Saturday 25 April 2026

Four for Farrah four

It was too good an opportunity to miss when Patrick posted an invitation to accompany him to bag the four Strathfarrah Munros. Especially so as this glen is a public transport not spot. Initially, it looked like it would be just the two of us, but my existing plans for the week moved the hill date from Friday, which had the best forecast, to the cloudier Saturday, adding Carlin, Dave, Dave’s car and Dave’s bike.

For those unfamiliar with Strathfarrah, it presents its own logistical challenge in that access to the walk is on a private gated road that in April is opened to visiting vehicles only between 9am and 6pm. Given my limited success so far this year, I had little confidence in completing the 18k and 1500m of ascent within the 8 hour window. And this assumed that I would not need to add a 7k road walk to get back to the car. Hence Dave’s bike!

After overnighting at a hostel in Inverness, we arrived at the gate in plenty of time to be at the front of the queue. In the event, and probably as next weekend is a bank holiday, we could have had an extra half hour in bed. The expected cloud was low and there was no agreement amongst the forecasts as to its extent. Dave dropped the rest of us at the start of the anticlockwise route and I shot off while Patrick and Carlin had a faff. The walking was initially boggy, but progress up into the cloud was steady and as it got steeper the ground got drier. The two youngsters caught and passed me after about an hour and soon after that, the cloud started to break which made for excellent views when I met them at the first summit. There was a message from Dave that he had started running with a 55 minute handicap.

I again left quickly and managed to get about half way up the second climb before the other three overtook me. We maintained this game of leapfrog for the remainder of the day as I could beat all but Dave on the descents, but I got increasingly slower on the climbs. Surprisingly, we all got to the final Munro before 3pm – my cut off time to figure out how I was to get off and out if the full route proved too much.

Once the cloud cleared, conditions and visibility were excellent and the patchy snow could all be avoided. Through the haze Patrick and I played name the hills, while Carlin tried to take the fun out of it with his app.

The drive out of the glen was made interesting by a large herd of red deer – not on the road – and a number of feral goats on the road. Having said that, we were almost wiped out by a roe deer standing in the middle of the slip road that leads off of the M90 towards the Friarton bridge. Eventually it moved.

Thanks to everyone for a great trip, especially to Patrick for the planning and to Dave for the driving.

One of the topics discussed was the suitability of Inverness for a club meet given the number of hills that are within a short drive. It’s a suggestion that is easy to dismiss, but, in the absence of meets in this area, a group are organising a week in July based nearby that still has a few available spaces.

• Report by Chris