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Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie


Postby Alteknacker » Sat Sep 05, 2020 10:41 pm

Route description: Mayar and Driesh, Glen Clova

Munros included on this walk: Driesh, Mayar

Date walked: 28/08/2020

Time taken: 4.75 hours

Distance: 13.4 km

Ascent: 916m

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The week had not exactly gone to plan. The idea had been to spend the best part of a week walking with Dr Duncan, as he’d just moved to new job in Dundee. But apart from for the Monday I drove up, and the Friday I was to drive back, the weather forecast had progressively deteriorated from fine all week, to rain all week, at times extremely heavy. Sod's Law being its inexorable self, I should have guessed how it might be when, towards the end of a superb walk up Cross Fell to break the journey on the way up, I managed to lose my mobile phone = camera – in the linear bog that is the north side path down from the summit!

So I decided to start early on the Friday, and do the short round of Driesh and Mayar before heading back south - these being the nearest largish hills to Dundee. I’d wanted to see Corrie Fee for some time, and a few years back had almost done so; but in the end it lost out to Lochnagar. Now, just a couple of weeks previous Dr Duncan had walked these two on an absolutely superb sunny day, so they’d caught my attention again.

Sadly my phone/camera was still festering in a bog on Cross Fell, so most of the pics in this short report are from Duncan’s earlier walk, topped up with a few library pics, and a couple kindly taken by Andrew (more on that later).

It took about an hour and 20 minutes to get from Dundee, all the roads being pretty clear except for the single track dead end road that leads to the walk start, which was seething with young pheasants. Apparently the biomass of pheasants at this time of year is something like 1.6 – 1.7 times the total avian biomass in the entire UK in spring!!!! Not difficult to imagine the impact that will have on food supplies for other birds :-(. What are we doing to our planet???!!!???

Arriving at the car park, I realised that I had no cash for the parking meter; but fortunately the meters were both out of order :D .

I'd initially planned to follow the route Duncan took, but coming off Driesh I changed my mind and headed down the steep slopes to the west of The Scorrie. So this is the final actual route. Although I encountered two couples heading up this way, I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a descent route. It's fine if you're OK with very steep, and the views are superb; but definitely high risk of multiple bum-plants...

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I took the standard route up through the forestry to Corrie Fee. It's straightforward, starting with 3-odd km through the forestry after which the path opens up to reveal Corrie Fee. I did take a long look at The Scorrie ridge....
Image.... wondering if I should ascend this way; but thought better of it: I really struggle up steep inclines now, so it was better to make a more gentle ascent

Image
North side of the start (east end) of Corrie Fee - Craig Rennet and Erne Craigs.

ImageLooking up towards the corrie head. Not a soul about.

ImageLooking back at the start of the path through Corrie Fee.

ImageAgain looking back, a bit further up. Drumlins beginning to be very obvious.

ImageThe more so as the path rises... Such a pity that the view is so compromised by the unspeakable forestry monoculture :( .

Image

Image Waterfull at the corrie headwall.

Towards the top of the corrie the path is for some reason not shown on the OS 1:25000, but it does continue, all the way to the summit of Mayar.
It's (for me) a very slow slog to the summit. But it's worth it...

Another walker arrived shortly after me, and he very kindly emailed his pic of the summit to me after I told him about my phone/camera loss at the beginning of the week. Thanks Andrew :thumbup:

Image View from the summit looking roughly north west towards the Cairngorms. I presume that the smudge of water visible on the LHS is Loch Callater...???

ImageSimilar view looking rather more to the West.

It's then an easy walk across to Driesh, on a clear path...
Image.

...with good views on the way...

Image

Image

There was quite a wind by now, so I crouched behind the trig point for a cup of tea. And nearly jumped out of my skin when I suddenly heard a voice right behind me! Andrew had caught me up, and again taken this pic...
Image
... the top of my head just visible!

This library pic gives a wider angle view.
Image

Then I took a bearing and headed north until I hit the edge of the ridge from where I could look down into Corrie Kilbo, and then contoured around the edge until I came to the end of plateau, from where I started my descent back to the head of Glen Clova. The descent is quite steep, so somewhat slow going, but not especially difficult. I bumped into two couples as I got near the bottom, who'd also weighed up The Scorrie route, but taken the opposite decision to mine!!
Image This is the view towards the bottom of The Scorrie ridge where the slope flattens out somewhat.

I wasn't able to find a/the path indicated on the map, but with the good visibility it was straightforward enough to hit the Corrie Fee track, and then back to the car park without getting too tangled up in the forestry brash.

Having a seven hour drive back down south ahead of me, I didn't visit any of the local establishments of cultural, historical and architectural distinction, but just savoured a can of Punk Nanny State in the car park before setting off on the long drive.

The attraction of these two definitely isn't the two munros, but rather the route up through Corrie Fee, and then the views from the summits.
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby Mountainlove » Sat Sep 05, 2020 11:27 pm

Great to see those two Munros clad in purple Heather. Good info about the steep return, had thought to do the route in winter, but glad now I didn't
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby jupe1407 » Sat Sep 05, 2020 11:28 pm

These are my local hills, and I've been up them god knows how many times, the last 3 times I've taken the Scorrie in ascent. There is a path but it's extremely faint and regularly disappears and it mostly avoids the edge of the ridge on the way up.
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby mrssanta » Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:21 pm

my mum and I were planning to go and look at Corrie Fee this year sometime. Last year we went to Steall Falls and the year before up Cairngorm although we cheated and took the funicular. Postponed now to next year when she will be 85.
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby rockhopper » Tue Sep 08, 2020 8:35 am

Pity about your phone but good result even with borrowed photos. Glad to see you managed to get out given the weather conditions. Having approached these two from the west at Auchavan, I've never yet been to Corrie Fee but would like to some time - cheers :)
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby litljortindan » Tue Sep 08, 2020 10:27 pm

Good that you still managed to put a report together. The Scorrie looks pretty steep on the map so I was expecting you to have ascended that way and surprised to read that you're finding steep inclines less easy but I suppose that's not the same thing as the scrambling that seems to be your bag.
Lots of memories of this area.
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby Alteknacker » Wed Sep 09, 2020 11:21 am

Mountainlove wrote:Great to see those two Munros clad in purple Heather. Good info about the steep return, had thought to do the route in winter, but glad now I didn't

Yes, the purple is absolutely fantastic.

As regards the Scorrie in winter: if it was hard frozen, I think it would be pretty OK...

jupe1407 wrote:These are my local hills, and I've been up them god knows how many times, the last 3 times I've taken the Scorrie in ascent. There is a path but it's extremely faint and regularly disappears and it mostly avoids the edge of the ridge on the way up.

Hopefully they'll become a bit more like local hills for me with son Duncan being in Dundee!!!

The maps are odd with the Scorrie ridge path: it's shown on some, and not on others...

mrssanta wrote:my mum and I were planning to go and look at Corrie Fee this year sometime. Last year we went to Steall Falls and the year before up Cairngorm although we cheated and took the funicular. Postponed now to next year when she will be 85.

Your mum sounds as if she's quite fit, and Sgurr is clearly still doing lots of fairly strenuous stuff.

I think a plus point about the Corrie Fee walk is that the walk to and into the corrie itself is very easy. Then you can go up the headwall path as far as you feel OK doing to get more of the views.


rockhopper wrote:Pity about your phone but good result even with borrowed photos. Glad to see you managed to get out given the weather conditions. Having approached these two from the west at Auchavan, I've never yet been to Corrie Fee but would like to some time - cheers :)

The unbelievably improbable happened: a week later a very nice chap found my phone (amazing - in the middle of a huge bog!) and returned it to me. There are some very nice folk about!

litljortindan wrote:... The Scorrie looks pretty steep on the map so I was expecting you to have ascended that way and surprised to read that you're finding steep inclines less easy but I suppose that's not the same thing as the scrambling that seems to be your bag...


Yes, a couple of years ago I'm sure I would have ascended that way, but unfortunately I've developed a heart issue in the meantime that's cut the limits of the reasonably possible by a factor of about 3. Scrambling I find more straightforward, since one doesn't have a planned distance to cover, and one can proceed as quickly or slowly as one wishes.
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby Jaxter » Wed Sep 09, 2020 12:00 pm

oooh lovely - I remember being suitably impressed with Corrie Fee (although less so with the summits, especially as the weather wasn't particularly inspiring!)

Bummer about the loss of phone....reminds of a Meet where somebody lost car keys in a bog on Gairich :lol: :lol: At least your loss didn't see you stranded :lol:
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby Huff_n_Puff » Wed Sep 09, 2020 6:33 pm

These used to be my locals and its always great to see them again, thanks :D . My favourite route is up the Scorrie and down Corrie Fee - with a heavy frost it was a delight. Love the photos of Corrie Fee in the purple :clap: :clap:
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby past my sell by date » Thu Sep 10, 2020 6:12 pm

Lovely photos and I love those names - Shanks and Snecks (Norse presumably). Similar ones in Galloway
Sorry to hear you have health problems. Judging by your usual megawalks I would have expected you to have wiped out the whole of the Mona Ruadh in one trip. There's very little altitude loss between the Munros - quite cheaty really :lol:
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby litljortindan » Thu Sep 24, 2020 5:58 pm

Yes, a couple of years ago I'm sure I would have ascended that way, but unfortunately I've developed a heart issue in the meantime that's cut the limits of the reasonably possible by a factor of about 3. Scrambling I find more straightforward, since one doesn't have a planned distance to cover, and one can proceed as quickly or slowly as one wishes.


Sorry to hear that but you are still going strong by most folks' standards I'd say.
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby J A Davey » Wed May 26, 2021 12:49 pm

I'm glad you mentioned that the path out of Corrie Fen and up to Mayar is not marked on the OS map. I thought I was going mad when I couldn't find it on mine.
Is that path clear enough to follow on the ground without being able to use the map as a guide?
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Re: Driesh & Mayar, return via The Scorrie

Postby jupe1407 » Wed May 26, 2021 11:27 pm

J A Davey wrote:I'm glad you mentioned that the path out of Corrie Fen and up to Mayar is not marked on the OS map. I thought I was going mad when I couldn't find it on mine.
Is that path clear enough to follow on the ground without being able to use the map as a guide?


Yeah, it's been considerably upgraded over the last 2-3 years. It's almost impossible to miss unless in winter conditions.
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