Foss Mine Corbetts
Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 4:07 pm
I met up with Pigeon for this walk ,one I was looking forward to with the promise of some interesting exploration. We got parked up in the layby just north of the mine track and were off walking for 8 o'clock .
The route up through the trees is pretty steep , thankfully the snowplough had been in action and a few tracked vehicles had been up and down making a nice corrugated surface to walk on . I haven't been out as much as I would have liked recently and found this a bit of a struggle , I was glad of a few ' photo breaks ' , the Sacred One looking amazing in the early morning light .
Once the track leaves the trees it levels out and gives much easier going as it traverses up the side of Meall Tairneachan to just below the summit , we decided to leave this for later in the day and continue towards the baryte mine .
Compared to the bitterly cold outside the air in the tunnel was surprisingly warm and humid , this had the effect of instantly blinding me as my glasses steamed up , my camera didn't like it either .This working follows a seam of baryte bearing rock deep under the hill , though I'm not sure if this part of the mine is still active . After a good look around we left the shelter and warmth of the tunnel to continue towards Farragon Hill .
After passing the opencast part of the mine we took a cross country route towards our first Corbett of the day (sorry P , my idea ), encountering deeper snow and a strengthening wind which made for slow going .
A lack of hill days recently and soft drifted snow made the final ascent of Farragon Hill a bit of a slog , thankfully Pigeon was feeling it too so I didn't feel too bad .
The views from the summit were grand but the snell wind drove us down to seek shelter behind a friendly boulder for lunch and a much needed rest before heading back west . On our return route we followed the track back to the mine , although this was still quite hard going underfoot it was definitely easier than our outward one. We stopped at the tunnel for another wee sit down and a bit more exploring before setting off towards our second Corbett of the day . After about 5 minutes of plodding uphill Pigeon decided that he was so impressed with the tunnel he wanted to go back for yet another look ( he'd also left his map there )
From the high point of the track it's only a few minutes to the summit of Meall Tairneachan , another fine viewpoint .
Back down on the track it was a quick descent back towards the road , stopping for a look at some of the excellent toys they have on site .
A great day out