Over The Hill

It has often been said that finding the start point of a walk can be as difficult as navigating the hillside in poor weather; and this was such a walk. The OS mapping shows a track leading from the roadside just outside Ardtalnaig and zigzagging up through a small plantation to the open hillside on the northern ridge of Tullich Hill. Well we never found it! Or there again, we may well have just walked right passed it and not noticed it!

Our alternate route took us a kilometre or so along the road and directly onto the open hillside beyond the forest boundary, to rejoin our planned route where the "lost" path should emerge from the plantation. That said, the remainder of the route was plain sailing and presented no problems with navigation, allowing us to enjoy the hillside at leisure.

Creag Uchdag is typical of the hills south of Loch Tay, rolling ridges with a mixture of gentle grassy slopes and steep edges dropping dramatically to the floor of the glens below. Tullich Hill fits into the former of these types and offers some pleasant walking as you head for the 819m eastern outer at the extreme end of Meall Mor, which definitely fits the later description as the hillside almost disappears in a direct drop from the cairn into the upper reaches of Gleann a'Chloidh where the remote cottage at Dunan lies at the watershed between Gleann a'Chloidh and Glen Almond.

The central hub of this hillside is the lesser top of Meall nan Oighreag, 833m, with it's disused and long abandoned mine the entrance to which sits just off the summit with the remains of the mine buildings nestling just below the summit ridge. The bealach between this top and Creag Uchdag holds another feature of these hills, peat hags, lots of them. And so we resorted to weaving our way between the grassier areas and the peat hags to cross the bealach and gain the ridge that is the final step towards the summit Trig Point on Creag Uchdag, at 879m.

Mixed weather awaited us on the summit, fairly clear as we approached, then a blanket of low cloud swept over us to obscure everything, before drifting off again, leaving us with views stretching eastward over the lowlands towards the coast and north over the Lawers Range and beyond.

Departing the Trig Point, we traversed the summit ridge to the western 860m top before angling down a gentle slope towards the scar that is the gully through which the Eas Domhain flows. Here the gradient steepens slightly as we made a crossing of the gully and onwards towards the old Shielings in Fin Glen. A faint line of a path heads along the glen towards the hillsides above Ardeonaig where it become more distinct as it left the line of the Finglen Burn and curved around the hillside and down, past the overgrown ruins of Cill mo Chormaig Chapel and buriel ground before gaining the single track road alongside of the Ardeonaig Hotel; a fine point to finish a fine walk.

Great day - Thanks Alan