance to a farm's storage field - farm worker told me it was okay to do so.
2. The path starts exactly opposite the red phone box - a few folks have walked up the road to the house instead and it's easy to see how that's done as it seems the more logical path.
I planned to follow the WH clockwise route and the weather at the start was very kind - sun out and quite sharp. First 1.5km on easy path to very bouncy metal bridge:
Looking at WH route, I missed the turn in the path which follows the tree line - others also missed it or were just following me! It's not a problem though as you just follow the burn a bit further until path disappears and walk on a diagonal to the left to regain the WH path.
First good view of Carn Gorm
I felt a bit tired before the path steepened (always takes me an hour to get second wind!), but strangely felt better on steeper path after stopping for a quick photo from near the top:
Got much colder at the top of Carn Gorm with biting wind, so took a few wintry looking pics and quickly headed down:
View back down path from top of Carn Gorm:
Very easy path down and over to Meall Garbh missing out An Sgorr. Got the required pic of the modern art cairn and a photo looking back to Carn Gorm before moving on to get a sheltered spot for some lunch:
Met a party of students who were braving it in shorts, although most of them changed to waterproofs at this point.
After quick lunch, it was an easy walk following fence poles to top of Mheall a'Bharr and more modern art!
Also got first good view of Carn Mairg:
Next part of the walk was pretty flat until you turn right to head along ridge to Carn Mairg. A tip here is to move off the line of fence posts to the right to avoid the boulder field. This was a nice walk through the snow up to the summit tor.Some of the students were still wearing shorts:
Headed over to the cairn and took a photo with Schiehallion in the background:
Moved past the cairn and enjoyed the scramble down the rocks, before turning right to head for the last munro of the day. Very boggy in parts here and you had to take care to avoid deep bogs - easy today, but wouldn't have fancied it in the clag!
Last cairn is reached very quickly on top of a tor and there is a great view over to Schiehallion.
On route down, I decided to cut out corner of ridge and headed directly for bottom part of ridge - seemed to work quite well as only added a short ascent to reah WH path near the end of the ridge. My knees didn't like the descent from here after 6 hours of walking, so it was great to get back down to initial path.
Tired, but very happy after 1st 4 bagger!
My timings for 4 munros:
1. Carn Gorm 2 hours
2. Meall Garbh 50 minutes
3. Carn Mairg 1 hour 25 minutes (included stop for lunch)
4. Creag Mhor 55 minutes
5. Descent to car 1 hour 40 minutes
Couple of tips for the start:
1. If the small car park just before the red phone box is full (as it was when I arrived at 09:45), you can park about 100 metres back down the road in the entrance to a farm's storage field - farm worker told me it was okay to do so.
2. The path starts exactly opposite the red phone box - a few folks have walked up the road to the house instead and it's easy to see how that's done as it seems the more logical path.
I planned to follow the WH clockwise route and the weather at the start was very kind - sun out and quite sharp. First 1.5km on easy path to very bouncy metal bridge:
Looking at WH route, I missed the turn in the path which follows the tree line - others also missed it or were just following me! It's not a problem though as you just follow the burn a bit further until path disappears and walk on a diagonal to the left to regain the WH path.
First good view of Carn Gorm
I felt a bit tired before the path steepened (always takes me an hour to get second wind!), but strangely felt better on steeper path after stopping for a quick photo from near the top:
Got much colder at the top of Carn Gorm with biting wind, so took a few wintry looking pics and quickly headed down:
View back down path from top of Carn Gorm:
Very easy path down and over to Meall Garbh missing out An Sgorr. Got the required pic of the modern art cairn and a photo looking back to Carn Gorm before moving on to get a sheltered spot for some lunch:
Met a party of students who were braving it in shorts, although most of them changed to waterproofs at this point.
After quick lunch, it was an easy walk following fence poles to top of Mheall a'Bharr and more modern art!
Also got first good view of Carn Mairg:
Next part of the walk was pretty flat until you turn right to head along ridge to Carn Mairg. A tip here is to move off the line of fence posts to the right to avoid the boulder field. This was a nice walk through the snow up to the summit tor.Some of the students were still wearing shorts:
Headed over to the cairn and took a photo with Schiehallion in the background:
Moved past the cairn and enjoyed the scramble down the rocks, before turning right to head for the last munro of the day. Very boggy in parts here and you had to take care to avoid deep bogs - easy today, but wouldn't have fancied it in the clag!
Last cairn is reached very quickly on top of a tor and there is a great view over to Schiehallion.
On route down, I decided to cut out corner of ridge and headed directly for bottom part of ridge - seemed to work quite well as only added a short ascent to reah WH path near the end of the ridge. My knees didn't like the descent from here after 6 hours of walking, so it was great to get back down to initial path.
Tired, but very happy after 1st 4 bagger!
My timings for 4 munros:
1. Carn Gorm 2 hours
2. Meall Garbh 50 minutes
3. Carn Mairg 1 hour 25 minutes (included stop for lunch)
4. Creag Mhor 55 minutes
5. Descent to car 1 hour 40 minutes
Hope the students got back down ok 
