Shee of Ardtalnaig (Ciste Buide a'Claidheimh)

31 July 2013

Participants - Just me
Where - Shee of Ardtalnaig, 759m/ 2,490', Graham, Map 51, NN 729352

It must be decades since I first stood at the summit of Ben Chonzie and looked north to the Shee and thought that that was hill that I must climb. Since then, I have climbed Ben Chonzie on many occasions. I have also climbed the two Corbetts that flank the Shee- Creag Uchdag and Creagan na Beinne- a couple of times but have never got round to climbing the Graham. Today I was putting that right.

I parked at the old tennis court in Ardtalnaig village. I could have found a place further up the road to Claggan farm but decided not to bother looking as I expected that the places would all be taken. In fact, they weren't; I had the hill to myself. Immediately through the farmyard, the track up the side of the Shee struck off to the right and meandered gently up and across the hill. I am not sure why the name of this hill was changed a few years ago; in my opinion we should be sticking to or adopting the Gaelic names rather than doing the opposite. Anyway, that's just my view. And talking of views, the weather was a bit disappointing. MWIS had assured me that the tops would be clear and that there would be good sunny periods but it was all looking a bit dull. This is the view across Loch Tay to the Lawers hills from early on in the walk.....

The track wound round to the north side of the hill and then there was a couple of hundred yards of heather bashing before I arrived on the plateau. The summit was about a mile in the distance. As I took this picture, I noticed a brown object in the lens- a small deer was looking at me from a few hundred yards away!.....

I had read that there were rather a lot of peat hags on this hill and so there were.....

but they were dry and I just walked through them. There is a good view of this area looking back from higher up the hill.....

Once past the hags, it was only a short climb to the small cairn, which looked as though it might not be exactly on the highest point although I guess that it must be. Why carry stones up a hill if you're not going to leave them at the highest point? The clouds were starting to shift although there was still a definite lack of sunshine. This picture has Carn Mairg and Schiehallion in the background.....

So at last I was looking at the reverse of the view that I had seen from Ben Chonzie all those years ago.....

It was one of those days when the cloud on the higher hills came and went so I hung about at the cairn for a while to get the best of it. It was a mainly grassy top and I noticed lots of Cloud berries.....

The cloud had lifted on the Lawers hills by the time I was heading down.....

I was pleased to have climbed this hill at long last, it didn't disappoint. It is one of the highest of the Grahams and the start is at about 100m parking in the village so it is a good day out. It took me 5 hours 30 minutes.