Carn Mairg circuit from Invervar

[Alan S]

DATE, 01/03/09

TIME TAKEN, 7-8 hours

WEATHER, all seasons- rain,snow,high winds,blizzards,warm sunshine in the glens

Left the house at 6:15am and headed up the A9 to aberfeldy then following the road to fortingall and bridge of balgie.
not sure if this is quicker coming from the central belt.think it could be quicker coming over from ben lawyers road.

set off from car park behind the phone box at inverar and followed the track through 3 large gates through the woods and following the burn until crossing an old wooden bridge heading west until reaching a really unstable metal bridge taking you back over the burn.this is where we made our first error,i noticed that the track had continued on the other side so decided to cross back over the burn and up a small hill only to find that this only lead to a small hut.about 15 mins wasted so back over the burn again following the edge of the forrestry to start the ascent of carn gorm.
found the going here not bad until hitting the snow line around 600m this made things a bit more tricky.
on reaching the summit after 2 hours we had been sheltered by the wind this was to change at the top.
i read the mwis report before we left it said general buffeting on high ground not quite sure what this meant but ouch it was freezing.stupidly took my hat off for a photo and found that my hair had frozen a new experience for me.

didnt hang around here so quickly headed down the north side of carn gorm to the path which takes you easily past an sgorr when the snow started this never stopped for about 1 hour so after an easy climb to meall garbh it was down out the wind again to make for meall a bharr

once off the steep slopes the path seemed to ease of to almost level ground and as the cloud lifted we were able to see for quite some distance so decided to cut across moorland keeping the fence line in sight to our left to the ascent of meall a bharr.this part of the walk for around the next hour reminded me of walking over the campsies or the ochil hills this was to change on approaching carn mairg where the landscape changes to rocky ground.
found the climb to carn mairg straight forward it was the descent of this where the problems where. coming down the south side a lot of care to be taken here really tricky descent down large boulders

once down from carn mairg on heading to creag mhor we found that with the snow the path was really hard to find by checking our maps where pretty sure we where heading in the right direction but to be sure we hadnt missed anything we decided to back track just incase.we then bumped into another walker who we asked if this was the right way to go turns out he was following our footprints behind us and hadnt a clue where he was going.the phrase blind leading the blind was soon mentioned
on quickly finding the path which all along was just to the right of us the climb to greag mhor was straightforward
another quick touch of the summit and then headed back down the steep boggy sides of creag mhor to rejoin the original path

all in an enjoyable day out but on reading this was a straightforward walk i would disagree i found it quite demanding given the conditions in some areas but 4 munros where never going to be easy.

im still trying to only do one walk a month as i dont get a lot of time off with the family so my wife said seen as you done 4 today youll no need to go again for 4 months...... aye that will be right

[kevsbald]

Well done on that.
It's a very satisfying round of Munro's but the 1st Munro is a slog to the top - it never seems to end.
Thereafter, it's quite enjoyable. The dogs will have slept well.

[Alan S]

youre right kevsbald it is very satisfying especially on the way down when i could see where i had just walked.
never seen the dogs all the way home forgot they where even in the car

[mountain coward]

Thanks for that article and piccies - I'm thinking of doing it around April so good info for me. Especially like the snowless photo looking down Glen Lyon as it shows several other of the Munros I'm intending to do around the same time - as well as being a lovely photo of course

Tell your wife she can either come with you next month or you'll leave her one of the dogs for company!

[Alan S]

hi mc

i think youll enjoy this walk on a better day i would like to maybe do this again some day as the views i hear are pretty good.there were good views across to ben lawyers and an stuc and i think i could see the other 2 at the end of glen lyon but they quickly vanished in the clouds.
not much chance of the wife doing any walking shes 7 months pregnant maybe next year

cheers alan

[Freewheelin]

maybe do this again some day as the views i hear are pretty good.there were good views across to ben lawyers and an stuc

Did this walk on a roastin' hot June day - the views were fantastic. Lawyers range on one side and Schiehallion on the other, with a very lush-looking Glen Lyon below. I remember cooling my tootsies on one of the last patches of snow left over from winter while having a tea-break!

... must remember to get some software to shrink photo file sizes!

[mountain coward]

Only 7 months??!! Read my article about walking with pregnant women, 'Gillaval Glas - aka The Germans'

[Alan S]

[... must remember to get some software to shrink photo file sizes![/quote]

hi freewheelin

never seen scheihallion forgot it was even there.never seen much from that side.
when you say about the photo sizes do you mean mine? reason i ask is that i never have a problem looking at pictures on my computer but when i logged in on someone else's i noticed my pictures had there own scroll bar at the side and seemed to take longer to look at them.


mountain coward

read your report on the germans.
pretty scary glad you didnt need to assist there

[mountain coward]

And me... I'd have done the running for help and let him do it I think!;-)

[Freewheelin]

you get a great side-on view of Scheihallion

...naw mate, I mean my pics - I was goin' to stick one or two photos in to show you a couple of the views you missed in the cloud, but all the file sizes are huge. Downloaded Irfanview yonks ago, but still haven't got round to installing it yet (never enough hours in the day - that's why I'm normally online at yon [yawn?] time of night).

[Alan S]

thanks freewheelin

i used to have the same problem then i found my computer already had microsoft office picture management installed.
put my pics to 640x480 works no problem.
you should maybe try it earlier than 1am the brain works better
im always on first thing in the morning but i should be getting on with ma work instead of looking at pictures of munros

cheers
alan

[yokehead]

Enjoyed your report and looks like a good round, I'd intended doing this when on my recent 2 visits to Killin but never got to it, your report will be helpful for when I do get there. Good luck with your battle to get out within the next 4 months!

[Alan S]

hi yokehead

glad you found my report useful
i doubt youll need to use your winter climbing skills here this should be a pleasent hill walk in good weather.
after carn gorm the goings really straightforward, we were lucky to have the wind at our backs for most of the way round.
as for me im hoping to squeeze in another couple before the end of the month, not wanting to push my luck tho im going away for the weekend in june if all goes well

thanks alan

[Robinho08]

Nice report, I'm going to do this circuit in April/May, but I read that doing the round counter clockwise is a more rewarding experience.

[Alan S]

hi Robinho

not sure if i would recommend counter clockwise.the walk up to carn gorm at first takes a slow incline for approx 1hr until you reach the edge of the forestry and even then it levels out until you reach the first climb after approx 1 hour and a half so the legs get a good warm up first.
i would think doing craig mhor first could be a bit testing on the muscles as its pretty steep from the off,but that's just my opinion
i would think i should still be as good a walk, hope you get better weather than me

cheers
alan