Creag an Dail Bheag
The “new” corbett Creag an Dail Bheag Sunday 4th February 2018
Stunning, amazing, wow look at that view, fantastic, one of the best winter walks for a long time, were all phrased used by Robert, Nick, Gillie, Susan, Paddy, Steve and Ruth as we bagged the “new” corbett Creag an Dail Bheag.
The location for this mystery walk was decided once we heard from Tim that the corbett Carn Liath had been demoted in favour of the fractionally taller Creag an Dail Bheag a kilometre or so to the north-west. (See https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/corbetts/carn-liath for further details.) Many of us had done Carn Liath before but were unsure if we had been over to Creag an Dail Bheag and for those not “ticking” or “bagging” it just provided an excellent excuse for a great day out in some amazing weather.
The snow was lying on the ground as we left Keiloch at 9am walking northwards through the woods, past Invercauld house and then following the landrover track north to the Bealach between Carn Liath and Culadoch. On leaving the landrover track to head west to Carn Liath the snow got much deeper and Robert, Steve and Paddy did some great trail blazing through, at times, knee deep snow.
We had lunch on the cairn near the top of Carn Liath (there are several cairns in the area but none actually on the real top we discovered!). We then headed NW to Creag an Dail Bheag and got our “new” corbett.
We’re not convinced it looked any higher than Carn Liath but it gave us wonderful views over to Creag an Dail Mhor, Ben Avon and Beinn a’ Bhuird.
All day the valley remained in cloud due to an inversion. On leaving the top we were reluctant to leave the sunshine and head into the cloud, we just wanted to keep enjoying the sunshine! However the cloud lifted as we headed down enabling us to complete our walk in the sun. Our route down went south along Glas Alt Beag picking up the foot path round the edge of Meikle Elrick and back to Invercauld house. The steep slope off of Creag an Dail Bheag tempted some of us to think of practising our ice axe skills but really the snow was too soft, so it was just a good excuse to play in the snow!
We got back to the cars at about 4pm all very satisfied with snow covered mountains, bright blue skies, sunshine and no wind making it an amazingly warm day; what more could we ask for? We did try convincing new member Nick that all DHC walks happened in such amazing weather, but other posts on this blog might tell a different story!
Ruth
More photos from Paddy
