Day 9 Saturday – East of the A9

At seven I walked down to the village shop for some food and other things. I was very pleased to get some lip salve as the dry wind we’d had earlier in the week had made my lips painful. I also got a pen to replace the one I’d lost somewhere near the Blackwater Dam. I’d been using the tiny one in my wonderful Swiss Card Knife but it was good to get a decent sized one again. I also got rolls, ham, coleslaw and a packet shortbread in a tartan wrapper for that taste of Scotland.

The tent was packed up at nine and I went to check out at reception. Whilst there I asked if they had screw top gas canisters. They had a few rusty looking canisters, and eventually found a 500g one which I thought too heavy, and then after searching in a store room, a 100g gram one. I thought I’d get two 100g canisters, but when I was told they were £4 each I said I’d take one. Stupid really as I knew it’d only just be enough with the canister I already had, and an extra £4 would have taken any doubt away, but I refused to be ripped off. I see they’re from £2.50 on the web.

I’d seen that the museum across the road did food and I went there for breakfast. There was one other person who also had a rucksack. I asked if he was doing the Challenge and he said no, he was waiting for some friends and they were going to stay in the Tarf Hotel (a bothy miles from anywhere) to do a few Munros. He’d caught the train down from Inverness and his friends were driving up from the Central Belt. What a great way to spend weekends. He told me that last May they’d been walking up into the Lairig Ghru when they’d come across somebody doing the Challenge who’d got into difficulties with an injured knee. He’d given them a slip of paper with his name and Challenge Control’s phone number, they’d unsuccessfully tried phoning Challenge Control and so passed the problem onto the police, and within twenty minutes a helicopter had arrived and whisked the causalty away. The chap I was talking to still had the slip of paper and could remember the injured persons name – Lou (La Borwit. I remembered reading about this 78 year old American. Lou had done many Challenges with his wife Phyllis, but they’d both had to drop out last year. They were both back again this year).

Today’s plan was to walk up the lane to Loch Moraig and then head east along tracks and paths, south of Beinn A’Ghlo, to drop down into Glen Loch, and then up Gleann Fearnach a little way to camp. In the event the weather was so poor I continued down Gleann Fearnach, then climbed up to Loch Crannach to camp, and if my geography east of the A9 was a little hazy the the reality was very foggy.

Whilst walking up the lane I met the chap from the café. His friends had arrived and he was cycling up to the car park for Glen Tilt. His friends were driving up. They’d use bikes to get up the long miles of Glen Tilt and then leave the bikes at the track side until the next day. "Padlocked? No!" nobody would take them.

At Loch Moraig the tarmac lane I was on stopped and I found myself a on a good track headed roughly east over moorland shrouded in cloud. After a mile a shed appeared out of the murk, and although it was locked, it was open, if you see what I mean, so I went in for a snack.

After another mile or so I suddenly had the feeling that I was going the wrong way. I was walking downhill instead of up, and I had dropped down below cloud level. A bit of work with the map confirmed that I had mistakenly taken the right turn down to Shinigag at the last junction. It was only a short walk back to the junction, but of course, whilst I was correcting this error the only two Challengers (the only two people after the cyclist) I would see all day happened along. At least I was able to follow them along what was now a less distinctive path in the knowledge that they were better navigators than me.

But suddenly this new path felt wrong too. The Challengers seemed to have wandered off up the northern side of the valley, whereas the path crosses over to the south side. I forced my way down through deep heather to the river, stopped for lunch, and got the GPS out. I found that I was at the point where the path fords the river, and after a quick lunch of food bought at the Blair Atholl shop, I headed up the hillside opposite until I reached the path coming from Shinigag over to Gleann Fearnach. This was a good path and I was able to make good time through the cloud, passing a couple wearing town clothes and sheepish smiles.

Eventually I descended into a wide heather clad glen – Glen Loch, and had the sense which was to be repeated many times over the coming days of having left one distinct area and entered another.

After a snack to celebrate being able to see something other than cloud I walked down to Daldhu, where Glen Loch joins Gleann Fearnach. Daldhu seemed a remote spot on this rainy Saturday afternoon, being five miles from the road, but remote Fealar Lodge is another seven miles up the track.

I had planned to turn up Gleann Fearnach at this point and camp a mile or two up the glen, but instead I opted for my foul weather option and walked down the glen in increasingly heavy rain, and then climbed up to Loch Crannach.

Whilst walking down the glen I was congratulating myself on how dry my Paramo waterproofs were keeping me, and how dry my new Lightwave rucksack was keeping my belongings, when I remembered that my OMM chest pouch wasn’t particularly waterproof, and that my camera and GPS were in it. Luckily the camera was lens downwards, and only the wide angle adaptor was in the puddle at the bottom of the pouch, the camera seeming to work okay. The GPS didn’t seem to have taken any harm either, but the wide angle lens was a bit misty for days.

The evening was showery, and I went out between showers to look around. I had a rehydrated sauce with cous cous for dinner. Cous cous is wonderfully easy.

When I went out for a wash in the loch a herd of deer were a 100m or so up the slope. They stirred uneasily. When I started to clean my teeth they raced off over the brow of the hill. I don’t suppose they’d seen anybody cleaning their teeth before.

Day 10

Intro