Meall an Fhudair

Parked just off the A82 and began the steep wee pad up the land rover track. I passed a herd of coos and they seemed non-plussed as I headed round towards the pylons. I then headed straight up on to Troisgeach. There wasn't much to commend this hill and once I got on to the plateau, I could still see I had another 1.5 miles of walking across boggy ground with hunners o lochains. They were full of frogs 'getting it oan' and I continued onwards leaving them to it. Once, at the summit, there was a cold, wee wind and I built the shelter a little bit higher, while taking in Beinn Bhuidhe and Loch Sloy. Beinn Damhain was across to the South and I made my way back over towards it before dropping down to the Lairig Arnan and meeting up with the original land rover track. I scared a small herd of deer and watched as they bounded effortlessly away to the West. It was quite moving, to again feel so very organic. A fine little pad. Good for the very remote feeling one has at its summit.

Carn na Drochaide

I had read that this hill doesn't offer much to commend it. Au contraire, a mon avis. I had driven from Glasgow up to Braemar to meet MerryWalker who hadn't realised she had won WOTM. A nice surprise. We met at Keiloch to do Culardoch and Carn Liath but with torrential rain and clag, we decided to tackle something shorter and made our way to Linn of Quoich. As the road meandered on, I thought to myself that MW might think I was going to bump her off as you never know who you might bump into on these websites e.g. the Montyquatsch? Anyway, we discussed much from spit-roasted dogs (her own?) to infection control and as we set off from the provisional car park and started catching up. It is nice that you meet someone through a website and find common ground and rather than head directly up the hill, we took a more sedate route, which I would encourage. Thankfully, the weather broke and the views across the big boays got better and better. As we arrived at the summit, we had great views over to Beinn a Bhuird and Ben Avon - it brought back memories of my stag night and the Tors! Brilliant stuff. I had mis-correctly thought there was a viewfinder up there and looked around - little did I realise that the wee cairns were view-finders of the different glens. We descended down the direct route to the Linn of Quoich and found a dead frog, floating eerily in a wee puddle - quite bizarre and its eyes gazed at us rather evilly. We said our adieus and promised to catch up again another time. We both enjoyed this wee hill and would strongly recommend it, for one of these wee pads.