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My previous hare-brained scheme of reaching my 40th munro on my 40th birthday had been sensibly abandoned after a brief night out on Saturday. Somehow, getting up at 5am to do the Carn Mairg group of 4 munros to reach the 40 had lost it's appeal. So instead i decided to settle on doing a "special" mountain, Schiehallion. I had meant to climb it last year, but had dislocated my ankle the day before playing football.
So, a nice forecast, and not particularly bad hangover, and we set off at 9:30am for the Braes of Foss Car Park. We eventually abandoned the car almost halfway up a verge near the start of the walk as the car park was absolutely packed. Half of the civilised world it seemed wanted to climb Schiehallion. It's also worth pointing out that there were a pleasing lack of midges.
The views open up quite early on in the walk.
- Back towards Braes of Foss etc
- Dun Coillich? (not sure)
We carried on up the excellent path, unaware of being slowly sunburned due to the pleasant breeze. It really was a terrific day. There were a couple of minor stops for scran and photos.
- In the general direction of Loch Tay
- Beinn a'Ghlo Range
The views all around were excellent. It should be noted that the path is absolutely superb, and we saw a group of kids with shovels, presumably volunteering with the John Muir Trust, working on the path. We weren't long in reaching the boulder field. It's actually quite enjoyable, as faint paths work their way through it, and we quite enjoyed the rock-hopping of the final stretch of the mountain. Views continued to be superb.
- Start of the bouldery section
- Back down to the car park
We reached the summit at about 1:30pm, just over two hours after setting off. The wind was pretty stiff, which if course continued to hide the fact that we were being slowly fried. Superb views from the summit were had across the the Lawers Range, Carn Mairg (was actually quite pleased i'd knocked that stupid idea on the head) and the Cairngorms. Unsurprisingly, the summit was busy, so lunch was demolished while the summit cleared a bit, and we could get some photos.
- Lawers Range
- My other half's summit pose
After a pleasant stop at the top we decided to get moving back down as we had a deadline to get back to Forfar for a meal at the Sultan (it's worth the mad dash). My other half also caught some sunstroke, at least that what she called it, describing the symptoms as feeling sick and a "bit pished". She must have been, she let me drive her car home.
An absolutely fantastic day, and a fine way to mark getting "over the hill"
One final shot, and one of my favourites from the day - Schiehallion from Queen's View. A nice wee stop off close to Tummel Bridge.
- Schiehallion from Queen's View