Meall na h-Aisre (NH515000; 862m)

Sunday 13 August 2023

Start Point: Garva Bridge

Distance and Ascent: 17.5km, 660m

Weather: Sunny intervals, a few showers (and rainbows) around, but only a handful of light raindrops hit me. 15 degrees at start.

I looked at combining this hill with Gairbeinn, even though that would involve what the map suggests would be a reasonably arduous 6km boggy yomp between them, but I wasn’t in the market for an outing that long today. With the weather forecast looking pretty good this morning, I decided instead to split them, and go for Meall na h-Aisre today and, at the cost of some efficiency, tackle Gairbeinn another day.

Mick came with me, not to accompany me on my hill, but for his first little jogette post-L100 (result: some soft tissue behind his knee is still too disgruntled). Our routes coincided as we crossed Garva Bridge, then diverged, as I veered off to join the new track to the relatively newly installed substation.

I’m not sure what the purpose is of the motorway-esque track that leads from the substation to within 0.5km of Meall na h-Aisre’s summit. I can only assume it was related to the laying of the underground cables that run adjacent, and maybe continues to exist for their maintenance? Whatever its purpose, it simultaneously creates a scar on the landscape, and gives remarkably quick and easy passage up this hill.

From the end of the track a section of bogginess led to nice, firm, short grass and soon the summit was before me.

Once past the substation, most of my ascent had been sheltered, but (obviously) I was fully exposed on the summit and the breeze was uncomfortably cool. I could have put another layer on, but it didn’t seem worth it when I knew I’d need to take it off as soon as I got back to the track. So I just wandered around the contenders for high point, took a few snaps, had a quick snackette and headed back down the way I’d come.

By the time I got back to Erica-the-Campervan the parking area was full, but I’d not seen a single other person, even at a distance, on my hill. 

 I've superimposed my route onto a dated map. The track I followed is shown on more recent maps.

This would have been a nice walk before the installation of the infrastructure related to electricity transmission (including the track).

The track from sub-station to nearly-summit was more pleasant, with flowering heather to look at, rather than pylons and telegraph poles.

Summit selfie, but neither the trig nor the slightly-higher boulder behind are the summit – that’s a few paces away to my right.

Mick walked through that windfarm when it was still under construction, camping in amongst it at Chalybeate Spring.

Had I continued on to Gairbeinn, I would have aimed for the lochan on the upper right of this shot.