TGO Challenge Day 11 - 22 May 2022

Walking 7am to 3.30pm

Distance walked 13 miles
Distance remaining 24.5 miles

A very overcast morning but not cold. I walked down past the Glen Doll car park; just one campervan their presumably having spent the night. A lovely location. I then road walked the three miles along the almost deserted lane to Clova. 

Deer

In the car park of the Glen Cova Hotel I picked up someone's recently dropped bag of cheese and onion crisps and made quick work of them.

It was then a long, slow ascent to Loch Brandy but half way up found I had a 4G signal so made my last check in call to Challenge Control. I also phoned home. Shortly after, Paul from yesterday came up behind me. He and a couple of other Challengers had overnighted at the Glen Clova Hotel. He was following the same route as me today so we walked together. Up on the tops the mist was swirling and there was quite a wind. With his navigational gadget, a Garmin Fenix (I think), we got across some pretty featureless terrain. It was pretty boggy with stretches of black peat. His navigation brought us precisely to the landrover track which led us down to Shielin of Saughs bothy. This was to have been my planned overnight stop but it was far too early. Here, we took shelter from the wind although the mist had totally cleared. I made coffee and he went on to find a wild pitch as the day for both of us was to end in Glen Lethnot which we were about to enter. I stayed and my coffee stop morphed into lunch.

Walking down to Shielin of Saughs bothy

Glen Lethnot was quite lovely and the route followed a landrover track all the way until a marked footpath snaked down to the river. Along here I found what is possibly the best and flattest pitch so far and the river for water very close by. I haven't seen Paul so he must have gone further. I didn't want do as I have now walked nearly four miles into tomorrow's mileage.