Hiking in the Meall Greigh

I am currently volunteering at a wwoof farm. It has been lots of fun so far, both the journey here and my stay at the farm. Hopefully I´ll write more about my adventures in a violent but friendly Glasgow, and about people and work at Culdees, but any text has to begin somewhere so I´m going to tell you about when we hiked the Meall Greigh.  

Some of the French volunteers had planned to do some hiking on the weekend and they were soon joined by more people, myself included. We were supposed to start at eight in the morning but luckily it was raining so we did not get going until one a clock. Our plan was to go up and have a look at a loch located in the nearby mountains, then to climb one of the mountain tops and spend the night somewhere in our tents. There were 6 of us when we departed from the farm. It was windy but the rain had stopped.

 

 We were all in a good mood, talking about different things. The only English participant in the party told me about some of the names of the local plants; heather was one of them that I already know from home. We were also speaking about hiking-experiences. The French guy was probably the most experienced, having done a fair bit of climbing in the Alps and hiked in many places.

The first part of our hike was on a dirt road. Then we had to leave the road and start climbing a quite steep opening in the pine forest until we reached a fence that we had to climb.

 

Finally we were up at open land and we could head for the loch. At this part of the hike, the Spanish hiker gave up. She was really tired after a canyoning adventure she had been out on with a local bus driver the day before.  After some consideration she went back. It was probably a good idea since the wind became very strong when we got out of the forest.  We were quite close to the loch, and after about ten minutes walk we had it in front of our eyes.

  

At the same time a beautiful rainbow appeared, and we found the cliffs around the loch to be covered with tasty blueberries. Yum!

We sat down in front of the rainbow and navigated a bit. No one was up for a really tough hike, so we decided to aim for the closest top -the Meall Greigh- measuring about a thousand meters. We started to walk towards the ridge and found, to our surprise, a boat that had been pulled up the mountain. The French thought it was wonderful opportunity and jumped in.  Two of us (including me) stayed at land to watch the spectacle. We thought that hiking and boating simply didn´t go together, but we were happy to see our French friends enjoy the boat trip.

After that we walked up to a place just beneath the ridge where we could find some shelter. We had our lunch there, in the wind. The French had brought traditional sausage with them, true to their taste.  Apart from that we enjoyed cold vegetarian leftovers and homemade bread. By this time it was hard to have a conversation because the Scottish winds where deafening. We walked up to top trying to keep our balance in the hard wind. It was really nice to get up to the top, even if a storm was now over us.

For a little while we thought about walking down to the basin on the other side and camp somewhere there. The rain was whipping us when we attempted to walk towards the side where the wind came from. We decided to go back.  I think it was a really good decision. We wouldn´t have slept very god well in our wet sleeping bags with the storm raging around the tents. On the way back I fell because I was caught by the wind. I did not hurt myself but it would have been scary to walk along a ridge.

Luckily we were quite close to home, and even if we were all a bit stiff we were really satisfied with the hike. Both the company and the scenery were really good. The Scottish mountains are beautiful but after a day in the rain you are likely to exclaim “Fucking Scotland, fucking rain” as one of the French girls said. During the whole hike it felt as though we were walking in a swamp. But hell, I have been to the Swedish mountains, where you are more likely to drown in a swamp rather than fall off a cliff. However, what  makes a walk really good is the spirit among the hikers, and me and my new found friends achieved a really good one!

 

Advertisement