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With an absolutely fantastic weather forecast I was determined to make the most of maybe the last good summit day of the summer, so headed to Loch Tay aiming to add more Munros to Ben Lawers and Bienn Ghlas.
Despite lots of fog on the road up, made decent time for a 9.15 start from the Ben Lawers parking lot. A nice easy start compared to Narian and Tulaichean. Lovely views up through the nature reserve and back down to Loch Tay.
Going quickly got a bit steeper, then quite a bit steeper. Also managed to miss the path to Bienn Ghlas and had to back track about 100 yards after realising my mistake. It was hot work up Beinn Ghlas, with lots of false summits. Someone has thoughtfully built a most of the way to the top cairn...
Did not think i was making that good time, but got to the summit of Ghlas at 11 am and was rewarded with fantastic views of Ben Lawers.
Did not hang around on the top long and headed down the 100 or so metres to the bealach. The climb up to Lawers is steep and rocky with and excellent path (many stone steps), but seemed to go quickly with great views of the corrie. Made it to the top at 11.45. Views were amazing over to An Stuc and back down to Beinn Ghlas.
Given that I had made decent time so far, I decidied to head to the bealach to Meall Corranaich with a view to climbing up the 200 metres. It looked pretty steep on the map and pretty much the same from the bealach.
There was however a pretty solid path all the way up with stone steps in places. Some minor scrambling and some exposure made this an interesting climb but did not take long at all and got to the top just after 1pm.
Views continued to impress with lovely views of Ben Lawers and the route down to Meall a'Coire Leith.
The path down was initally easy to follow, but started to run out and had to do some cross country to regain the correct ridge. It got steeper than it looked from Ben Lawers.but better than the three previous ascents.
Summit seemed to be continually just over the next rise, but finally got to munro 4 - Meall a'Coire Leith at 2.10pm, just about an hour from Meall Corranaich. Views were brilliant especially West.
Climb back up to Meall Corranaich was relatively easy, but took longer than the decent as Corranaich is about 100 m higher. Was a little unsure about how the knees would fare on the way down the steep slope but it was fine with some care.
Once at the bealach it was an easy path back to the car park, made more tasty by finding loads of blaeberries in the nature reserve.
Back at the car park by 4.45, right on 7.5 hours of walking. Superb day for my first solo 4 munro outing!
