walkhighlands

Loch Turret circuit

Munros: Ben Chonzie

Date walked: 14/08/2021

Time taken: 5.5 hours

Distance: 16.5km

Ascent: 767m

This Saturday's trip took me up Glen Turret to the Loch Turret car park - pulled in at about 0900 to find a couple of cars and two camper vans, not as busy as I'd expected it to be. Weather was a bit blustery, but expected to die down throughout the day, so I headed up the east side of the reservoir to take advantage of the shelter so that it would hopefully be a little more settled once on top. Very pleasant views along the glen in both directions, though the path was a little rougher than anticipated - I think I've been spoilt by too many high-quality forestry tracks!

Above Lochan Uaine, I took the obvious line north and then northwest toward the bealach between Ben Chonzie itself and the northeast subsidiary top at 755m, before turning southwest and following a line of fenceposts towards the summit. The hill itself is a bit featureless, but the views across Glen Almond and down Glen Turret were excellent. During the walk in and ascent I only encountered three other groups of walkers: a couple and a family both headed uphill, and a solo walker headed downhill. Took about 2 hours to reach the top, which was remarkably busy with people who'd clearly come via the shorter route from Glen Lednock and descending the same way.

As it was only 1130, I pressed on along the ridge toward Carn Chois, again largely following the fenceline. After leaving the Glen Lednock route, the route was about 2km through rather thankless peat, before reaching the dry stone wall running up the west side of Carn Chois. Rather disconcertingly, I didn't seem to get any closer to the top of this hill as I walked towards it, thanks to the concave slope. There wasn't an obvious route up the last 40 or 50 metres of ascent, but the view from the trig point was excellent and was able to find a convenient sheltered rock to sit on for lunch.

Descent from here became rather trying: there was no obvious route down the hill, a track marked on the 1:25k map notwithstanding. At around this point my knees decided they'd had enough for the day, not particularly helpful with several kilometres and about 300m of descent to go, so was slow going from here. Not quite as peaty as it had been on top, but still rather wet underfoot. In retrospect, this should have been obvious, given the heavy rain last week and the fact that one rarely builds reservoirs in places noted for lack of water! There were also a substantial number of sheep on this part of the hill gave a distinct feeling of being watched; this definitely didn't feel like somewhere they were used to having humans around! The occasional boot print headed the other way did at least give me some confidence that I wasn't hopelessly lost, and around the 450m contour I picked up a rough path down to the unpaved road marked on the map.

This is currently pretty horribly eroded, and I wouldn't want to try driving down it in any kind of wheeled vehicle, but a definite improvement over a bog to walk on! Wound up back at the car shortly before 1500, when the car park was full and overflowing onto the road. Very happy with the choice of route: avoiding the crowds coming up from the west made Ben Chonzie feel surprisingly remote. Adding Carn Chois, whilst not on any lists of hills, made the trip feel like a bit more of a rewarding expedition. In retrospect, getting the pathless and boggy parts out of the way early and having the better track for most of the walk back might have been a better plan, but still an enjoyable day out bringing my total of Munros to four.

Current estimated date of Compleation is now 26th May, 3349.

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Comments: 4


Robert Haynes


Activity: Walker

Munros: 7
Corbetts: 3
Fionas: 1



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Statistics

2021

Trips: 1
Distance: 16.5 km
Ascent: 767m
Munros: 1


Joined: Jul 26, 2021
Last visited: Aug 16, 2022
Total posts: 41 | Search posts


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