Schiehallion
Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 3:28 pm
With my walking partner Del having been abusing the Rum in The Bahamas for a fortnight, a short easy ascent was the order of the day. I had been saving redoing Schiehallion for a crisp clear day to make up for the lack of views we had when the good lady and I did it last summer. So with the sooperb forecast for Sunday, it was an easy decision to make.
It was a slow drive through the fog to The Braes of Foss, but worth every minute of it, as we knew this had the makings of a memorable day, and what a day. From the start the views were great, Schiehallion itself looking majestic in the early morning sun that was rising above the adjacent hills.
The path is straightforward and with the high level start we were soon getting views to the distant inversion over The Tummel and to Beinn a'Ghlo, and closer to home the autumn colours were glowing in the sunshine, and to the South more low cloud over Loch Tay
Higher still, and the inversions were looking even more spectacular I've only ever witnessed an inversion once before, and that was on Ben Lomond, stupidly I'd forgotten the camera, so this was making up for it just nicely
Once we'd finished drinking in the views, we remembered we had a summit to get to and headed up to the start of the boulderfield whewere met 3 lads on their way down, all 5 of us grinning like Cheshire cats We got to the shelter cairn where we sat for breakfast and got an extra layer and gloves on. The gloves would become much needed as we clambered our way over the larger boulders higher up as they had a good covering of frost on them, and care was needed here. Eventually we made it to the summit cairn with views over the Lawers range to the South, Lochan an Daim just North of the summit, but again it was the cloud inversions that were the eye candy for today
After slowly and carefully negotiating the boulders on the descent, it was an easy walk back to the carpark, which by now was overflowing. It was great to see and have brief chats with so many people on a cold November morning, and I'm sure everyone of them had as fantastic a day as wee did
It was a slow drive through the fog to The Braes of Foss, but worth every minute of it, as we knew this had the makings of a memorable day, and what a day. From the start the views were great, Schiehallion itself looking majestic in the early morning sun that was rising above the adjacent hills.
The path is straightforward and with the high level start we were soon getting views to the distant inversion over The Tummel and to Beinn a'Ghlo, and closer to home the autumn colours were glowing in the sunshine, and to the South more low cloud over Loch Tay
Higher still, and the inversions were looking even more spectacular I've only ever witnessed an inversion once before, and that was on Ben Lomond, stupidly I'd forgotten the camera, so this was making up for it just nicely
Once we'd finished drinking in the views, we remembered we had a summit to get to and headed up to the start of the boulderfield whewere met 3 lads on their way down, all 5 of us grinning like Cheshire cats We got to the shelter cairn where we sat for breakfast and got an extra layer and gloves on. The gloves would become much needed as we clambered our way over the larger boulders higher up as they had a good covering of frost on them, and care was needed here. Eventually we made it to the summit cairn with views over the Lawers range to the South, Lochan an Daim just North of the summit, but again it was the cloud inversions that were the eye candy for today
After slowly and carefully negotiating the boulders on the descent, it was an easy walk back to the carpark, which by now was overflowing. It was great to see and have brief chats with so many people on a cold November morning, and I'm sure everyone of them had as fantastic a day as wee did