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Report on Coran of Portmark
28 February 2010
(3239 views)
Today's hardy walkers are :- Mark, Chris, Gail and Irene
Before we set off we decided to visit the tearoom in Carsphairn. This was because the owner emailed Mark after seeing this walk on our website. We sat there for ages enjoying the good food and were in no hurry to head for the hills.
Eventually we decided to drive to the start of the walk on the A713 at Green Well which is approx one mile before Carsphairn. We crossed the road and headed along a track past Garryhorn until the track ended at the remains of a mining community.
Behind the derelict cottages we headed uphill until we reached the faint quad bike track. The cloud base was very low and the soon we were deep in snow yet again. We followed footprints through the snow until we reached he summit of Coran of Portmark. Just as we were near the summit we spotted a couple of guys approaching from a different direction. At the cairn we spoke to the first elderly man who was waiting for his friend to catch up. He was keen to tell us that his friend was 83 years old and they were on their last summit of the day!!!
The weather was really closing in by now and it was really cold with poor visibility. We headed south and on to Bow then climbed up through knee deep snow to the trig on Meaul. Chris led the way which we thought was good training for him as he is running in the London marathon soon. It made life easier for us as we could follow his footsteps.
The decent east from Meaul was made easy as Gail and I managed to do some bum sliding. We soon out of the snow and crossing tussocky grass which was also hard going. We passed Cairnsgarroch and headed towards the river. Mark and Chris crossed the river well ahead of us and decided to leave Gail and I to do our own problem solving on how to get across. The guys watched us from afar and I am sure were waiting to get a laugh if we fell in!!! After Gail and I took longer than we needed to, we eventually managed to cross the river without getting wet.
This took us back to the track where we enjoyed the long walk and arrived back to the car in the dark. It was a good day out but we missed the views so that will give us a reason to go back and do it all over again.
Irene Cahill
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