Over The Hill

It is not necessary to walk the hills between Loch Tay and Glen Lyon to appreciate their beauty and remoteness; just take a drive across the narrow, twisting single track road a few miles east of Killin and over the Lairig an Lochain pass, at 555m the 5th highest road in Britain, to the quaint little village of Bridge of Balgie in the upper reaches of Glen Lyon; the mountains and tumbling waters of the Allt Baile a'Mhuilinn are fantastic, and all of this before we even set foot on the hillside, just wonderful.

A mile east of Bridge of Balgie the Meggernie Estate car park provides the ideal starting point for the two Corbetts that flank the Lairig Ghallabhaich and the Drovers track from Bridge of Balgie to Loch Rannoch; today, we were heading for the western most Corbett, Cam Chreag.

Taking the broad, rough stone track leading north from the edge of the car park we headed off up through the pine forest and open woodland to cross the footbridge over the Allt a'Choire Uidhre where we turned west, as the track then followed the course of the river as it gently climbed towards the distant ridgeline marking our route to the summit of Cam Chreag. After re-crossing the river by a second footbridge, and a few minor ups and downs the track continued to wind it's way towards the point at which it abruptly ends, just short of the small lochan and the bealach at 657m height.

Just before reaching the lochan, we left this excellent track that had brought us gently to the base of the eastern slopes of the ridgeline and ascended the heathery slopes on a well defined, but much rougher track for the short climb to the broad grassy ridge and the final, short, and very pleasant walk to the summit cairn where clear blue skies awaited us with visibility in excess of 30kms offering us a a magnificent panorama through every point of the compass.

In contrast to the ascent, our descent route was trackless, but nevertheless relatively easy as we headed southeast on the broad grassy ridge towards the head of Coire Odhar, a point from which we had a marvelous view of the broad upper reaches of Glen Lyon, before making a slight dog-leg south and then east to bring us onto the heather and peat hags which stretched along the broad shoulder of Ben Meggernie, although, given the dry conditions, with the peat cracked and quite solid the transit over this area was without the inherent problems usually associated with peat hags. We continued to follow the natural curve of the eastern slopes of Ben Meggernie as we descended, initially along the borderline of the young, immature forest to our north, before swinging north through the gap between this young forest and the mature pine forest to our east which lead us nicely back to the main track at the forest boundary and thence back to our start point.

Fine weather, a lovely hill and excellent company - A great day, thanks all.