Above: one of many partridge hiding in the grass
GrahamsCàrn nan Tri-tighearnan
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Other hillsNone
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BothiesI stayed in Black Bothy the previous night
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Distance/Ascent9km 410m
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Estimated time4 h 00 mins
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NotesPlenty of parking at Daless Farm.
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22 July 2024
The day started with a bike ride out from Black bothy. This took a little under 2 hours, so my muscles were already warmed up and my old joints loosened up.
When asked about Munro bagging, many people comment on how it takes you to places that you otherwise would not go. This is even more true of the Corbetts, resulting in trips to the Western Isles, Rhum, Aran, Applecross and the beautiful Strathconon. This continues to hold true with the Grahams. It is a truly beautiful drive out to Daless Farm, at one point resulting in me just stopping the car in the middle of the single track road to take the first photograph below. One striking feature are the vast number of partridges in the road, many of which do not take evasive action until you no longer can see them over the bonnet. Occasional looks in the rear view mirror confirmed that they had not gone under the wheels. If you waited for them to clear the road ahead, you would never bag this Graham!
I was reducing my speed to around 10mph so progress was slow but I was entirely happy with that. I was happy to be there!
My dodgy knee and painful, tight calf was feeling a lot better, but I still started off a a slow pace. This was in part due to trying to obtain a half-decent photograph of a male partridge (the females are relatively plain). This is not easy with a 20-40mm lens. I love this lens but clearly is not the most versatile.
The route bears right along a track that drops slightly down to the Allt Breac. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I headed right too soon and did a little loop past a cultivated field and feeding stations for the partridges, before returning back to the same track. On returning to the same track, the correct junction was just a short distance further on. This was easy, pleasant, tick-free walking across the burn to join another track, through a gate and took me almost to the top of Carn An Uillt Bhric, where there is a trig point. There is peat hag between here and the main summit, which also sports a trig point. There is a fence before the trig point and a gate. There is some barbed wire cut and twisted over the gate posts. There is no barbed wire on the fence. I am thinking that either it is the remains of an earlier fence or that it had been placed across the gate to discourage people crossing the boundary, and that someone at some point had cut it. At least I could not see any barbed wire on the ground. I have, on occasion, come across where fencing has been replaced and old, rusting barbed wire has been left on the ground for people to trip over.
The gate could not be easily opened and rocked a bit, but it was still more stable than the fence. If this was Yorkshire or the Lake District, there would undoubtedly be a stile.
I lingered for a bit to do some selfies on a small tripod and have a small snack before heading south-east across spongy mosses and lichens to an area of peat hag. This was reasonably easy to negotiate. I was distracted for a while chasing small heath butterflies to try to obtain a decent photograph. Again, not really the right lens. I really needed either my 70mm or 100mm macro lenses. One DSLR, a lighter "landscape" lens and a half-height tripod is enough to carry up the hill.
In my photos below, I like how the photograph of the barbed wire and the butterfly pair nicely with a similar colour scheme or rust and metallic grey.
Eventually, I joined a good track (or bad track if you do not like the way that hill tracks scar the hillsides) and it was an easy walk back to the car in warm sunshine breaking through the broken clouds.
This is not a very exciting hill, but the overall aesthetics of the outing made this a very pleasant day out on the hill.
When asked about Munro bagging, many people comment on how it takes you to places that you otherwise would not go. This is even more true of the Corbetts, resulting in trips to the Western Isles, Rhum, Aran, Applecross and the beautiful Strathconon. This continues to hold true with the Grahams. It is a truly beautiful drive out to Daless Farm, at one point resulting in me just stopping the car in the middle of the single track road to take the first photograph below. One striking feature are the vast number of partridges in the road, many of which do not take evasive action until you no longer can see them over the bonnet. Occasional looks in the rear view mirror confirmed that they had not gone under the wheels. If you waited for them to clear the road ahead, you would never bag this Graham!
I was reducing my speed to around 10mph so progress was slow but I was entirely happy with that. I was happy to be there!
My dodgy knee and painful, tight calf was feeling a lot better, but I still started off a a slow pace. This was in part due to trying to obtain a half-decent photograph of a male partridge (the females are relatively plain). This is not easy with a 20-40mm lens. I love this lens but clearly is not the most versatile.
The route bears right along a track that drops slightly down to the Allt Breac. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I headed right too soon and did a little loop past a cultivated field and feeding stations for the partridges, before returning back to the same track. On returning to the same track, the correct junction was just a short distance further on. This was easy, pleasant, tick-free walking across the burn to join another track, through a gate and took me almost to the top of Carn An Uillt Bhric, where there is a trig point. There is peat hag between here and the main summit, which also sports a trig point. There is a fence before the trig point and a gate. There is some barbed wire cut and twisted over the gate posts. There is no barbed wire on the fence. I am thinking that either it is the remains of an earlier fence or that it had been placed across the gate to discourage people crossing the boundary, and that someone at some point had cut it. At least I could not see any barbed wire on the ground. I have, on occasion, come across where fencing has been replaced and old, rusting barbed wire has been left on the ground for people to trip over.
The gate could not be easily opened and rocked a bit, but it was still more stable than the fence. If this was Yorkshire or the Lake District, there would undoubtedly be a stile.
I lingered for a bit to do some selfies on a small tripod and have a small snack before heading south-east across spongy mosses and lichens to an area of peat hag. This was reasonably easy to negotiate. I was distracted for a while chasing small heath butterflies to try to obtain a decent photograph. Again, not really the right lens. I really needed either my 70mm or 100mm macro lenses. One DSLR, a lighter "landscape" lens and a half-height tripod is enough to carry up the hill.
In my photos below, I like how the photograph of the barbed wire and the butterfly pair nicely with a similar colour scheme or rust and metallic grey.
Eventually, I joined a good track (or bad track if you do not like the way that hill tracks scar the hillsides) and it was an easy walk back to the car in warm sunshine breaking through the broken clouds.
This is not a very exciting hill, but the overall aesthetics of the outing made this a very pleasant day out on the hill.
