Had this afternoon free, so time to drive down the south side of Loch Ness to just past Whitebridge to do Meall an Tarsaid. Rather than doing it from the west / north-west side of the hill, I went up it from the east side, finding space to park near the cattle grid without blocking any passing places.

From the car, I walked back down the road past the cottage and found a gate to go through into the woods - not industrial scale conifers, just a small wood which was easy to walk through, then deep heather (though on the way back I seemed to go through high bracken where I'm sure I went through heather on the way up?!), aiming for the obvious gully towards the south end of the hill. Through a few more trees and then onto the steeper part of the heather and up the gully. The gully itself was fine to go up, the vegetation being a bit lower. It was quite steep, but not a long distance, so I was quickly up to the col where the wind hit me after coming up the sheltered side.



The summit (I think this one was the actual summit?) was just immediately up to the right of me, a small cairn marking the spot. It was surprised it had only taken 30mins to get up. I wasn't actually sure which the true summit was, so I took a walk over to the more northerly cairn which looked a pretty much identical height and had a bigger pile of stones, then headed more or less back the same way.


With it only taking an hour, it's a hill which I should have done on the same day as nearby Beinn a' Bhacaidh, or done it from Whitebridge to give me a proper afternoon walk, but never mind, nice to get out and up a hill anyway even if it was just a quickie.
.........

There were still a couple of hours of daylight left, so after I'd got back to the car and chucked my stuff in, I decided to take a wander further along the road just to see where it went; Meall an Tarsaid was right on the edge of my OS Landranger map for Fort Augustus, so I couldn't see from the map. I saw a well embedded hydro scheme on the river so thought the single track road had maybe just continued for that and perhaps an old croft or two, and was just daydreaming thinking that there were some unclassified hills around the glen that looked good for a walk sometime .. when an impressive lodge appeared from nowhere (Garragie or Garrogie Lodge as I looked up when home), and then a nice looking loch (Loch Killin). Had to head back to the car then, so didn't carry on walking along the length of the loch this time .... it felt quite an undiscovered spot though (just because I hadn't been there before!) and would be good to go back. Having just searched for it on Walk Highlands, I now see malky_c took this route (and onwards past Killin Lodge and abandoned Sronlairig / Stronelairg Lodge) to go up Meall na h-Aisre 9 years ago, the corbett which I happened to do 3 days ago from the usual, and more sane start point of Garva Bridge!