Mad Meg’s or McLaren’s Cairn?
3rd April 2025
Another ‘stella’ day on the Scottish hills. Dry, sunny and warm with a cooling wind from a South-Easterly direction. The perfect day for a visit to the high plateau of the Creag Meagaidh range and to investigate how much snow remains on the high tops. There were a number of surprisingly large areas of snow remaining, mainly (but not exclusively) hugging the corrie rims on North through East to South-East aspects. These, etched against a cobalt blue sky delivered a day to remember.
Our descent took us past Meg’s Cairn which lies approx 0.5 km East of the main summit. The cairn is a prominent feature on an otherwise featureless (and rock less plateau), more of this below.
The photos below will give readers a ‘flavour’ of the remaining winter on Creag Meagaidh.
Looking across the corrie rim of Puist Coire Ardair (1070m) This is a NE aspect and there was recent evidence of cornice collapse, creep lines and slumping. The cornices are now very diminished, but chunks collapsing still remain a hazard for anyone below.
Firm snow on the corrie rims on the NE aspect of Puist Coire Ardair.
More evidence of ‘slumping’ cornices on a NE aspect.
Looking across the summit plateau of Creag Meagaidh, snow patches remaining on SE aspects at an altitude of around 1050m.
Approaching the summit of Crag Meagaidh (1130m). The snow patches/cornices on the RHS of the picture are a Northerly aspect overlooking the remote Lochan Uaine.
Approx 0.5km East of the main summit is an impressive cairn. This is clearly a man-made structure with a large mound of stone topped with a more traditional cairn. On it’s SE aspect there is even a built up ramp line to access the top. I’ve always known this as ‘Meg’s Cairn’, and it is often mistaken for the main summit in poor visibility. It is not named on the OS map. The only identifying map feature is a micro ring contour on the 1:25k scale. No wonder it has been the location of many a navigational epic…… My interest was piqued to do some further research and one of my colleagues shared an article published in the SMC journal by Leen Volwerk entitled ‘Mad Meg, who she?’ Well worth a read. It would appear that the burial site of Mad Meg is perhaps a fictious story and the more credible explanation for the cairn is as follows. The cairn was likely built by a local farmer of unsound mind, Joseph McLaren who lived at Moy Farm in the late 1800’s. Joseph, during the summer months, would live high up in a sheiling in Moy corrie tending the sheep and cattle. He was described as an eccentric human being who built an eccentric structure. It is an incredible piece of engineering considering the plateau area is devoid of any rocks.
Looking across the Northern aspects of Creag Meagaidh en route to The Window. Mad Meg’s/Joseph McLaren’s cairn clearly visible with the main summit behind.
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