Mount Blair & Meall Mor

Monday 27 October

Start Point: Parking by county boundary on B951

End Point: Minor road by Blacklunans

Distance and Ascent: 12.4k, 600m

Weather: Sunshine and showers, mainly at the same time.

With it being such a cool morning, I opted for a beanie and (stupidly) didn’t take a peaked cap with me. I thus walked up Mount Blair (and part way down the other side) without being able to see anything ahead of me, with the autumn sun shining straight into my eyes. At the same time, I was being lightly rained on. The resultant rainbow apparently ended on Bertie-the-Motorhome’s roof, although we found no pot of gold there later in the day.

With a good grassy track the whole way to the summit, it was an easy hill. Continuing down the S side of the hill I was surprised to find a good trodden line through the heather.

A slightly cluttered summit with cairn, trig, an extensive topograph and a mast.

My plotted route had me dropping down the SE spur, but now I was in a quandary: to see where the trodden line went, or to see what the going was like if I veered off into the heather. As I was recceing this route for Ali, I phoned her to ask what she wanted me to do, as a result of which it was the trodden line that I followed. Surely such a good line, with sturdy stiles over fences, had to go somewhere?

At Glack of the Barnetts, the line petered out and as can be seen from the map snippet above, I took a rather indirect route down to the road (looking to see if there was a trodden line that was being illusive; there wasn’t).

Reaching the road and easily negotiating the wall/fence combo on the way, I went directly across the tarmac and up the forest track towards Meall Mor.  

Once I’d run out of track/ATV track, I continued alongside the wall, switching sides a couple of times in search of the best ground. Being now dry and with the effort of the hill, I divested myself of my outer layer on the way up here, although the bite of the wind at the top nearly had me putting it back on.

 I'd like to claim that the hair situation was a result of the wind

I didn’t fancy descending the grassed-over rocky ground of the wall line, so took a slightly more direct line down through the heather, which would have been hard going in ascent, but was fine with gravity on my side.

Back at the road, it was a simple 3.5k march along tarmac to my pick-up point – even that wasn’t a bad walk, with various points of interest along the way (if you’re interested in things like decaying boathouses, abandoned hotels and ‘Grand Design’ type houses).

15 October 2025: Ben Vrackie revisit

 

On 17 May 2017, at 6 in the morning, on a day without a cloud in the sky, I set off up Ben Vrackie. Two hours later, without meeting a single person (unsurprising considering the time of day), I got back to Bertie-the-Motorhome and rushed off to meet Mick.

If I’d known that some eight years later I would find myself going up there again, I could have saved myself the early start and the rush to reach Blair Atholl by 9am!

Today's visit to Ben Vrackie didn’t, strictly speaking, require me to visit the summit, as the purpose of this TGOC East recce was to see what the ground was like dropping off the hill to the NE, to pick up the track on its N side, then to see whether the track to Shinagag is still evident on the ground. However, given that my route took me within metres of the summit, it would have been silly not to have nipped up there.

The Visitor Centre at Killiecrankie was my chosen start point (mainly because it was my end point, so it made the logistics easier if I started there too), so I left Mick & Bertie in the car park and headed off up what I would assess as the less-oft trod route. Most people ascend from the car park to the N of Pitlochry, and thus I only met one couple until I reached the main path at Loch a’Choire. 

 Loch a'Choire on approach and looking back at it

Looking up that stone staircase I couldn’t believe how many people were ahead of me. A group of about 10 had stopped for a break, and decided the best time to set off was moments before I reached them. I was so close to the summit by then that it was a toss up as to whether to just slowly bring up the rear, or to make them aware that I wasn’t a member of their group and that I’d quite like to pass. Reaching a switch-back where there was a well-trodden cut-off, I made an impulsive decision and managed to pass the whole group – but goodness, was I huffing and puffing by the time I popped out in front of them. Maybe the slow plod at the rear would have been the better choice!

With 17 people on the summit, I didn’t loiter. A quick selfie, a few snaps of the view, then onwards with my route. I did stop for a chat with a chap on the next nobble along the way, one of the topics of which was the bellowing of the stags, close by yet invisible (technically camouflaged, rather than invisible, I suppose (because I know that Mick will pick me up on the point when he proof-reads this post!)).

The initial trodden line petered out, but the going was easy enough to pick up the track (a grassy, boggy ATV track), and it was along there that I started seeing the deer. Great groups of does being tracked by bellowing stags both sides of me. Fortunately, the stags were sufficiently transfixed by their harems to not see me as a threat. 

A locked deer-fence gate, followed immediately by a well-secured six-bar gate. What’s that about!?

The views from the next, out-and-back section of my route were superb, but I fear my photos haven’t captured the array of colours.
 

I didn’t need to go the whole way to Shinagag, opting to turn back at the point where I could clearly see that the rest of the way ahead was clear and problem-free.

Lovely old grassy track to Shinagag

At Loinmarstaig the area was alive with pheasants. More surprisingly, there were patches (I would say fields but that feels like the wrong term in the context of the hillside location) of brassicas growing.

 

At the exact location where I took this photo I was supposed to be checking out something that was immediately behind me. I only remembered that element of ‘things I was supposed to be checking out’ about a kilometre later, by which time I didn’t feel inclined to go back.  

 

Aside from the autumn colours, the only other notable feature of the rest of the outing was the wooden walkway by the waterfall along the Allt Girnaig. It’s an odd location for such a grand walkway, and I can’t imagine many people go up there just to see one waterfall, which is perhaps why the walkway has fallen into such disrepair – not only with lots of broken planks, but with part of the structure itself having suffered a failure. I proceeded along it with utmost caution.

It was then a stroll along a track back to Killiecrankie, after an excellent outing, mainly carried out in my shirt-sleeves, it was so warm in the sunshine.

(20.2km, 880m)