Glen Rosa

‘The scenery is majestic, and blackcock and grouse are numerous. A small number of red deer are also found. In the whole of Britain, there are few valleys more magnificent than Glen Rosa and Glen Sannox’ John Scott Hughes - ‘Harbours of the Clyde’ 1954

We set out today right from our cottage door as our cottage is at the end of Glen Rosa. Our destination was ‘The Saddle’ which divides Glen Rosa from Glen Sannox. Last night was move the clocks ahead in the UK so our start was a bit late but that is not unusual for us anyway.

The skies were a bit cloudy with sun but as we walked toward our destination the mist started to roll over the mountain tops, obscuring our view. We continued on and met a few other walkers, then we happened into a couple of older Scots who pointed out some red deer with a few young, over in the heather. We had a great visit with these two guys, the Scots tend to be gifted yakers, they were lots of fun. In talking about accents they asked us how we did with understanding their accent, I told them they sounded normal and they laughed. One was from Edinburgh and the other from Glasgow so we got a taste of the rivalry between the two cities. The guy from Glasgow said the government pays for all the museums in Edinburgh, but if they want one in Glasgow, they pay for it themselves.

The Isle of Arran is very beautiful and is reached rather easily from Glasgow; thus, it attracts a lot of hillwalking Scots and other hangers-on like ourselves. It is a walker’s paradise really, with great accessible mountains and loads of places to stay. In the main tourist season it is really busy and there is only one main road that circles the island, which is only 19 miles long and 10 miles wide. The road is narrow as is usual and the most bizarre thing is that cars will park right on the road in a village facing any which way, so you have to watch for oncoming traffic and wait if a parked car is blocking your lane. However, it is not single track, except for a few roads like the road to our cottage.

Today was a good day to walk Glen Rosa as the hoard of geology students were here yesterday, they were easily spotted in green reflective vests carrying note pads.

Back to our walk, we carried on with our ascent and upon reaching The Saddle, had the most fabulous view of Glen Sannox as the skies had cleared and the sun was shining, our timing was unreal. John and I went absolutely berserk over the views up there.

We had lunch in the sun while sitting among the rocks then started back down the glen. This was a fantastic walk, took us about six hours total, we are not sure about the km walked since this was half of a long walk through both glens. We saw six red deer on the way back down. There are a lot of pheasants in this area as well, one is always just outside our cottage french doors and we saw a pair of grouse as well, right outside our door.

Glenrosa Water

Glen Rosa

Waterfall tumbling down Garbh Allt

The walk loosely follows the burn through the glen

Mist rolling in over The Saddle

The view down Glen Sannox from The Saddle

Caisteal Abhail

View to North Goatfell

Toward North Goatfell

View back down Glen Rosa

The Witch's Step - you can actually walk that ridge but that would scare the daylights out of us, it is a dicey walk for us prairie dwellers since we have lost our head for mountain ledges

View to Glen Sannox