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You must admit - that’s some impressive name
Shame the hill doesn’t quite live up to it
According to the walk highlands pronunciation guide Ghubhais Li means ‘coloured pine’. I’m not convinced – purgatory seems more appropriate. Then Beinn Liath Mhor a Ghuibhais Li becomes the Big Grey Hill of Purgatory – a much more appropriate description
It’s not so much a hill as a vast tilted bog but, back in the 1980’s, the OS revisions revealed the height to be ever so slightly in excess of 2500 feet making it a Corbett. This, surely, is the only reason that a long list of walk highlanders appear to have been up there. It certainly explains why Carol and I had a few hours of fresh air and exercise squelching around on it whilst returning home from a week on the West Coast. I’m surprised that she’s still talking to me
Since no walk description yet exists on the site (can’t think why not) I’ll give a few details of the possibilities. You have been warned
We started from the west end of Loch Glascarnoch. Skirting round the left hand side of the plantation seen on the first photo we found a fixed wooden ‘gate’ which could be climbed to get us over the deer fences onto the open hillside above. We then headed pretty much for the point about halfway up the ridge on the right hand side of the photo and headed on to the summit of Meall Daimh. Anyone fascinated by wetland plants would probably love this route.
From Meall Daimh we took a direct line up the bogs of the North East slope of the ‘main’ peak – the photo below is the view back down these slopes from near the summit.
At least we got a view from the top - maybe that explains why Carol is still talking to me
The South East ridge would be another (perhaps preferable) route up.
On the descent we waded round the west side of Meall Daimh rather than going back over the top then skirted the plantations and dropped down to the car. Here’s a photo showing the delights of this route
Now I am a great believer that every hill has something that makes it a bit special so, on the descent, I amused myself by taking a few photos of the most impressive features of this hill
I hesitate to recommend our route. Other ways up start from a bit further along Loch Glascarnoch where the stream to the east of Meall Daimh meets the road. There appears to be another wooden ‘gate’ to get you over the Deer fences and then you could either follow the stream up or get onto the ridge, obvious on the OS map, which is seen rising from the left side of the following photo. I don’t know if they’d be better ways up than our route but doubt if they could be worse
Now I don’t really hold with enhancing photos but I thought it might be interesting to see if Photoshop could do anything to improve that last view of this rather unimpressive hill. Scroll down to see the result – remarkable what can be achieved these days
