Monday, April 30, 2018
Carn na Còinnich
We returned to Strathconon after calling off a walk in November last year, and this time we succeeded in getting to the top of this hill - at 673m, one of the Grahams. Having parked by the gate to the private road, we hoisted our rucksacks onto our backs - me with my camera looped on my belt for a quick draw - and then had to take it all off again in order to get through the very narrow walkers' gate that had thoughtfully been provided next to the vehicle gate. Greger passed most of our stuff over the top of the vehicle gate, although he managed to squeeze his rucksack through the other one. We didn't half moan - but more of that later. A singing willow warbler cheered us up.
A stony track led steeply up onto the brown moorland, where several meadow pipits flitted about, and a wheatear stood watching us from a rock.
A cuckoo called from the valley but we never spotted it; and a raven was seen cruising above a distant ridge. A red grouse went clucking across the heather. Finally we needed to leave the track and strike off across the rough stuff. Greger as usual found a way that avoided the peat hags, and soon we were on the ridge and crossing an area that looked good for dotterel, although maybe not extensive enough - or high enough - for breeding. And there at last was the summit.
As we toiled up, we spared a thought for the men who put the trig points in place, having to carry all the equipment and materials for making the concrete pillars - not to mention the theodolites they would hold - and then doing their surveying to map the country more accurately than it had ever been done before. Quite incredible.
We ate lunch at the top and took loads of photos. Greger took this one with his new Canon, looking north-west.
I took one with my camera, although a strange demented (cemented?) man in a Tilly hat somehow got into it.
There was a good view of the Fannichs - this one, over Loch an Daimh Ghlais, by Greger. In the right foreground can be seen a faint ATV track which leads almost to the summit of our hill; these vehicles get everywhere they shouldn't - but we weren't above making use of this fact later on!
Beyond Strathconon, Little Wyvis and Ben Wyvis seemed quite close.
Looking east over the dam on the Orrin Reservoir we could make out the Kessock Bridge, carrying the A9 south between the Beauly and Moray Firths and past the city of Inverness.
Even more distant was a dimly-seen line of snow-streaked mountains that we took to be the Cairngorms.
But it was getting cold on the top, and we set off down following the ATV track, which eventually turned down the hillside and brought us back to the stony track a bit further down than where we'd left it on the way up. Back at last in the valley, I heard a familiar song and eventually located the singer - a yellowhammer, and a first for my Scottish hillwalking list.
Greger had walked ahead, and so missed this, a heron, and a great tit - although he did spot a pair of mallards that I failed to see. As I approached the car, he walked up to the big vehicle gate - and then simply unlatched it and swung it open. If we'd noticed that it wasn't locked at the start of the walk, we could have saved ourselves the extra work and all that moaning!
// posted by Christine @ 12:18 PM 
