Glentanar

From http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.com/

Ken was at his pad on the west coast so it was just Dave, Colin and I that ventured up Glentanar yesterday. Ken had provided us with a route map and I had a copy of this with me. Dave had his trusty compass, so what could possibly go wrong? One of these statements is true - delete as appropriate:

1. We didn't think Ken's suggestion was long enough or hard enough so we added a chunk on, or:
2. We missed a turning

You guessed it - the following shows Ken's original plan (blue dotted lines) and the bit that we inadvertently added on (pink lines) before meeting up with Ken's suggestion later:

Ken had indicated the walk might take us about 4 hours, but, in the end we did the complete, extended walk in 4 hours 15 minutes - not a bad pace for the old boys to walk 18.1 kms, climbing up to 443 metres:

I picked up Colin at 8 am and Dave shortly afterwards and we were at Glentanar by 8:30 am. The start of the walk was fairly flat along well worn forest/Land Rover trails, mostly following the burn:

After we made our accidental detour, the route back started to climb and we came across the first fellow humans of the day - a couple of guys and a dog who had got lost. Of course, we were just the people to put them right and we sent them on their way.

We came across a tree that had been hit by lightning:

There were also some stone markers - although we weren't sure exactly what they meant:

We stopped briefly for a quick snack, and there were a couple of other quick pit stops - some took water in, others had to let it out:

Towards the end there was a well with words carved in it:

• Drink weary traveller in the land
• and on thy journey fare
• tis sent by God's all giving hand
• and stored by human care

I set up the camera and we sat on the front edge of the well for a team photo, with some long grass partially obscuring:

Atmospheric, don't you think?

The only other beings we saw on the entire walk were two girl walkers towards the very end. It was certainly the most peaceful walk we've ever been on. When we got to the highest point, we had moved out from the trees and were walking across exposed grouse moors - not surprisingly, the wind increased and the temperature dropped a bit at that point.

The timing was perfect for a lunchtime pint and we headed to the Boat Inn, Aboyne, but the combination of poor beer and a condescending landlord made up our minds after the first pint and we moved on to the Potarch for better beer and service:

Due to various holiday plans, the next walk is likely to be the real thing - the Lake District trip in September.