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The plan for Saturday was to head for Glen Lyon and walk the Carn Mairg horseshoe
The Plan -
1. Pack bag - check
2. Look out the relevant map - check
3. Check out a few reports on WH - check
4. Decide how many and which dogs to take - check
5.Fuel the Landy and stow tow rope, shovel etc - check
6. Get out of bed in Airdrie at 9.15am - no no no no no
Should have been 6am, what with the 2 hour plus drive ahead. Anyway, everything was packed
the night before so I was on the road by 9.30ish.
Made great progress to Loch Tay via Killin. Conditions on the Loch Tay to Glen Lyon road appeared good.
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However, shortly after the section of road pictured below, conditions became, well....really quite poor.
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The road was apparently impassable - deep snow and no vehicle tracks. Stopped and had a think about what to do. A chap in a small 4x4 arrived behind me and encouraged me to give it a go - so as he could follow behind in my tracks. A few hundred meters down the road I looked in my rear view mirror to discover he had progressed all of 10 feet and was trying to dig himself out. On the basis he seemed a decent sort I reversed and attached a tow rope and pulled him out and along the road a bit. ( A vindication, I feel of my one man "buy British" campaign).
By the time I got down to Bridge of Balgie the Carn Mairg round was out of the question. I decided to head along to Meall Buidhe as a quicker alternative.
Just before the dam, beside a large Estate sign and map, a Land Rover track climbs and veers left and parallel with the Loch.
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The track was, rather unpleasantly, stained, for several hundred yards, by the blood of some poor beast.
When the track was roughly parallel with the dam at the end of the loch I left it for the boggy, snow covered, tussocky pathless hillside.
Visibility was extremely poor. I suspect that the usual route kind of heads up the corrie and accesses the ridge from there. I decided to take a somewhat steeper and more direct route. This did not impress the dugs one bit.
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Once up there visibility was......actually there was none. I was starting to think that the MWIS guess of up to 70% chance of cloud free Munros was optimistic. The only point of interest in my photographs from here on in was the mark on the lens of my camera phone.
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About 20 minutes from the summit I met a couple of guys who were on the way down. Stopped for a chat. They had a young Staffordshire Terrier who was quite obviously having the time of his life in the snow. I like Staffies a lot but have never considered them as a potential hill walking dog. Shows what I know. Unfortunately I now want one. Persuading the family that dog number 6 is a good idea might be tough!
Reaching the summit took a bit longer than I had anticipated - about 2 hours. Decided to have a quick sandwich and drink and put a bit of a trot on on the way down. In my haste I forgot to have a fag at the summit. For me this means it doesn't really count and I'll have to do it again
Putting a bit of a trot on meant that on several occasions I ended up thigh deep in snow and on one occasion waist deep in a boggy puddle that had been covered in snow. Back to the car in about 45 minutes. Absolutely drookit and claggered in mud. Luckily there was no-one in the vicinity at that point. A full change of clothes was required immediately. The sight of a baldy, heavily tattooed, slightly overweight middle-aged man in his boxers standing in Glen Lyon would have put any innocent by-stander off the great outdoors forever. In fact I'm sure I noticed on of the local deer wretch a bit and resolve to stay away from people from then on.
Anyhow. A decent enough wee walk. A bit thin on route description but I find it difficult to describe what I can't see. More to follow when I go back to have my summit fag.
