Sun, clouds, rain and 4 Lawers munros

[BeinnStob]

Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas

The cloudline from the start

Views of Loch Tay

The path up the side of Beinn Ghlas

At 09:45, me and Matthew began our walk from the Ben Lawers carpark, quickly picking up the tourist trail going up towards Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas. The forecast gave little optimism, promising many clouds and spells of rain, though the wind could have been worse. Despite that, the clouds appeared to be lifting, at least until we forked off the trail up for Beinn Ghlas. Passing into the clouds, we took a steep ascent up to the summit plateau, where we were first greeted by a false cairn at 11:08.

The false cairn

The real cairn?

...or what's left of it

We took a short break at the false cairn, initially treating it as the summit, and then continued on ten minutes to find the final part of the elevation just ahead through the mist. There was no cairn this time, though, as on the northern edge, where the cairn was pictured to be, there was only a scatter of stones and rocks that spread for a few metres down the slope. It was clearly the highest point, but what appeared to formerly the cairn was unfortunately in tatters. No views were in sight either.

The descent from Beinn Ghlas

Clouds parting during the Ben Lawers ascent

Ben Lawers ahead

The Ben Lawers summit

After pondering over the Beinn Ghlas summit, Matthew and I continued down the ridge towards Ben Lawers. We experienced a couple smatters of rain, but were also gifted with some cloud partings, opening up the sky and briefly a faded view of Loch Tay. The two of us got to the Ben Lawers summit at 11:55, eating lunch behind the rocks to shelter from the wind, although the bits of rain could not be avoided. No real views from the summit at that point.

The western Mealls

Clouds parting to reveal Meall Corranaich

Ben Lawers gets revealed while we climb Meall Corranaich

After lunch, we doubled back down the main path up, taking the bypass that trailed around the side of Beinn Ghlas. Our next aim was to traverse the path that forked straight up Meall Corranaich and continued on to Meall a' Choire Lèith, wrapping up the western four of the Lawers 7. As we walked along the side of Beinn Ghlas, the clouds cleared more and we got a full view of Meall Corranaich ahead, even if only briefly. More pockets of rain also got us damp, though patches of sun could be seen over to the north.

The Meall Corranaich summit

Meall a' Choire Lèith ahead

The Meall a' Choire Lèith summit

Me and Matthew took on the steep ascent, a couple breaks included, that got us to the Meall Corranaich summit, which we reached at 13:15. Although we re-entered the clouds during that time, we got glimpses of the clouds revealing the Ben Lawers summit from afar for a short moment. After that, we kept down the main path as it descended towards Meall a' Choire Lèith. We accidentally strayed off of it as one point, but we quickly able to get back on track. The two of us reached the summit of Meall a' Choire Lèith at just after 14:00, taking another break there.

The other munros we had climbed behind us

Descending from Meall a' Choire Lèith

Unlike the other three munros, we had views from Meall a' Choire Lèith, looking over to the munros along Glen Lyon, Glen Lochay, and onwards towards Crianlarich. With the four munros done, we descended down towards Lochan na Lairige. Tripping and slipping became more frequent at this point, and we had to dodge bogs for the first time this walk. The rain also made a return to dampen us as we walked over to the tarmac road and back down to the carpark. The walk ended at 16:10, and we were rewarded with the shelter of Matthew's car.

Our day on Matthew's strava