Hogmanay Walks - Geal-charn Mor and Carn na Leitire
Geal-charn Mor
A group of six members had a very sociable and enjoyable Hogmanay walk up Geal-charn Mor, a Corbett on the edge of the Monadhliaths, just west of Aviemore.
Five of us parked up at the bridge over the Allt-na-Criche and hung about waiting for Wendell who was similarly hanging about waiting for us about 800m further on at a newish - to us anyway - informal parking area at the start of the track. The situation resolved, we set off up the Burma Road, the track that would take us to within 1 km of our summit. This was meant to be a gentle pre-Hogmanay walk after all.
Just to be clear, this Burma Road is not the 1154 km road built during WW2 over the mountains between Myanmar and South West China. Although our Burma Road was also built during WW2 by prisoners of war, it is a popular mountain bike circuit from Lynwilg over the bealach between Geal-charn Mor and Geal-charn Beag and then following the R. Dulnain to Carrbridge and back to the start. We spotted one enthusiastic cyclist tackling the snow covered track.
Our walk took us on the Burma Road as far as the bealach. The icy patches lower down had given way to a covering of untrodden snow. We broke trail to the summit which seemed to be appreciated by the steady stream of walkers that we met as we made our way down. We stopped at the bealach for lunch beside a memorial plaque to Alasdair Polson M.M., who was head keeper at Kinrara estate. The plaque is inscribed “A better friend had no man”.
Most of our walk -except for the area around the summit - was on Kinrara Estate, now owned by Lost Forest, a Brewdog subsidiary. The area has been totally fenced off as part of a forest regeneration plan which has created a fair bit of debate (https://parkswatchscotland.co.uk/?s=Lost+Forest).
Despite that we had a very enjoyable walk to start off Hogmanay.
Taking part: Arthur, Wendell, Richard, May, Federica and Callum
Words and photos: Arthur
Carn na Leitire
Half a dozen members of the IMC enjoyed a local stroll on Hogmany, to work off some of the excesses of Christmas and prepare for more of the same at New Year. The chosen venue was a hill above Abriachan named Carn na Leitire (434m) which some ascended from the Loch Ness road, but the youngest (Sastrugi and Andreas) and the oldest (Michael) chose to drive up the hill and take one of the many paths from the Forest Trust car park up to the summit. There they met the others who had a pleasant ascent through the Woodland Trust birchwoods and up icy paths, with a stop for refreshments at a reconstructed sheiling.
The route down was more challenging, and involved a very steep unmarked path directly back to the cars at the Clansman hotel, via a stop at a reconstructed whisky still. There was some speculation about who had made the path, which was well established but much too steep to be useful to humans. Our best guess was that it had been made by orcs to lure unsuspecting walkers to their doom; we celebrated our survival with coffee and cake at An Talla, Dochgarroch.
Taking part: Jan, Gina, Andreas, John H, Michael, Ewen, and Sastrugi the malamute/labrador cross.
Words: Ewen