Mike's Natural Musings: Munro Bagging, August 2014, Day 2.

Monday, 11 August 2014

Munro Bagging, August 2014, Day 2.

Wednesday dawned with a gloomy overcast look to the sky and as we set out to drive over to Glen Lyon it began to rain. After a longer than expected drive over the shoulders of Ben Lawers, we parked up and were ready to begin out walk our at the latish time of 10.00 am. We had planned a clockwise round of the horsehoe comprising the four Munros of Carn Gorm, Meall Garbh, Carn Mairg and Meall nan Aighean on the north side of the glen. This group of hills forms a great arc of broad high ridges above Invervar where we had parked. They are more reminiscent of the Cairngorms than other hills hereabouts. Our day began with a steep, tough pull up Carn Gorm. Steady drizzly rain meant we needed waterproofs but the muggy weather resulted in us being as wet from the inside as outside; gortex only works so well and cannot cope with such conditions. After coffee and cake on the summit we pushed on in decreasing cloud to Meall Garbh, where we began to get views, first down to Loch Rannoch, then Schiehallion and, by the end of the day, all around. The hills we were walking are part of a stalking estate and we kept our eyes peeled for deer in the corries, but it wasn't until our final descent that we heard a stag roaring and, eventually, picked out a large herd way over on the other side of the corrie from us. Still a pleasure to see though. One other wildlife highlight that we heard more often than saw were the golden plover on the summit ridges. On all the hills we found the delicate alpine ladies mantle (alchemilla alpina), much more well behaved than it's lowland cousin (Alchemilla mollis), which, although attractive and valued by flower arrangers is very difficult to control in the garden.
Late back, we then had a long drive to reach Crianlarich for our next two night's accommodation in the Youth Hostel. We chose to dine, though, in the Crianlarich Hotel and the cullen skink followed by Loch Leven mussels can be highly recommended.

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