Càrn Liath [Munro #10]

4

I went up Càrn Liath, my tenth Munro and the first one I’ve done on my own. As walks go it was a fairly short and straightforward one.

Càrn Liath Route

I parked in the Beinn a’ Ghlo car park just off the A9 near Blair Atholl. It had a wee bit of phone signal and the car parking machine took card payments. It was £3 for a motorbike, £5 for a car and £8 for a van or camper. The car park was mostly empty, there were three or four camper vans and one other car. I didn’t see anyone until I came back to the car.

The route was all on paths, and with excellent visibility I could see the way up Càrn Liath from the car park. The only glitch I had is that OS Maps tracked me on the route but the distance the GPS said I covered was a kilometre longer than the map suggested. So I was a wee bit off on my timings.

Weather

The weather was lovely, sunny and dry, although there was a fair amount of wind chill when I got to the top. The wind had been at my back on the way up, so it was only when I turned round I realised how bad it was. I stopped just off the summit and put my goggles and face covering on.

Safety

This was my first solo walk. So I took extra care with it. This started with picking a short and straightforward climb. I also checked the weather fairly obsessively just to be certain that it would be reasonable. In particular I was looking out for visibility, snow level, and wind.

My bag weighed in at about 11kg too. Despite checking weather lots and being content that the snow level was higher than I intended to go I still had my crampons and ice axe in the bag. Along with the layers to deal with subzero weather and driving wind. I ended up using the ice axe, goggles and face covering. Also on the bag we’re a storm shelter, first aid kit (pretty comprehensively upgraded last year), waterproofs, toilet kit, spare torches, snacks, lunch, 2L bladder, and of course some Kendal mint cake. This was in addition to the contents of the copious pockets on my windproof smock!

One last addition, which I acquired last autumn was the Garmin In reach Mini 2. This has satellite tracking, lets you send messages to report in, and also has an SOS button on it. That was the braces to the belt of leaving a route card at home, and another on the dash of the car with my departure date and time annotated to the route. I’ve watched enough episodes of Highland Cops and other mountain rescue programmes to know that’s very useful.

Walking up to Càrn Liath

I’d allowed myself 4.5 hours to cover the 9km and 660m of ascent. The first mile and a half was long a game track that was well used. So I made really good progress and was at the bottom of the main ascent in under an hour (about 3.5km in and 200m of ascent).

Càrn Liath from the Beinn a’ Ghlo car park. (Photo: James Kemp)

I stopped for a bit to drink my coffee and look at the view. I’d quite liked the stone path through the peat bog on the way between the farm track and the bottom of the hill. There was also a new looking deer fence and a new shed next to the gate that wasn’t on the map. This was the only tricky part of navigation, with the path slightly unclear, but with good visibility I was able to work out where to go next because I could see the path further ahead.

Once I’d picked my way across the peat bog it was a straight forward route to the top, following the stone steps built into the hill. It was a bit of a slog at times, it’s a steep hill, but I carried on.

At about 900m there started to be patches of snow. Predictably they were mostly where the path had eroded and the snow that had drifted into the ruts was shaded from the sun. Initially I started to count how many steps I had to take on the snow. I stopped just past 200. It would have been possible to have skipped the snow patches almost entirely, but the snow wasn’t deep, it yeilded well and wasn’t slippery. It was a bit thicker round the cairn and trig point at the summit, but didn’t represent a hazard. I did get my ice axe out at that point and used to to provide stability, and also as a precaution so that I could arrest if needed.

The way back down, apart from stopping to apply goggles etc, was a retrace of my steps. I use the ice axe a lot on the steep bit of the hill as a third point of contact and to slow me down a bit. I was conscious that I was taking longer than planned at this point, but was careful not to push it too much until I was on the flatter section.