A Long Day in Glenshee

There aren’t many places that you can realistically take in 6 Munros in one day, but Glenshee is one of the few locations that gives you the chance to do just that. Unfortunately, it was another day spent in the cloud with little or no visibility, making navigation difficult, progress slow and no real opportunity for photos.

Making a 7.45am start from the Ski Centre car park, there was no one else about and the sun was just starting to make it’s first tentative appearance. After traversing around Glas Maol, I embarked on what seemed like a long south-westerly trek along a wide ridge to the top of Creag Leacach, which I felt was spoilt a bit by a stone wall that ran for most of it’s length. Retracing my steps brought me back towards Glas Maol which is a much more rounded top with the summit marked by a triangulation pillar on what felt like quite a large plateau. The poor visibility and indistinct peak meant that it took a little finding!

Heading north-east towards Cairn of Claise proved interesting as well. The saddle (lowest point between the two peaks) is actually quite large and more complex that most, causing me to get slightly disorientated for a few minutes. We all need reminding that we’re only human from time to time!

For the following couple of hours, my mind was spinning with a map nightmare. Unfortunately, the area I was covering spans two Ordnance Survey Landranger maps. There is also no overlap between what the two maps cover either, so you literally walk off the edge of one, straight onto the edge of the next which made things a bit awkward. However, this was compounded by the fact that I was also crossing from one map to the next around a fold in the map, meaning that I was effectively trying to piece together four separate sections of map in my head. I had been aware of this issue during my planning, but had not anticipated how confusing it would get. However, another lesson has been learnt – it’s better to cut up your brand new maps with a pair of scissors than risk making a serious mistake on the hill. As it happens, my ascents of Tom Buidhe, Tolmount and Carn an Tuirc went safely, but it was certainly a learning experience.

During my descent, just to the north of Carn an Tuirc, and I dropped back below the cloud base, I was treated to a bit of a wildlife display. I must have disturbed a couple of groups of Arctic Hares as I counted at least seven. There may have been more but, as I couldn’t see them all at once, there would have been the possibility of counting a few twice. Whilst most of them raced off up the hillside before staying dead still in the belief that I couldn’t see them any more, one seemed quite content to drink from his watering hole as he watched me walk within 5m of him. Shortly afterwards, I spotted a group of deer approximately 600m away to my right. I tried to count them but they must have spotted me as I reached 28 and they all started running in circles! I’d estimate that there was something in the order of 50-60 in total.

The day took nine and a half hours walking in total, which was longer than I’d hoped but difficult conditions can make a big difference to the rate of progress. At the end of the day, any trip into the hills when you learn something new or reinforce things, is a valuable experience.

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