free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
With the lock down easing it seemed appropriate to get out for a run and Glen Turret is a excellent location to enjoy the hills. These are big rolling hills with some steep broken crags and shouldn't be underestimated especially in bad weather.
Coming back from some work I drove up Glen Turrent to the dam car park as a set of blustery showers blew threw, kitted up with map , waterproof and energy bar and set off. I got as far as the 'boat house' on the dam and was caught is a particularly vicious little squall and ended up sheltering in it's lee for a good fifteen minutes. They call it adversity training, you go out and you get wet and miserable and you see how you react. Well I seriously considered heading back to the car. If you wait long enough the weather will change and just as I was about to head back a lightening, a semblance of a clearing occurred and I set off up the Loch Turret track. Bad move, within a couple of minute both wind and rain had returned with a vengeance.
Change of plan. To recover something I thought I'd climb a couple of hundred meters, get wet and go home so turned right arbitrarily and headed up the hill through the bracken and heather, which as everyone knows is both wet and heavy work. Started following sheep tracks and soon found a walkers path and kept going, head down and draw strings tightened as squalls battered in along the loch.
Met a party of three coming down and they didn't look too miserable as we passed at the Allt Choinneachain, so inspired that they had been on the tops, I once again put my head down and carried on. There are some large boulders on this route and each offered a little shelter as well as an objective as I made progress. I reached the plateau, soaked and with my cagoule singing like a poorly set sail, eyes stinging in the rain, so put my head down which set the drips coursing down my back in long trickles. It was warm enough, just.
The new cairn and the track beyond, then a quick traverse to the top and back to Kenneth's Cairn before descending downs the estate track toward Allt Coinneachain. Again at an arbitrary point I turned west and headed down, once again in a squall but this time straight into my face.
As I reached the track I noticed a sign, I didn't see it on the ascent but there again I wasn't looking at anything with my head down. It details the closure of this hillside due to lambing and ground nesting birds so I hope that I didn't disturb anything though I did nearly tread on several voles as they crossed the sodden path.
A hour or so on the hill in celebration of the easing of restrictions. It was good to get out regardless of the weather.
