Joy of the Tilt
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I NEVER tire of visiting Glen Tilt – it has to be one of Scotland’s most beautiful glens, largely because the track through it, a former drove road, stays close to the river that gives the glen its name.
There’s something about being close to water that appeals to all of us. Why else would buying property at the seaside be so popular? Whether a river, a rushing burn, a loch or the ocean, water has a calming influence, adding to the general feeling of well-being we get from being outdoors, pushing up the serotonin levels.
The Tilt goes on for kilometre after kilometre, stretching all the way between Blair Atholl at one end and Inverey on the Braemar side, hemmed in by the hills.
I’d ventured into the glen six months before to do Carn a’ Chlamain on my Munro round. This time it was mainly the weather forecast that influenced a return visit, with the Blair Atholl area faring best on the chart.
John was joining me for the outing and the initial eight kilometres to the foot of the hill would be taken care of by pedal power. With John’s bike trailer to carry the rucksacks, the burden would be lighter for an hour-and-a-half at least.
We set off from the car park at Old Blair through the gateposts immediately opposite. There’s some uphill work to be done initially until the track levels off and the riding becomes easier, with only a few shallow undulations to slow things down a bit.
We stopped at the bridge just after Marble Lodge – one of the properties used as a holiday let by Atholl Estates – to take a few pictures and admire the scene.
The lodge gets its name from the fact that in the early 1800s small-scale marble extraction took place in the glen and items made of Glen Tilt marble are housed at Blair Castle. Linen production was another early form of industry here.
Crossing to the west side of the Tilt, we continued for just under another kilometre to the bridge crossing the Allt Craomidh and locked the bikes to the railings.
Unlike my first assault on Carn a’ Chlamain, we’d chosen a longer horseshoe round, starting up the western side of the burn separating the “prongs” of the shoe.
A look at the map shows the contours huddled together for 500 metres until an easing of the gradient comes at the top of Sron a’ Chro.
So it was fairly slow progress to that point, with breaks to catch the breath and gaze back down the sweeping curve of Glen Tilt.
On we pressed to the next top, Braigh Clais Daimh, and a snow shower blew in as we made our way over the tussock-like grass, weaving about to find the easiest line.
We contoured under the last top, Aonach na Cloiche Moire, to reach the bealach below Carn a’ Chlamain. From there it’s an easy step to the summit – a much easier approach than that from the east, which is steeper and involves a clamber over scree, though it’s not too troublesome.
We arrived to find a few other folk at the summit and a couple of mountain bikers hauling their bikes up on their shoulders for a ride down – something neither John nor I relished.
After a drink and a bite to eat we set off down on a path that cuts across the top of Carn a’ Chlamain’s south ridge and descends the steep hillside into the glen by a series of zigzags, to end up behind Forest Lodge.
On the way we could see tyre marks where the bikers had passed before us, but wondered how much they could have stayed in the saddle given how steep and loose the path is.
We pressed on but left the path close to the end to descend grassy ground, aiming for a gap in the trees next to the track. This would get us slightly nearer to our start point and reduce the walk back to the bikes.
The ride out was even more enjoyable than the ride in – more downhill than uphill, so it didn’t take long to reach the car park at Old Blair, still pretty full of cars on a busy weekend.
Nothing surer than I’ll return to Glen Tilt.
