These delays worked in our favour though, as the forecast for last weekend was great, sunshine, moderate winds, and "0% chance of rain" so, as I'd pretty much beaten my man-flu, we headed off on Sunday morning, reaching the car park at 9.20am, ready to set off 15 mins later.
The path is well sign posted at the start, so we made our way up through the wood, ducking under, and climbing over the fallen trees across the path, then out onto the open moor, crossing the shoogley bridge and up the eastern flank of Carn Gorm, as we gained height, the views really opened up, across to The Lawers Range and down the glen to the east. We hit a largish patch of snow which had been crossed earlier in the day, so we followed the footsteps across, and headed up to the summit of Carn Gorm, our first of the day!
- The start of the path going into the wood.
- Trees across the path.
- Neil, having crossed the shoogley bridge.
- Looking up to An Sgorr.
- Snow puts in an appearance.
- Looking east along Glen Lyon.
- The Lawers Range.
- Our lunchtime view across to Rannoch Moor and Glencoe, Ben Nevis to the right of centre!
We had a quick lunch break sitting against the cairn looking west, barely a cloud in the sky, the views were stunning, my pics certainly don't do them justice!
After eating, we headed down the north slope across a large area of snow, which Sam slid down on his ar*e, ("far quicker" he thought!) , we then followed the line of rusty fence posts up Meall Garbh, to the (eyesore??) cairn at the summit.
- Coming down off Carn Gorm.
- Dodgy looking cornice below Carn Gorm.
- Following the fence post line up Meall Garbh.
- The rusty cairn at the summit of Meall Garbh.
We didn't hang about on this top as there was a chilly breeze despite the brilliant sunshine, so we set off towards Meall a' Bharr, where we sheltered from the wind and refuelled.
- Looking back from Meall a' Bharr.
- The last two summits, Carn Mairg and Creag Mhor.
It's a good path to Carn Mairg, but I still missed the summit cairn, having to be called over by the faster walkers in our group, this gave us excellent views across to Schiehallion, my first Munro, just over two years ago!
From here, we negotiated a rather steep path down and over a small boulder field, down to the col, the ascent of Creag Mhor involved crossing a fair bit of snow, and then up a short incline to the summit at the far end of the small plateau. We rested a few minutes, emptied our lunch boxes and took in the final views of the day, then started on the steep, knee jarring, path back down to the car park.
- Schiehallion
- A distant snow covered Ben Lawers.
- Homeward bound!
An excellent days walking, ticking off our first hills of the year, looking forward to many more!
) - cheers 
