Return to Carn Dearg

Ah, the Monadliath! These great miles of undulating high country, of wide sculpted hills which somehow lack the 'superstar' status of the Cairngorms. No one seems to write books about these hills, or eulogise them in poetry, no Big Grey Men have chased eminent professors off their slopes, or developers pushed engineered paths or ski tows into their corries. There isn't a cafe for miles.

If you want to walk in the middle of the great interior of the Highlands, and not meet a soul, head to the Monadliath! They are hills which seem to smell of faded glory, where the clearances seem to have only happened recently and glens lie silent, where once there was life. Unlike the florishing of tourist mecca's, or what Alfred Wainwright called "the fleshpots of Aviemore", empty ruins with cold hearths exposed to the Monadliath sky sit here, West of the A9.

My wife has rarely ventured into these hills, and so with a free day to enjoy we drove to Netwonmore and up Glen Road to the little car park and walked West. Our destination was Carn Dearg, which my memory assured me was the finest of the Monadliath hills. Little seemed to have changed up Glen Banchor since I last walked these paths a decade ago. Glen Banchor looked the same, the hills looked the same and only the ruined cottages in the empty glens showed the passing of time.

It's a good old trudge northwards up the Allt Fionndrigh on a track which then climbs over into Gleann Ballach, which gives access in turn to the western flanks of Carn Dearg. The ridge from Carn Ban to Carn Dearg (945) to Carn Macoul is probably the closest thing to a ridge walk in this part of the world, and the views down into Loch Dubh below Carn Dearg's western flanks is particuarly lovely. We dropped down westwards from the ridge to intersect the path that goes up to the lochan - a path which it must be said is clearer on the OS Map than on the ground!

This led us down Gleann Lochain and into Glen Banchor for our walk back to the car. Strangely for the end of May, the temperature dropped dramatically as we walked back, past a ruined cottage and along by the charming river to the car and to home. The busyness and noise of the A9, with its buses, trucks and average speed cameras seemed to come from a different century to lonely Gleann Lochain. 

Carn Dearg is not Lochnagar, or the Buachaille, or Cairngorm - and is all the better for it. If you want to walk all day, from a free car park - and enjoy complete solitude, then the Monadliath awaits!