We managed not to have a late night at the party and were in bed before midnight, so decided that it was quite possible to pop up a hill on the way home rather than whizzing straight home, making the most of the opportunity. I had grabbed a handful of maps before we left home so we spread them out for a look and quickly settle on Geal-charn (Drumochter) as we could park the car at the side of the road and walk straight uphill, with little disruption to our journey.
We had a substantial breakfast (again, as far as we could) before quickly packing our belongings and vacating the room. We had a quick pit stop for fuel and food at Perth and in no time at all we were at the car parking area just before Balsporran Cottages. We ate half a sandwich each and some fruit before donning our walking boots, lifting our day packs and heading off up the path.
It was rather unfortunate to find ourselves briefly on the wrong track, if only because we were in full view of a young couple when we back-tracked and took the right one, but there were no further incidents. We plodded up hill, only briefly stopping to take photographs of the view behind us and later on, just before reaching the summit, we had to stop briefly to put on an extra layer and swap a peak cap for a warm one, then almost a sprint to the shelter at the summit. Photographs were taken then, as the cloud had again descended around us, the map and compass were deployed to take us off the hill. Had A’ Mharconaich not had its head in thee clouds, we might have considered a second hill, but instead we walked off the spur to intersect the path and had back to the car.
Oo look, Meall Chuaich!
Looking down towards the car park
Looking south, along the A9
Heading up
That would be the summit over there
I do believe A’ Mharconaich is in there, somewhere
Loch Ericht
We had a wonderful walk, I absolutely loved it. Being able to walk up fairly substantial hills with relative eases is a revelation to me.
Roughly a total of 9.67km and 526 m ascent.
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