Walkhighlands

Friday 16th April 2010 was a lovely sunny day, so I headed for the Lawers range, this time to tackle the Tarmachan ridge, which comprises 1 munro (Meall nan Tarmachan 1043m/3422 feet) and another 3 tops : Meall Garbh (1026m), Beinn nan Eachan (1000m) and Creag na Caillach (916m).

I took a different route, parking the car at the far end of Lochan Na Lairige and making it a horseshoe route around the valley.

The horseshoe route I was going to walk


Parked the car in the wee carpark at the end of the Lochan


Looking down on the Lochan Lairige and road


Looking upwards to the first and only munro of this walk - Meall Nan Tarmachan


The views from the top are rather good - Ben Vorlich and Stuc a'Chroin


The route ahead with Ben More and Stobinean in the distance


Well defined route with a lot of up and down


You get pretty close to Killin


THAT steep descent - quite scary on your own


A look back at the steep bit




[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c276CHgNlCY&hd=1[/youtube]

Thanks jwransay, always a pleasure to be reminded of that ridge, particularly under blue skies! I had a lovely day up there last May and definitely fancy going back, maybe in winter this time. Having done it once NE to SW, I've decided that the best route would actually be to start the day with a scramble up the south side of Creag na Caillich, followed by a SW to NE traverse. In winter that would have the advantage of the tricky step below Meall Garbh being done as a climb rather than as a descent.

Wouldn't do it any other way, North Ridge is the place to go to get away from the crowds ! I went up that side and then went down the main path which was heaving !

Great report and some cracking pictures !

One of my favourite walks and nice to see it with blue skies as well Up there at Easter and most likely to tread along the full tourist route