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Through my
dad, who works in the BBC, I was invited on this walk by Colin Macleod.
Colin works in BBC Scotland's Gaelic department and presents the Gaelic
hillwalking show Tir is Teanga. On this Saturday, I met him in Glasgow
and with four of us in his car, we headed on to the Drumochter Pass. The
weather was forecast to be brighter in the east, so the original plan of
the Black Mount was changed to try and catch the good weather.
The journey north took a couple of hours, including a stop for a roll
and a cup of tea. Colin and Donald occasionally transferred from
speaking English to speaking Gaelic which, given my interest in the
language, was an interesting experience. With the knowledge of Colin and
Donald I even managed to learn a couple of new words and sort out the
badly pronounced ones. One of these days, I'll commit to learning Gaelic
properly...
When we arrived at the Balsporran Cottages, more of the group arrived
until there were over ten of us. Some opted to go for a low level walk,
and with six of us going high, the first stop was
Geal-charn. It had rained a little at the car park but the clouds were
clearing and the sun also made an occasional appearance. We crossed the railway and then followed
a track up onto Geal-charn. Fairly quickly, we
turned off this track onto rough ground making a direct line for the
summit. It had been fairly boggy down below, but the slopes were drier
as we gained height.
On the higher slopes, views progressively opened up to the
Cairngorms and Monadhliath, most of which was new terrain for me. But
the bulk of the hill we were on blocked views westwards to the Ben Alder region, the area I was
anticipating to see the most. At 840 metres, the terrain flattened out and it was a short walk along to a cairn NE of the summit where
we
stopped for lunch. Having taken a break, we arrived at the summit
shortly afterwards and the views were widespread; most mountains had
shed their cloud. Ben Alder was clear, it's eastern cliffs magnificent
even from this far distance. Bounded by steep mountain walls, Loch
Ericht drew the eyes down it's length. Some say the Drumochter Hills are
some of the dreariest but far from it with views like these. It's so
often true that experiencing the mountains has just as much or more to
do with the environment that they are climbed in, whether that be the
surrounding terrain, weather or anything else. Maybe some just have
their eyes to the ground...
From Geal-charn's summit, we had a short walk down to the bealach
between it and A' Mharconaich. The other walkers that had opted to stay
low had walked up Coire Fhar and given that we were crossing the head of
Coire Fhar, we met them at the bealach on the way to A' Mharconaich.
From here, the path continued up to A' Mharconaich's summit region, and
we followed it steadily to the top. When we were up, we had arrived some
distance back from the main summit cairn and it was a short walk to the
summit, where two cairns can be found. After studying the ground and some consultation with the map, the
first cairn turned out to be the top, even though it was the smaller of
the two.
The general consensus now was to head down, so we left A' Mharconaich's
summit and headed down its north-eastern spur, which descended steeply
before flattening out and taking us gradually to the valley floor below.
This route took us down alongside the steep north-east face which is a
prominent feature from below. Lower down, the ridge took us into areas
of bog and it was a short walk to the river, which we crossed by the
railway bridge. We arrived at the Balsporran Cottages and now late in
the afternoon, we headed down to Blair Atholl for some drinks and finally
the drive back to Glasgow.
Panoramas
360˚ from Geal-charn summit
360˚ from A' Mharconaich summit
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