Gairbheinn and Meall na h-Aisre

Meall na h-Aisne from Garva Bridge

Heading up the Corrieyairack Pass

Beauly to Denny pylons stepping over the Corrieyairack Pass

Creag Meaghaidh and Beinn A' Chaoruinn from Gairbheinn

Looking north from Gairbheinn to 870m top

Deer on Gairbheinn

Glendoe hydro elecctric dam below Gairbheinn

Carpet by Dubh Lochan

Meall na h-Aisre summit

Heather on descent from Meall na h-Aisre

Garva Bridge

Saturday, 22 August 2015
Ascent:         975 metres
Distance:      22 kilometres
Time:            5 hours 25 minutes

c   Gairbheinn             896m    2hrs  16mins
     870m Top              870m    2hrs  46mins
c   Meall na h-Aisre   862m    4hrs  10mins

The two lesser known corbetts north of the remote Corrieyairack pass were the objective. I had planned to go to Rum but the visibility was not great and Rum deserves the best of days. Gregor wanted to climb some munros so I dropped him at Roughburn so he could climb the five munros from Beinn Teallach to Creah Meagaidh and then onto Carn Liath. We left home at 7:40am and Gregor was walking by 10:20am.

I then had a further 50 minute drive along the A86 and past the scenic Loch Laggan. At Laggan I turned onto the the narrow single track road to Garva Bridge at the source of the river Spey. It is a splendid remote location that I had visited three times previously when climbing Geal Charn on the Monadhliath plateau. It was 11:25am by the time I set out for the long walk along the track to the Corrieyairack pass.  There was a motor home parked but no one at home and that summed up the isolation of this place.

In recent years there has been controversy about the new pylons that have been erected as part of the Beauly to Denny upgrade of the electricity grid. There were already pylons here and it is a seldom visited area, as evidenced today when despite it being a dry August Saturday I saw no one all day.  I had long ago formed the view that if we wanted to secure power supplies for Scotland that this was a necessary investment and I prefer the fewer but larger pylons that now march across the wild landscape to the smaller but greater number of pylons that had been here before. On my last visit they were side by side, the old ones have now been dismantled and removed. I realise that not objecting to pylons is sacrilege to many environmentalists but have they seen the damage to the landscape caused by burying power lines underground in terrains far less mountainous than the highlands of Scotland or considered the extra cost of burying the cables, which has to be paid for by the customer?

The OS map I was using did not include the recently built track to give access to the new pylons. Many of the forested areas had been harvested and that also made the map a poor representation of the landscape. It took an hour and a half to walk the 8 kilometres to the foot of Meall Garbh Beag, the small outlier hill to Gairbhenn. It is a stiff climb up the southern flank of Gairbheinn, although there is a pleasant grass and rock ridge for the final 100 metres of ascent. It had been overcast throughout the walk so far and when I looked south west, Creag Meaghaidh was invisible, lost in black cloud and the three tops of Beinn A' Chaorrain disappeared into cloud. Gregor would be about here on his walk so I was glad that I had lent him my compass.

I had a lunch break hunched down behind a rock band just beyond the untidy cairn. There was a good view of the Glendoe hydro-electic dam that is the most recently built major hydro-electric scheme in a location as remote as anywhere in Scotland. Its presence perplexed me as I sat on the summit, the dam and reservoir were not on my OS map. I assumed it must be a recent development and it was, constructed by SSE and opened by the Queen in 2009 and then reopened in 2012 following a major rockfall in the tunnel drilled through the rocks to the power plant.

I looked askance at the route over to the second corbett, Meall nan h-Aisre. It was about 8 kilometres and included about 4 kilometres of bog and peat hags. The first leg was along a fine ridge that gave views into the inhospitable and seldom visited plateau that sits north of the Monadhaith hills.  I disturbed a large herd of deer and they scattered over the ridge to the corrie below.  I calculated that I was 11 kilometres from the nearest public road and even that would require a long trek through boggy ground. Each step over the braided peat hags is an exercise in calculating whether the tussocks will collapse or the peat sink; it is dancing in march time over a wobbly mire. However walks like this are a challenge and so after the 890 metre top I veered to the east and began the long slog through the bog setting a tangent for the south shore of Lochan Iain, the first of two lochans and then making for the north end of Dubh Lochan. I climbed to a small ridge before starting the last kilometre of bog hopping over to the flanks of Meall nan h-Aisre.

The ascent was fairly straightforward enhanced by the rich carpet of plant life. It was no surprise when the inhospitable flat summit appeared topped by an off the peg cylindrical trig point and a pile of old fence posts. The Monadhliaths were visible in all their devishly undulating charm. It was time to get back, I had scheduled to be down by 4:30pm which gave me 40 minutes. Despite making good progress the ground conditions were not that helpful, deep heather decorated with wild flowers was followed by wet ground alongside the Allt Coire Iain Oig. A tracked vehicle had churned the ground lower down the glen to further slow progress. The track made by the contractors to the new pylons was crossed before descending the last few hundred metres to Garva Bridge and the car. I was welcomed by a dog barking in the motor home parked next to me but there was still no one at home. It was 5pm so I changed into dry shoes and began the slow 18 mile journey to collect Gregor at Aberarder, the Creag Meaghaidh car park. He had made it over the 5 munros in 6 hours and 25 minutes so he had to wait 45 minutes for my arrival, a suitable punishment for going too fast.