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Two things were looming ahead of me, snow on the hills and reaching my 50th Munro- jings such incompatibility!!!
The good news was that our recent heatwave had melted the snow on the lower hills. It had been my intention to head for the Glas Maol Circuit but many of the forum users had said to avoid it in really bad weather, so I opted for Carn Gorm and her pals that make up the Glen Lyon Horseshoe. Gable Gable End had submitted a fab report in the summer and I had always fancied following in his footsteps.
Got myself organised the night before and looking at the map I discovered that Killin is exactly north of my house. Unfortunately the council in their wisdom have neglected to build road that would give me speedy access to the hills and unlike some members of the forum I don't have a microlight (did I spell it properly Frogwell?) at my disposal, so I would need to decide on whether to turn left or right when I left my street. Left would take me up the Loch Lomond road and right would take me up the Stirling road. Since I never tire of seeing the castle and the monument I opted to turn right. Big mistake, the traffic was awful, stop/start all the way to Buchany. A word of warning though to the fine figure of man who stays in the end house, if you're going to open your bedroom curtains might be an idea to turn the light off first oh and keep your PJ's on!!!
And so to Invervar. A wee bit of flaffing about and checking the map but got there about an hour later. On the way in I noticed a couple of Basil Rathbone lookalikeys in the fields and they were carrying some fine weapons, not shotguns but big rifles- definitely not for clay pigeon shooting! mmmmm! I parked near the red phone box and was soon joined by another car. As I set about getting my kit together so did they, and I was going to head over and say hello when a Landrover drove alongside and the driver said something to the blokes and they pretty much got back in their car and drove off right away. The Landrover driver had been pointing to a public noticeboard so I took a wander over and there in black and white, well black and green, was pie-chart type of thing informing the reader that stag culling was over but for the next two weeks (?) the hinds were going to be in the firing line! And just in case I didn't get the message there was another notice warning of shooting in the area. The notice looked pretty old and washed out and I thought for a wee while, maybe it will be okay and then maybe not. Today was just not happening the way I wanted it to but then again there were going to be a good few members of the cervine sisterhood who would be more than a wee bit disappointed on how their day panned out
Okay so onto Plan B or was it Plan C? The weather wasn't great but it wasn't horrendous either, I might get a wee bit wet but it was still quite warm and then I remembered the report that PeteR had submitted in September on Meall Ghaordaidh. He had similar conditions and despite the rain had really enjoyed his day. Fantastic! It would be on my road back and because of a previous jaunt up to Sgiath Chuil and Meal Glas I knew exactly where I was going, it had to happen one of these days
Yes I thought, that will do for me. I know it is often described as an undistinguised lump but hey who hasn't been !!!
There were four cars already parked in the improvised layby, so with a bit of manoeuvring and scary scraping noises on the undercarriage I managed to get the car off the road. I waited until another car came along and sure enough it passed no problem. Great now I can start!
- Helpful!
Over to the gate, along the grassy track and then through a taller gate. One last look at the car and what did I see?, only the mobile library bus trying to get past!! I started to stomp back to the car but luckily he managed okay- thank you Mr Library Man
So you continue along the tyre tracks and then a wee bit of fun- over a stile.
- Track
- Stile
Unlike many, its in good condition and is safely anchored to the stone wall. From here you carry on until you see a very obvious cairn.
- Cairn
Needless to say I missed it and had to backtrack about 20m. I just don't do obvious, unless I'm trying to be subtle!!! The visibility was not too bad and I could see people at the start of the ridge. There's not much of a path, so I just picked out the best route I could. Later on it does begin to look quite boggy but it was quite firm underfoot. A prod with the walking poles reassured me I wouldn't end up ankle deep in the brown stuff ( sorry Mrs Redrock!)
- Not so boggy
As you can see from the previous photo , visibility was beginning to deteriorate and by the time I reached 900m it was pretty awful. With constant checking of my route on the GPS I was reassured I was heading in the right direction and just clambered over what ever was in front of me! I had one wee fall but since there was no-one to see me I didn't feel too much of a numpty
'A grown-up woman should never fall so easily' . You can sing it all you want Agnetha, you obviously haven't been out on the Scottish hills!!
It was on the last 50m that it got really hairy, the wind that had come and gone all day turned gale force and so any euphoria that I may been feeling at the sight of the Trig point through the clag was quickly disapated by need to do a crouchy-crab style of walking to get into the summit shelter. But what a shelter, once out the wind it was nice and cosy with plenty of flat stones to sit on. I had intended on touching the Trig point and heading back down but this was smashing.
- Snug at the Trig
So I actually relaxed, took some photos of my rucksack, had my coffee and sandwiches and a dark chocolate Bounty. As for the views there were none! Ah well, that's the way it goes
I put my camera into my bag, its not like I would be needing it again
And now it was just the matter of getting off this hill safely. Whenever I stood up in the shelter the wind kept trying blow my hat off! Its bad enough that the weather deprived me of any views, I was damn sure it wasn't nicking my favourite hat as well. So it was hood zipped right up and more horizontal walking for about ten minutes and then as almost always happens, as soon as you drop down any height the wind all but disappears
I was still sticking rigidly to my WH route on my GPS, which was fine but not very exciting and then within seconds the clag legged it! Yippee, I now had a view but even better I now had choices. I could see the farm buildings near to the layby, it was just a case of finding a more interesting way of getting there. Further down there was an old stone wall, I love them so I headed in its direction. Without a conscious effort I started to gambol down the hill, all the tension I had been feeling earlier had gone and there I was, a middle-aged woman, belting out Rhianna's biggest ones!!!
I turned round to apologise to some disapproving sheep and what was I treated to? no not the Buck-naked Buchany man but a herd of hinds. 'Run girls!!!' I shouted but I'm guessing they were going to be doing that anyway
- Run!
The old stonewall was almost perpendicular with the wall that I would be crossing over via the stile near the end of the walk. So I just followed it along and took my time to look more closely at my surroundings.
- Pretty wee burn
- Yeeks!
There are a few more stiles over the wall and it may have saved me some time to cut across the fields. But I wasn't in any hurry and there may well have been bulls in them. No point in people complaining that farmers don't behave responsibly if you're going to put yourself in danger just for the sake of shaving off ten minutes from your walking time.
On the way down I used my camera phone to take pics but now that the sun had come out it was time to get the real camera out of the bag.
- Shielings
- Meall Dhuin Croisg looking pretty in the sunshine.
I was back at the car by 3.30 ish. So it was pretty much a 4 hour walk, with lots of stops to sniff around the many stone shielings and have refreshments. Final decision of the day was...head to Bridge of Lochay hotel where hopefully they would be serving their rather excellent pear and fennel soup or head to the Lade Inn and enjoy something delicious from their menu???? Given that I wasn't hungry (oh aye it was definitely a day of firsts for me!!
) I decided to head for the Lade Inn. Needless to say I wasn't disappointed because their pea and ham soup was smashing but was it as good as the pear and fennel, not quite but I wasn't complaining
- Pea and ham (from a chicken!!)
- Taken at 17.30! The nights are fair drawing in!!
It had been a strange but wonderful day. As for Glen Lyon I'm glad I played it safe. It could have ended in tragedy, no not my demise but the damage done to my new Haglofs jacket!!!