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After much deliberation on what to do on Saturday the MWIS forcasted low cloud in the Loch Lomond area, so I headed out with my brother in law, who after his first experience up Ben Lawers in terrible weather, 2 river falls and a lost toenail put him off asking to come out with me again. I promised him a good day.
On leaving home at just after 8 the mist was pretty heavy and I had high hopes while we travelled up towards the hills, stopping in for a mandatory roll and tattie scone and egg in Tarbet at 9am for the shop opening. We were at the Inveruglas for half 9.
There was an westerly wind blowing, and of course the wind would be blowing the fog far up the east of Vorlich and Little Hills so we took the route up by Sloy dam so escape the wind and search for the infamous inversion!
On getting to the cairn at the path to symbolise the start of the route visibility was still pretty poor so we trotted our way up the unrelenting slope.
After a while of climbing the temperature took a noticable rise and we could actually get a glimpse of something blue above us! We gulped back the Lucozade, stripped off layers and started making double time up to catch the sky and low and behold we broke through the inversion.
After some more climbing we managed to get above the inversion enough to get a cracking view
In just the half hour we sat watching the clouds the inversion was visibility rising. I think it was either the temperature increase of the ground below
or the
cloud being blown over the top of Vorlich from the other side adding serving to fill the valley up.
After another little while some nasty looking higher clouds came in and blotted out the sun and the sky above us. We started heading up.
My brother in law was amazed to see some snow.
Walking up the path we lost the path and came across the completely frozen lochan. I mean completely frozen at least one foot so I had to do some sliding on it. The next three pictures are in sequence.
While lost off the path we found a nice safe slope of completely iced over snow to glissade down.
Anyway time was getting on so had to navigate us back to something as visibility was pretty bad. As I said in a previous post even a frequented hill like Vorlich has the potential to get you lost in poor visibility.
Map out and compass and figured out we were in the coire so swung up left and managed to pick up the poor snow covered path again.
Yay hay! Here! Time for a sandwich, cup of tea and a Caramac.
The inversion was just hovering right above us just now and the summit had a very eery lighting happening. Craig is sheltering from the wind slightly disappointed at his second hill with still no views.
For just a few moments the summit cleared in front of us giving a cracking view of the inversion.
The cairn looked really cracking in the semi light.
After about an hour at the top the bright sun started to set giving things a slightlty golden colour.
When the wind eased up the inversion was breaking through again.
Me enjoying the views.
The cloudscape looks amazing.
It is started to get dark and we made our way back down and passed a couple of foreign tourists just going up the hill. No idea what they were thinking as they had no proper gear or even decent shoes. Sigh. A couple of other people walking down at the same time as us expressed their worry at their choice. They decided to go up anyway.
The sunset over Narnain and Ime was tremendous.
I really like these silhouette shots today haha.
The clouds in the valley are completely gone and are at peak height, but clearing away.
Had a nice easy walk back to the car on the path although it was pretty dark.
Was a long walk because we just spent so much time enjoying the views and playing in the ice and snow like big children. What is the point in rushing up a hill to touch a cairn and rushing back down again. Enjoy the experience!
8/10 day
