This was the third time we'd planned to do these hills, we'd postponed in the past due to the deer stalking/access issues ("there are plenty of other mountains you can climb!" I was told when I phoned the estate last September) and a really bad bout of man-flu (me!) the weekend before!
These delays worked in our favour though, as the forecast for last weekend was great, sunshine, moderate winds, and "0% chance of rain" so, as I'd pretty much beaten my man-flu, we headed off on Sunday morning, reaching the car park at 9.20am, ready to set off 15 mins later.
The path is well sign posted at the start, so we made our way up through the wood, ducking under, and climbing over the fallen trees across the path, then out onto the open moor, crossing the shoogley bridge and up the eastern flank of Carn Gorm, as we gained height, the views really opened up, across to The Lawers Range and down the glen to the east. We hit a largish patch of snow which had been crossed earlier in the day, so we followed the footsteps across, and headed up to the summit of Carn Gorm, our first of the day!
We had a quick lunch break sitting against the cairn looking west, barely a cloud in the sky, the views were stunning, my pics certainly don't do them justice!
After eating, we headed down the north slope across a large area of snow, which Sam slid down on his ar*e, ("far quicker" he thought!) , we then followed the line of rusty fence posts up Meall Garbh, to the (eyesore??) cairn at the summit.
We didn't hang about on this top as there was a chilly breeze despite the brilliant sunshine, so we set off towards Meall a' Bharr, where we sheltered from the wind and refuelled.
It's a good path to Carn Mairg, but I still missed the summit cairn, having to be called over by the faster walkers in our group, this gave us excellent views across to Schiehallion, my first Munro, just over two years ago!
From here, we negotiated a rather steep path down and over a small boulder field, down to the col, the ascent of Creag Mhor involved crossing a fair bit of snow, and then up a short incline to the summit at the far end of the small plateau. We rested a few minutes, emptied our lunch boxes and took in the final views of the day, then started on the steep, knee jarring, path back down to the car park.
An excellent days walking, ticking off our first hills of the year, looking forward to many more!
Warning
Please note that hillwalking when there is snow lying requires an ice-axe, crampons and the knowledge, experience and skill to use them correctly. Summer routes may not be viable or appropriate in winter. See winter information on our skills and safety pages for more information.