free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
I didn't post much over the previous couple of weeks, but I'm back now
I was busy with lots of different things, doing new hills in particular, so here I am, the whole 10 reports behind!!!
I'll try to write them all as quickly as possible, but getting through hundreds of photos itself takes ages
Today, one story pending from a month ago
The final May weekend brought us some changeable weather, but Saturday seemed all right down south. Having done all Munros around Loch Tay, we took interest in lower hills on the opposite side of the loch, and there are no less than 3 Corbetts and 5 Grahams to choose from! They can be combined in dozens of ways, also including the Munro Ben Chonzie, but we were looking for a shorter route, max 6-7 hours, as the drive down from the north takes 2.5 hours each way!
The original plan was to do one of the Corbetts, Creagan na Beinne, which in itself makes a nice circular walk, but in the end, we threw in a Graham for a good measure
After a long drive from Inverness, we arrived in a tiny village of Ardtalnaig, situated on the southern banks of Loch Tay. And here we were faced with a problem. The WH walk description says: "There is parking on the verge in Ardtalnaig, just south of the bridge over the burn.". Yes, there is space for a few cars, but at the moment it is being used as a turning place for traffic going to the nearby building site - a hydro scheme of some sort. The parking area has been marked with "no parking" signs and there is nowhere else to leave car along this narrow road apart from private driveways. But because we are silly-stubborn and we didn't want to waste a day, we took the risk and parked just under the "no parking" sign
It was Saturday and the building site was deserted, the access gate padlocked, so we assumed we were not doing anybody any harm by leaving Black Arrow here for a few hours. It would be a whole other story on a working day though.
Our route followed WH description over the Corbett - easy terrain, some paths, some pathless moorland, a few peat hags. On the way back we took a detour over Shee of Ardtalnaig, a magnificent little Graham. The combination of the two really made the drive worth it!
The route begins by walking a short distance on the road, over the bridge, then taking the first gate to the right.
Ardtalnaig Burn from the bridge:
The fist stage, with all the gates, fences, pastures and sheep bleating about, can be a bit confusing
, but views are magnificent from the very beginning:
We located the grassy track zig-zagging up the hill, it was wet in places and a bit overgrown, but made for a quick progress...
...until we somehow managed to lose it at some point
I don't know, we probably ventured onto the wrong pasture. It made little difference anyway, we just headed straight uphill over grassy-heathery ground, trying to avoid sheep poo and wet streams. About 200m higher we found the grassy track again and stuck to it for the rest of the ascent to Beinn Bhreac col:
The view up Glen Ardtalnaig was amazing, a mosaic of green grass and brown heather, with the round lump, the northern end of Shee of Ardtalnaig ridge dominating the panorama:
I felt free at last, a wild cat right where I belong!
"Our" Corbett on the horizon - it didn't look like a great deal of climbing now
Views down Loch Tay - priceless:
The track circles the upper reaches of Coire Cruinneachan and ends at the col between the top of Beinn Bhreac and the 658m point. There's no need to climb the latter and just as well, it looks awkward to say the least...
Hmmm... Do I need to cross all these peat hags???
Thanks heavens, no! They can be avoided by sticking to a low fence and following it all the way to the second col and then higher up to the higher slopes of Creagan na Beinne - this way we omitted the peat hag hell in this picture:
Weather was slowly improving, still some dark-ish cloud hanging over Lawers Ridge, but the sun was shining through the gaps in cloud and I knew a lovely afternoon was shaping up!
We crossed the second col without any nasty peat hag surprises, and began the final climb to the summit of the Corbett. This part would feel a bit like a slog, if it wasn't for the excellent views around, especially to the north, where Schiehallion announced its presence:
The Lawers pano:
The fence is a good guide (would be even more helpful in misty conditions), and when we emerged on the summit ridge, it was only a short walk to the cairn, where all celebrations for Panther's 90th Corbett took place
Wow, I never dreamed, when I started 8 years ago, that I would ever get to 90 Corbetts! Now a round number of 100 is not impossible - at the time of writing this TR I'm only 6 C's away from the triple digit!
Lucy was with us this time, too and it was her second Corbett! She's becoming addicted to list ticking now!
The summit of Creagan na Beinne is a magnificent viewpoint. To the south-west, the long ridge of Creag Uchdag, another local Corbett:
To the north, Schiehallion, of course, a bit moody today:
North-west, Loch Tay and the surrounding hills, fantastic:
But the Lawers ridge across the loch is of course the best bit of the day:
Sadly, one can't run away from a windfarm pano here and there...
The summit was windy, so after our share of poses, photos and videos, we retreated to a quiet spot behind a small rocky outcrop, where we could sit down to admire views and refill our fuel tanks
As we sat there, we eyed Ben Chonzie, the nearest Munro. We haven't climbed it so far, mainly because it is such a long drive from home. We had a good look at the map and wondered, if it was possible to climb BCH from the north, using the Rob Roy's Way as an easy approach. There is an obvious track that climbs from Glen Almond about half way up the Munro from this side and the whole walk (as I measured later on the map) would be around 26km up and down from Ardtalnaig. So it is an idea to make a boring hill more interesting and we may as well do it this year. Sadly, due to the parking problem, we are restricted to weekends only on this route.
The track up Ben Chonzie can be seen in this picture:
As we began our descent to Dunan, Kevin kept glancing at the long ridge on the opposite side of the glen. "It must be a Graham" he said "It looks like it has more than enough re-ascent. Let's do this one as well."
I liked the idea. Weather was improving, with sunshine and blue sky above us, and we had more than enough time to add a second hill to our circuit. But first, we had to get down from Creagan na Beinne - a task proved easy enough. There's no path for most of the way down, but walking was pleasant, mostly on soft grass:
Instead of aiming for the ruin at Dunan, we took a shortcut across the green pastures, enjoying the weird post-glacial landscape:
We walked back on the main track for about 1 kilometre and then took another track, branching south and ascending about 100m up Shee of Ardtalnaig - so far this was easy:
We left the track at 735346 and began the steep slog up the Graham. No obvious path, but animal track can be followed most of the way, and the slope is mostly heathery, not too bad underfoot:
View back towards Ben Chonzie:
It's only 170m of ascent from where we left the track to the summit area with a tiny cairn. Views are just as good as from the Corbett
They include Tarmachan Ridge...
Glass and Lawers themselves...
...and An Stuc in its full glory:
Me (with hair ruffled by the wind) and Lucy (posing for her second Graham!) on the summit of Shee of Ardtalnaig - with the superb pano of Lawers Ridge behind us:
We spent some time on the summit of this little gem of a Graham - no need to hurry at all!
The easiest way to get down is to retrace your steps back to the track and descend down to the glen, but we preferred to explore the whole length of this interesting little ridge, even if its opposite end looked...hmmm... a bit peat-haggy to be honest:
In the end, it was a good route choice, as we came across this interesting feature:
It's called Buidhe a'Chlaidheimh and at the day of our visit it still harboured a large patch of snow:
Panther bewildered:
Past the big gap, we continued along the ridge, there is a faint path to follow and the peat hags were not the worst in the world, there is an easy way across them, it just requires some manoeuvring around the wettest parts.
View back towards the Graham summit:
The final (steep) descent is best made NW to another track, this one coming out of Gleann a'Chloidh. The ground here is overgrown with higher heather and could be slippery when wet, but as we had a dry day, it was not an issue:
Down on the track, the rest of the circuit was a formality. We walked down to Claggan Farm, crossed a gate and joined the tarmac road leading back to Ardtalnaig. Simples.
On the track leading to Claggan:
I'm still desperate to climb Chonzie from this side and will do it at some point (I'm a VERY stubborn cat!). Hopefully, the parking problem in Ardtalnaig will not last forever.
Umphhh... So that's one done, nine still to come
They will include some good ridgewalking, a couple of cycling trips, a few Grahams most of you never heard of and a Munro-Corbett combo in need of advertising.
