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A day to work off the Christmas pudding without straying too far from home. Todays adventure was a walk from Little Glen Shee to Craig Gibbon's obelisk, another part of the skyine seen from my daily walk, so off we were to park at the ford at the head of Little Glen Shee
Todays walk was on estate tracks all the way with a few deviations to take in some sites of interest. We started at the ford and followed a track up the South slopes of Creag na Criech, which just about took us all the way to the top, not quite, so a little heather hoping was required to bag the top before rejoining the track and heading East.
Further to the East and slightly lower than the track is the Sack Stone, a megalith, which was worth a visit. It sits on the Southern slopes so to rejoin the track you have to re-ascend over Cairn na Liath, itself the site of an ancient cairn. More estate track and views both South to East/West Lomond and to the East open up across Starth Earn which are really quite fabulous.
Craig Gibbon is a wooded hill top which hides an obelisk, erected by Colonel Mercer to enable him to identify the extent of his estate and his own hill back in the 1800's. The trees obscure some of the views but Obney hill to the East is a point of interest across Gen Garr.
We retraced our steps back to Creag Liath which hides a small shooting bothy and just off the summit a boulder built ruined dwelling. This is reportedly a building built by the Exice men as a viewpoint from which to spy on smoke from elicit stills prevalent in the area.
Creag Liath is a little bit of an outlier and to avoid retracing my path I opted for a route across the Moine Foliach, not the great Grimpon Mire but probably not a good idea in wet conditions, as it was we got away with it. Back on the track and all that was left was the walk back to the car which went off without a hitch apart from nearly slipping off one of the new and rather tall metal styles that had been installed. Luckily they all have dog doors !
