free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
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
.
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...
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....
.... 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
North side of the start (east end) of Corrie Fee - Craig Rennet and Erne Craigs.
Looking up towards the corrie head. Not a soul about.
Looking back at the start of the path through Corrie Fee.
Again looking back, a bit further up. Drumlins beginning to be very obvious.
The more so as the path rises... Such a pity that the view is so compromised by the unspeakable forestry monoculture
.
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
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...???
Similar view looking rather more to the West.
It's then an easy walk across to Driesh, on a clear path...
.
...with good views on the way...
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...
... the top of my head just visible!
This library pic gives a wider angle view.
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!!
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.