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Me and my 14 year old son, Chaz
A great drive on single track roads across the high ground between Lawers and Tarmachan, then along Glen Lyon to the dam at Loch na Daimh – no traffic.
Weather was fairly clear at the start, intermittent cloud covering the tops. A fairly strong wind and temp 3 deg. at the start. Temp at the summit with wind chill was forecast as c. -5 deg.
We walked along the track to the boathouse as recommended in Walk Highlands rather than immediately turning onto the path, then headed north up a steep slope to meet the path which gently contoured upwards heading west. This soon turned to the south and another steepish climb began. As the path progressed it was in places hard to distinguish if we were on the path or in a stream, given the amount of erosion and the wet conditions from recent rain and snow. It was a slope of rubble with the snowline at 600m. At one stage it was snowing to the north of us, a great sight with the snow moving horizontally in bands.
The path became indistinct at around 800m because of the snow cover that was greater than the day before, we headed for the line of fence and regained the path just before Creag an Fheadain at 888m. A small cairn marks the point where the track joins the line of the fence. The wind here was strong and had blown the snow clear of the path in places; the wind was from the north but was only at around 60% of the strength of yesterday and not quite so cold. The path dropped to around 840m followed by a rise to Sron Chona Chorein at 927m and the cloud had now come in. Care was needed in places where the wind had formed a thin crust on the snow and in some places we had good practice in kicking steps to climb. At one place the snow had drifted to a depth of around 75 cm so we had some fun in this.
- Chaz starts toward Creag an Fheadain
We made fast progress along the flattish part of the ridge at around 900m, very enjoyable to be able to get a real stride going. The cloud cleared briefly to give us a brief view around the corrie to the summit and a glimpse of Lochan nan Cat. We found a spot with no wind, a small dip sheltered by some crags to the north where we could only hear the wind rushing above us – it sounded like the nearby motorway at home! Here we found what we thought was a spider with a black and yellow body, later identified as a Harvestman that we discovered is not a spider but an arachnid. Don’t know if this is natural habitat or whether it was blown up here (during the week we saw autumn leaves blown from the valleys). We continued on and climbed to the high point and the cairn at 960m, care needed once again at a small steep section because of the snow.
- looking to the summit across Lochan nan Cat
- mountaineering Harvestman, note no ice axe
We found a reasonably sheltered spot a bit to the south and had soup and food, taking our time and watching the weather change minute to minute and getting some photos. We got some clear spells but there wasn’t a full clearance that would let us see the longer-range views.
- at the summit
Time to descend and we made a bit of a push as the weather was closing in, care was required again at some points and we had more practice at forming steps with heel and side of the boot, walking poles were also a great help. A bit tedious having a slope to climb back to 888m but we did well with just a short stop halfway up. We stopped for more photos at a couple of places (with gloves on after yesterday!) and Chaz had a bit of fun testing the thickness of ice on a small pool. Later I turned around to see him slowly falling on to his side due to unexpectedly encountering deep snow; this gave us a good laugh! We got a better view of Lochan nan Cat.
- looking east along Glen Lyon
The rest of the descent went well, particularly where there was snow rather than using the awful path and our boots were great at coping with all the conditions we met. We stayed on the path all the way to the track, the path is ok except when it nears the track but no worse than higher up. We washed our boots off at the stream below the dam where Chaz made friends with a sheep; baa went chaz and baa went the sheep in reply, nearly every time!
- below the dam, super sunset
I think we were the only people on the mountain that day, fools again!