Ben Lawers Horseshoe

[quagga64]

Me Tommy and Christopher set off about 8:30 and by 10 a.m. we were in the Ben Lawers Hotel car park on the North shore of Loch Tay. Set off Eastwards along the road for a short distance until we came to a wee cottage selling horn and antler craft objects, had a look inside at the store room at all the different suff before leaving the road and heading up through a wooded area via a path. It was fairly steep and the weather was dry and quite warm, after a while we emerged from the woods out onto open hillsides and followed the path up beside a deep gorge made by the Lawers Burn. shortly we cut off from the path and headed directly up the slopes of Meall Greigh, the first of the days four munros. When we were about half way up we could see round the horseshoe to the West, the other three munros we would be climbing, the tops of them were in mist but it seemed to be slowly lifting. After two and a half hours we reached the top of Meall Greigh, we,d had to don our jackets as there had been a sharp shower on the way up and we were quite wet through, thankfully that was the only rain we had all day and we soon dried out in the wind. Took a load of snaps, this was only Tommys second munro after he climbed Ben Vorlich with me and Zoe two years ago though he has done all the corbetts on Arran with me and after the days tally of four it would put him on a more respectable five in total. Carried on across a wide bealach and then up onto Meall Garbh which was a strange two ridged summit with a flat area in between, again more photos and a bite to eat before heading off to the next objective, An Stuc. This was only a very short distance though the ascent was pretty steep and in no time we were standing on the third munro of the day. me and Chris have been up Ben Lawers before, two years ago but that time we came from the other direction over Beinn Ghlas and although it was July the weather that day was horrendous with zero visability. Although today wasnt perfect it was a lot more favourable than that day and we headed off up Ben Lawers hopefull that we might actually get some sort of view this time. Tommy raced on ahead and reached the summit first and as we gathered on the summit unfortunately again it was enveloped in mist. We hung around for quite a long time eating our piece and taking daft photos and now and then the mist did lift and give us fleeting glimpses of the hills around us. came down via the East ridge which was long but fairly easy over spongy heather and blaeberries. Eventually came back down to the Lawers Burn and rejoined our outward route. got back to the car park at 8 p.m. ten hours after setting off and went into the Hotel for a couple of pints where the water was coming through the ceiling onto the floor and the seat next to us as we drank. Headed back down the road and were in for 10:30.