The Fara

For my first proper hill walk of 2020 after "Lockdown" and also my first hill walk since August 2019 I decided in August 2020 to base myself in Pitlochry and climb some of the Corbetts in this part of Scotland. I travelled by train to Dalwhinnie to begin the walk to The Fara.

The walk starts at the level crossing just south of the station. I've included this photo to show the semaphore signals that still control the railway here - an increasingly rare sight on Britain's railways.

The estate road to Ben Alder Lodge gives a nice easy start to warm up.

Loch Ericht is the tenth largest freshwater lake in Scotland (fourteen and a half miles in length) and is unusual in that it has dams at both ends because is part of a hydro electric scheme. The dam in the photo protects Dalwhinnie from being flooded.

Water flows into the northern end via the Chuaich Aqueduct which I walked along after climbing Meall Chuaich. This is a photo taken on that occasion.

The water from the aqueduct (seen on the right) of the map goes through the sluices, over the River Truim in a pipeline and under the road and railway before it enters Loch Ericht at the outfall behind the dam.

At the southern end of the loch the water flows along River Ericht and then into the hydro-electric power station at Loch Rannoch 

Directly ahead is The Fara with one of the estate buildings The Shieling.

Looking south along Loch Ericht

The Shieling with its conical turret.

Another view of the loch.

An Tochailt is another of the estate buildings. The Ben Alder estate website describes it as:

An Tochailt Lodge is a little romantic castle with a superb lochside location ideal for winter and summer self-catering holidays in Scotland. Set in the heart of the Scottish Highlands with views in all directions, the Lodge offers something for everyone.

The climb up the hill begins at a firebreak in the hillside forest at NN 615835. There is no established path and it is steep so on a hot day it was surprisingly hard work - or maybe I was just out of practice!

Looking back down to the loch with what looks like a new fence under construction.

The area of cleared forest to the south west has opened up a new view towards the Munro Geal Charn.

Looking up towards the top of the forest...

....where there is the remnants of a small radio mast.

Beyond the grassy hillside....

....eventually gives a view of the western ridge of The Fara.

The view is looking across to Dalwhinnie with the Munros Meall Chuaich on the left and Carn na Caim to the right. Unfortunately, the haze meant that the Cairngorms aren't visible in the distance on the left of the photo.

Click on the panoramic photo to see a larger image and then click on that image to see the full sized version.

The outflow of the aqueduct into Loch Ericht can be seen to the right hand end of the dam.

The gradient has eased considerably and I simply walked in a straight line following an intermittent line of metal fence poles heading directly to the stone dyke visible ahead.

There's a small area of peat hags to cross....

...before the "fence" changes into a stone dyke.

It's best to walk on the left side of the dyke to avoid having to climb over it. The enormous cairn is built into the wall. The summit of The Fara is at 911m ao almost a Munro (just 3.4 m too low!) and the climb had taken just over 2 hours from Dalwhinnie.

It's possible that this rocky tor slightly south of the summit may be the highest point so I visited this as well.

The view from the summit were almost as good as I'd hoped for with Ben Alder, the two Geal Charns and Beinn a' Chlachair visible.

Click on the panoramic photo to see a larger image and then click on that image to see the full sized version.

Even in August there is still a significant snow patch left on Geal Charn.

Looking to the north west the waters of Loch Laggan can just be seen with the Munros in the Creag Meagaidh range beyond.

I had thought of walking further along the ridge of The Fara but I had a train to catch, with a wait of about four hours if I missed that so after time soaking in the view I returned the way I had come down the firebreak.

And at the station I was just in time to see the "Tesco" container train returning from Inverness to the yards at Motherwell.