Area: Monadhliath
The Monadhliath is a vast range of empty, uncelebrated hills that starts behind our cottage near Laggan. On our last visit, I'd done the two eastern Munros in the range, expecting little but actually really enjoying the big skies and remoteness. This hill, one of many with the same name, is even more isolated, but is effectively Laggan's home mountain, so made an ideal shortish objective today given yesterday's lengthy outing. I opted to start from the Spey Dam, a short drive from the cottage, and headed up Glen Markie. This was a long preamble, but nice, penetrating the heart of the range. It was a lovely sunny morning and the scenery became quite interesting as I left the base of the big glen to follow a small path up the side of the Piper's Burn. This leads into the eastern corrie of the hill, quite nice, with crags and a little lake. A steep climb out gained the huge featureless summit plateau, adorned with a giant conical cairn at the far end. Views were a little restricted by the topography, and a slight haze, but the true emptiness of the Monadhliath was apparent, as were views over to the Great Glen. I decided to append Beinn Sgiath to the day in an attempt to avoid the out-and-back. This worked well. A little cleft above the corrie had a pool, and Sgiath proved to be another big plateau. I contoured down, following my nose, through completely pathless and arduous terrain, very steeply down An Dirc Mhor and then the lump of Am Maol. At some point in this boggy wilderness I was attacked by what I suspect were deer ticks which proved a problem 24 hours later! For now, however, I just enjoyed the space and the emptiness. A cuckoo was pursued by a meadow pipit and I dipped my legs in the beautiful upper reaches of the Spey before returning for breakfast and a walk around Feshiebridge.
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