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May is Duke of Edinburgh Bronze season at school and it's been in full swing for the last couple of weeks. I was out a few days ago leading a training group of four boys and three girls on our usual bronze training grounds which make a circular route centered around Loch Ordie north of Dunkeld. I have done this bronze training route for the last five years and so know the route inside out and back to front. And so it was that a few months back, as I was exploring the new Sub 2000ft hills section on this magnificent specimen of a site, I discovered that for all of those last five years our campsite on the sun drenched shores of Lochan Oissineach Mor was in the shadow of the mighty 563 metre high Creag nam Mial. Imagine now my shock and dismay to find that there had been no recorded ascents of this mighty peak! I also recall a few years back, as I was doing the route in fairly typical inclement D of E weather accompanied by my colleague and friend Skyepilot2, that he said it was worth taking a little detour over the trig point at the summit of Deuchary Hill to the immediate south of Loch Ordie. He said that on a good day the summit opened up a whole new aerial perspective on our route. And so I hatched a plan......
Day 1 (Sunday) was dry but fairly dull. I had a feeling the Monday would be better and so I set my alarm for 5.30am with the imtention of making an early morning ascent of the virgin Walkhighlands hill on the doorstep. Right enough, it was already a sun drenched morning and taking just my compass, map and a breakfast bar, I quietly crept out of camp with Lucy tagging dutifully along behind. Needless to say there ain't nothing on Creag nam Mial that even vaguely resembles a path, so it was a case of trudging through deep heather for the kilometre and a bit to the summit.
Once up on top, there were three or four slabby areas that all looked like they could be the real summit, so I swung by them all. I guess the true summit was the one with a funny metal cylinder placed on top!
Keen to get back for some coffee and my space meal breakfast, I didn't hang about and headed back to the campsite.
- Early morning over Lochan Oissineach Mor
- I should have brought a Union Jack to stick in the cylinder!
- Early morning shadows
Now for Deuchary Hill. I allowed the group to take responsibility for navigating us back to the north west corner of Loch Ordie, where I gave them instructions to meet me at the Mill Dam, advising them that I would be on a different route. As they headed south west towards Raor Lodge, I nicked up the back of Lochordie Lodge and up onto Deuchary Hill.
If Creag nam Mial is a bit of a featureless heather covered mound, spiced up only by it's remoteness and rarity value, then Deuchary Hill is definitely a hill with a lot of character. Lochan na Beinne, just below the summit, is as special a place as I've come across on a little 500 metre hill. I don't know who was more surprised to see another human being - me or the bloke fishing in the lochan!
- Deuchary Hill across Loch Ordie
- Lochordie Lodge
- Track up Deuchary Hill
- Lochan na Beinne
- Schiehallion from above Lochan na Beinne
- Summit trig
From the trig point the views were truly brilliant and I did indeed get a wholly different angle on an often walked and very well known route, before niping down the other side and swinging around the bottom of the Mill Dam to rejoin my group.