Mulach Clach a Bhlair (Munro) 1019m: Thursday 28th April 2016
After 2 nights of not even bothering to set my traps because it was snowing, the fact that we had got up to 7 deg C made me unduly optimistic last night. It was minus 4 deg C when I collected my trap from the Insh birchwood early this morning and, needless to say, there were no moths in it.
However the hoar frost was very pretty and the sun was shining and there was little wind – so we decided that today would be a good day to do the Munro I had marked out to do on my own, as it has a 5km each way track to reach the point where the ascent begins – and I planned to do that on my bike. Alison steadfastly refuses to mount a bicycle and, as it turned out, this would not have been a good one to encourage her.
I started out by driving for 15 minutes along the wrong side of Glen Feshie, thinking it looked very nice but wondering why I didn’t seem to recognize it.
However the hoar frost was very pretty and the sun was shining and there was little wind – so we decided that today would be a good day to do the Munro I had marked out to do on my own, as it has a 5km each way track to reach the point where the ascent begins – and I planned to do that on my bike. Alison steadfastly refuses to mount a bicycle and, as it turned out, this would not have been a good one to encourage her.
I started out by driving for 15 minutes along the wrong side of Glen Feshie, thinking it looked very nice but wondering why I didn’t seem to recognize it.
Eventually, I arrived at the parking spot near Achlean on the east side of the river. Cycling in was a good move but hampered by uncertainties of the route, with several competing tracks available, and by having to manhandle the bike across two stream crossings, which were not straightforward. Also the track had been completely eroded away by the river at two places.
The ascent route was on a 4-wheel drive track that went all the way to the summit plateau. Normally I would find this unattractive, but with the amount of snow around, I would probably not have attempted this ascent today without the track. Views ahead and behind were good all the way. The summit is a long way across a plateau that was completely covered in snow – I just kept going in the direction of up until the summit cairn was reached. I commented to myself that this was a pitifully small cairn to mark all the effort I had just expended to get there (and I have now repeated this comment to you, dear reader). I believe that when the snow has cleared the summit plateau is a bog with few rocks with which to fashion a suitable cairn. The descent was a straightforward return along the route of ascent – but much quicker, partly because it was downhill and partly because I knew which turns to make and how to cross the streams. Distance: 22km (including the cycled section), Ascent 785m, Wildlife - nothing of much interest. |