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Glas Maol Munros (Càrn an Tuirc, Cairn of Claise, Glas Maol and Creag Leacach)

The Glas Maol 4 - what a great hike! 

The 4 are; Càrn an Tuirc, Cairn of Claise, Glas Maol and Creag Leacach. They all sit on the opposite side of the road to Glenshee Ski Centre and on a clear day, give you views as far as East & West Lomond in Fife!

Starting from a large layby car park just past Glenshee Ski Centre, this 4 munro multi-bag loop starts with a relatively steep first ascent followed by a gentle mountain top walk to the summits. 

We left a fairly sunny Edinburgh on the Friday afternoon and, in typical scottish weather fashion, the sky got greyer and cloudier the further North we went. By the time we got to Glenshee we could barely see the car infront! 

Thankfully i'd saved our wild camp spot in map.me as not only was the visibility so poor we couldn't have seen it, the turning for the layby itself is hard to spot coming from the direction of Glenshee. You can read about the wild camp here but for now - on to the munros!

The layby is the start point for the Glas Maol 4 and has enough room for maybe 20 cars. On a clear day you have a pretty beautiful view out across the moor and to the summit of Càrn an Tuirc (CT). The walk starts by following the river with a very gentle incline before you get to the foot of CT. From here its just solid ascent up to the top - the majority of it is grassy, however as you get closer to the summit it turns to loose rock that was quite slippy went we went up, so take care! 


The carn marker itself sits a little back from the edge but gives you fairly good 360 views. Ahead of us in the distance we could see Tolmount which was nice considering we didn't actually get to see anything when we climbed it!!

#Dogs at munros pic... 







After CT's summit you start the big loop round to the right. Skirting the edge of the open ridge, you have a slight incline to get to Cairn of Claise (CC). Of all the munros we did on this hike, CC probably felt the most underwhelming - it did just feel like a bit of a hill! 

A quick photo and a snack break later we set off for Glas Maol (GM). On your left you'll see a pretty impressive looking outcrop of mountain which unfortunately the route didnt take us along, but worth a slight detour to view! Then on your right you'll pass one of the big ski lifts before starting the final hill-like climb up to GM. 




GM is marked with a wind shelter and a trig point - we didnt stop for long as there was a couple eating in the shelter that Spencer was slightly tooo interested in.






Continuing on, we started to head off the side of GM towards Creag Leacach (CL) and had the best view of the day! Of the 4 munros in the loop, CL has the most defined summit and so looks the most impressive! We stopped to take a few photos off to the left looking over the neighboring valley and then went on to the summit where we found... 






A big shovel? Not something I was expecting but hey, its a unique summit marker!









The Walk Highlands route has you going down the other side of CL and then walking alongside the main road for a few kms back to the start. Walking along a road with the boys for 45 mins was not something I wanted to do, so we doubled back to Glas Maol and then took the Monega pass all the way back to the start. If you're planning on doing this walk i'd very much recommend you take this route - it's a really beautiful path and has incredible views! 

Back at the layby the car park was FULL so got ourselves into the car quickly and drove off to find a place to camp for the night!





4 munros in 19.13km with only 1,039m elevation meant that this was a long but overall not too steep walk. Great for first timers or a loop to do in winter with more challenging weather. With 90% of the route being grassy, this is a perfect loop for dogs although there were the odd few sheep ~100-200m away from us at times


Walk stats:

Distance - 19.13km 

Time - 5h 01m

Elevation climb - 1,039m