M127 | 1006 m. | 3301 ft.
Translation: Grey hill
Pronuncation: kaarn leea

As i mentioned in the sister post to this one, Cord was on his day off, which did not meant that he was off duty. Having driven me to Balsporran, then shopping in Aviemore, then fetching me up again at Balsporran and then driving us to our cottage for a nice warm lunch was much more than one can expect from a “day off”.

The lunch at home between two Munros was a first in 20 years of munrobagging. After a short rest Cord drove me to the car park at the entry of the Creag Meagaidh National Park, a most scenic area with an excellent approach path which i had to leave too soon. The walk through the birch wood was not really funny as you can imagine. Lots of bogs and water but ok’ish. Soon i reached the summit plateau where i had to navigate carefully in the featureless stony terrain due to mist. After 1h 30mins i reached the summit cairn, touched it and returned.

On the return leg i had some nice views towards Cread Meagaidh – the summit and it’s plateau which we had conquered years ago in zero sights with the help of our trusty compass. Nice. After having reached the path again i felt energetic enough to do a little return run and i arrived at our rental car where Cord was waiting reading a newspaper 1h 10min after i had left the summit. A nice afternoon exercise.

Thanks Cord for chauffeuring me!

 

2001 Clouds, spells of sunshine and strong westerly winds were forecast for this day. The weather was as predicted when I left the car park at Aberarder and vigorously walked along the path into Coire Ardair. I met several other hill walkers on my way into this very beautiful corrie. The cliffs of Creag Meagaidh are truely awesome. At the foot of the steep ascent to the col between Creag Meagaidh and Stob Poite Corrie Ardair I put on my crampons and the rest of my winter gear and headed up the great snow slope leading to The Window. On Creag Meagaidh’s cliffs climbers were trying to make headway on the rock covered with ice. I fought my way up to The Window where strong winds and darker clouds coming from the west made the decision easy to leave Creag Meagaidh for an even better day and to walk the northern bounding ridge of Corrie Ardair from west to east over Stob Poite Corrie Ardair and Carn Liath – with the strong westerly wind pushing me forward. So I climbed the steep final snowy and grassy slope to the top of this ridge, walked over to Stob Poite Corrie Ardair (again majestic views of the corrie and Creag Meagaidh) and continued for three miles over some bumps on the ridge to the grey summit of Carn Liath where I rested in full sunshine (!!), had some tea and biscuits. I descended due south from Carn Liath and after some very easy down-hill walking through snow and heather I rejoined the Corrie Ardair path in the birch woods at the foot of the corrie. Great corrie, marvellous cliffs, entertaining snow-climb, good ridge-walking and plenty of sunshine. What more can you ask for?


Description These two mountains form a long and fairly level ridge on the north side of Coire Ardair, facing Creag Meagaidh across the head of the corrie. Carn Liath is a rather rounded hill rising directly above Aberarder, but Stob Poite Coire Ardair forms a more impressive ridge whose south face drops steeply to the head of Coire Ardair. The north side of these mountains drops towards very remote country at the watershed between Glen Roy and the headwaters of the Spey.The traverse starts at Aberarder and follows the path towards Coire Ardair for about 1½ kilometres. At the birch trees go north-east up a faint path by some old fence posts to the shallow col north of Na Cnapanan. From there continue north up easy slopes to Carn Liath. Go west along a broad ridge over two tops beyond which a level crest leads to Stob Poite Coire Ardair. Continue south-west down the ridge for ½ kilometre, then descend south to the well defined col called The Window and turn east down steep boulder slopes to Lochan a' Choire where the path back to Aberarder is reached.