The road to nowhere on the Fara!
Yesterday Remembrance day was spent on a lovely wee hill the Fara near Dalwhinnie, I have done this Corbett a few times before but Kev had just come back from off shore and along with a few other friends, Tom his sister Janet and Ian and Glenda. The books tell you to follow the road to Loch Ericht but we had spotted a new road winding its way up on the ridge, was this more wind farms or was it just another hill road to nowhere? It was an early start with bacon rolls at Aviemore thanks to Glenda, then down the road the A9 where the suicide pheasants were doing there best trying to hit big Kev’s dream machine. The track starts at the new quarry for the Beaully pylons on the A889 just passed the Dalwhinnie Distillery by the sign for a drovers road and then a sign for private road – confusion?
Drovers Road
We followed the new road across a ford interesting then it wound its way up the hill to about 600 meters and then stops! It must be a stalking track new put in as another track from this leads to the ridge. We stopped at 1100 for a minutes remembrance, I always try to do this on when on the hill on this day when we remember those who gave there lives for our freedom to say as we want and to roam these hills in freedom.
Lest we forget – a few miles from the Fara on Geal Charn a Wellington bomber crashed in December 1952 and only one survived walking out badly injured to Corrour Lodge. Sombre memory on the special day.
It is a lovely area with great views and though cold with dark skies the hills to the West had a fair bit of snow. This hill has the busy A9 below yet a few miles away are the vast trackless hills of the Mondaliaths and Loch Ericht with its remote bothies and hills, what an area The ridge to the summit had some snow and the ground was starting to freeze, it was a very cold wind but the views got better. We had a bit of snow on the last part of the ridge and a were glad to get to the huge summit cairn and a wall coming up from the Loch Ericht side at 911 metres just below a Munro in height. I wonder why the cairn is so huge? Maybe there was a dispute about the estate boundaries. We had great views of Beinn Alder and Lancet Edge where I was in an avalanche 40 years before and various other hills looking like they had plenty of the snow on them.
The summit of the Fara out of the wind!
The Fara has a long ridge walk that continues and it would have been goodto go further than the easy summit. This was not the plan today we enjoyed the summit had some food in the bitter cold then headed down. It was a short but grand day out, we saw some deer on the way out and the view again were stunning, no one else about and no wind farms in sight. How lucky we are. The Fara is a splendid hill easily accessible from the A9 and to complete the whole ridge is a wonderful high level walk. We were soon back on the “road to no where” and soon in the cafe in Newtonmore where we enjoyed a great cup of tea and scones in the warmth. Just as we were going in I met an old friend Lui Dallas a RAF Mountain Rescue Team member in the 50’s. He was at the local Remembrance service in the village it made a fitting end to the day.
Old mans thoughts and tales. 