Glen Finglas

Glen Finglas reservoir

Gate to everywhere over the peat hags

Monday, 10 May 2010
Stob Fear- Tomhais    771metres

There are lots of nearly secret glens in Scotland and this is one close to home. The Glen Finglas reservoir is a control reservoir for Loch Katrine and is inaccessible by road, although a track runs up to a few houses and alongside the reservoir. The land was bought by the Woodland Trust in 1996 and has an ambitious programme to replant native trees, restore the the ancient woodland and give access to the public through a network of paths that are being developed around Brig O'Turk.

I cycled up to the reservoir and then to the top of the glen where I abandoned my bike by a burn and climbed steeply up to the ridge leading to Cnoc Odhar. Then a 5 km tramp over peat bogs, through the gate and up to Stob Fear-tomhais, the surveyors peak, which is a seldom visited Corbett with excellent views in all directions. Although May, there was a hail shower and then a large brown fox, with a tail like Davy Crockett's hat, sneaked past me near the summit.

The landscape still had the pallor of winter but on the descent a warm sun emerged and stirred the glen into life -herons and buzzards flew close and I saw brown trout darting in the burns. I resaddled my bike and enjoyed an adrenalin rush on the fast descent until I screached to a halt trying to miss a lone walker as I emerged from a bend, it was a former work colleague dressed like Mr Bean and I should have taken him out!  When I returned to the car the breaking news was that Gordon Brown was about to resign. Where were you at the end of New Labour?  Nowhere offering solitude as tranquil as Glen Finglas.  I bet Gordon would have swapped it for Downing Street, the Queen and the media scrum and so will David Cameron in a year or so.