Carn Ruigh Chorrach, Another Trigpoint

I’ve been meaning to tick this little hill for a while now. There’s nothing special about it, it just sits by the road along which we travel quite regularly, a little further south than the Knock of Braemoray. I’d suggested it to Laura last time we got together for a walk, but after we’d been chatting for a while in my lounge, we realised we weren’t going to make it out for a walk and had a coffee with our sandwiches instead.

However, today we’d arranged to meet at the layby, so it was more likely we would actually head up the hill. For a change, I was early and arrived before Laura. I’d neatly parked the car so Laura could see me, in case she missed the layby, but of course she didn’t. After a little bit of faff, we set off across the road and along a short section of Old Military Road before heading up the track to visit a few ruins on the way to the trig. The path was good and only gently uphill at this point, with good views of the Cairngorms to the south of us and the Dava Moor all around us.

Easter Crannich

Towards Knock of Braemoray

Laura, looking pensive

We bypassed the first set of ruins at Easter Crannich, but visited the next ruins at Rychorrach, before we had to strike out uphill over rough ground. There had been muir burning at some point, but not that recently as the burnt heather stubble was not ashy, just sharp and pokey on the ankles. We steadily made our way up, following the fence line and pausing occasionally to ‘enjoy the view’… It didn’t take too long before the trig came into view and we were soon enjoying the views over Lochindorb and finding accidental geocaches. The obligatory photographs were taken and we headed back off downhill, taking a very slightly line.

Unnamed ruins

 

Rychorrach, with a dangerous walker…

Lochindorb

Towards Cairngorms

Towards Ben Rinnes

Muir burning

Easter Crannich

On the return walk, we called into the ruins that we’d bypassed the first time at Easter Cannich, there was obviously quite a population in the area some time ago, they must have had a hard life in such a harsh, unforgiving environment.

It was quite a grey day, but the only few spots of rain were after we were back sitting in the van eating sandwiches and drinking tea. It wasn’t too cold either, although there was a bit of a breeze and I wouldn’t have wanted to hang around for any great length of time. The total distance was roughly 4.07 miles and 637 ft total ascent, so not a big walk, but really good fun and long enough for the world to be set to rights. Again.

Thanks for the company Laura.