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Ben Halton & Mor Bheinn
13.13km
743m ascent
4 hours 35 mins
I hadn’t seen Colin in absolutely ages, so when he suggested a wee walk in Perthshire it seemed like a good opportunity to catch up. Due to the Stirling Marathon he was out and about crazy early – Adam arrived a little later and Malcy and I rocked up last (but still well before our curfew of 9am
)
Compared to the last few weeks of wall-to-wall sunshine it seemed a bit overcast, but a few metres up the track we realised that it was lulling us into a false sense of security – despite the cloud it was incredibly muggy
Ben Halton ahead
Rather than smashing Ben Halton in the face we all plodded along the track which was rising gradually without much effort – looking back to Uamh Bheag
Beinn Dearg – Malcy had climbed hill with today’s target from Glen Artney previously and he was pure raging not to get a new summit
Eventually the track deposited us at the quarry and we were on our own – we spotted a stile and bashed our way through some heather towards this to make climbing the deer fence a bit easier. The others managed with a little more dignity than I…
From here it was a relatively easy climb, trying to miss the worst of the heather. Once on the ridge it was a short wander over to the highest point of Ben Halton which led us through peat bogs and some pretty lochans…
Ben Halton summit
Looking across to Mor Bheinn – the Graham summit
Perthshire
The Loch Earn hills
Colin wandered off for a photo and promised to catch us up, so Adam, Malcy and I found our own ways down towards the bealach. Colin showed his Himalayan fitness by catching us up super quick
Fortunately we had managed to avoid fence-maggeddon and only had a small one to climb over before picking up a path which led us relatively painlessly up Mor Bheinn.
Looking back to Ben Halton
St Fillans at the tip of Loch Earn
We thought this was probably Ben Vorlich in the cloud
Mor Bheinn summit
A pair of idiots
You know you have weird friends when Malcy is the most normal looking of the lot
Although it was muggy and warm there was a cool breeze so we decided to head down – we followed the ridge for a time but it was very lumpy and bumpy and difficult to walk on, so eventually followed numerous deer tracks and bashed through some steep heather down to the grassy slopes near the burn
Looking back to Mor Bheinn
There was a track along the burn which led us onto an estate track. Fortunately we didn’t believe Adam and checked the map otherwise who knows where we would have ended up
This track eventually led us back through the estate past some nice features which didn’t photograph well…
Recently laid pheasant eggs
Back at the car we polished off my sticky chocolate brownies – had to make sure Colin wasn’t suffering from any altitude-related issues
Eventually we headed off – it was great to catch up with old pals and meet new ones. However, Malcy had other plans for the way home – it wouldn’t be right if he didn’t manage to bag a new Marilyn and he was upset by a couple of red blobs in a sea of blue.
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Ben Clach
6.51km
332m ascent
1 hour 50 mins
We stopped for tea and cake in Comrie before managing to find a parking spot off the B827 near the start of the track beside the Corriebeagh burn.
I was feeling ok, so left my book in the car and decided to join him on a pointless Marilyn
Although the track was initially good it did get quite squishy along the way, but it was probably still better than wading across without it. Soon it met the burn and we branched off towards Ben Clach itself – the ground was much better underfoot now
There were a lot of younglings here, including one sheep that looked like it had literally just popped one out
We tried to steer clear. However, Malcy spotted a sheep on its back and decided to attempt to help (any excuse eh
)
As we gained height it gave us some nice views down the glen – nothing dramatic, just generally nice, like most of these hills seem to be
Eventually on the summit we were rewarded with an impressive view of Ben Vorlich and Stuc a’ Chroin – I decided it was worth the effort as we hadn’t seen these hills earlier on!
The summit of Ben Clach itself was a bit of a heathery plateau
The windfarm on Beinn nan Eun
We pretty much retraced our steps downwards, managing to avoid most of the sheep and the worst of the heather, which took us through some interesting rocky strata
We then picked up the track which took us back to the car – not quite the 45 minute hill I was promised…but an enjoyable wee wander none the less
