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After my terrible day of navigation and decision making on Ben Lui in the clag 2 days ago, I felt that, with another day off another walk was the perfect solution – getting back in the saddle. I’d had my eye on the Ben Lawers range for a while, since doing the Glen Lyon horseshoe earlier in the year and having read a few reports of it on here. I had a plan, with a plan B and even an ‘escape route’ in the middle just in case.
However, I had a terrible night’s sleep – I was going over in my head what might have happened the day before and it kept me awake a lot of the night. The alarm went off at 5.15 and I nearly turned it off. But I didn’t. I soon thought that maybe I should have as, leaving Glasgow, this was my view:
Fog-tastic
And driving down the M80 it got worse, thick thick fog – I could barely see the white lines on the road, it was very very cold and of course dark. An auspicious start. However, the forecast was for wall-to-wall sunshine, and we all know that the forecast in the mountains is always right, don’t we....?
I eventually got to the Ben Lawers turn off and as I headed up the track to the nature reserve car park, I suddenly rose out of the cloud and witnessed the most beautiful sunrise and cloud inversion combination. Unfortunately I failed to photograph it.
I parked the car and started to get my bike out of the boot – as I was doing this solo I was to leave the car in the car park at my ‘end’ point, cycle 6 miles to the start at Lawers Hotel and then walk my way along the ridge, picking up the bike afterwards. As I was struggling with bike in boot, another car pulled up beside me and out piled 4 friendly Liverpudlians. We very soon realised that we had planned the same walk, and since we now had 5 people with 2 cars, the rest was obvious. I put the bike back in the car jumped into theirs and that was that. We headed to Ben Lawers Hotel for the start of the route. I love it when a ‘plan’ comes together!!
We headed down the road to Machuim Farm and headed up the path. We were back down in the cloud again but soon came back out of it. The sky was blue, the mountains were starting to emerge and my new friends were turning out to be excellent company.
We followed the path up to the dam (hindsight told us we may have been better taking the ridge) and as the sun was shining there was plenty of talk of going for a dip in the reservoir. We decided to slog up the grassy slope to Meall Greigh as it was the most direct route. This was not the most enjoyable part of the day but it did get us there quickly and we hit the ridge with only a hundred metres or so to the summit – there was munro number 1!
Looking across to our next targets
Meall Greigh summit
I’ll agree with everyone else who has written about this route – this is not the nicest mountain; in fact it’s a big grassy lump but the views were fabulous – the cloud sat atop Loch Tay but the sun was beaming down on the tops and we could see our route ahead.
Loch Tay
After a quick refuel we set about the long walk towards Meall Garbh. It was a long way but as we were now on solid paths we stormed along, up the ascent and after only just over an hour we were atop number 2 and enjoying hot chocolate brought by the guys.
Looking ahead to An Stuc
Our route to here
The next part was the bit I was worried about – I’d read several accounts of cat gully, varying from ‘an easy scramble’ to ‘don’t ever go there on your own, it’s deadly’. Fortunately I was no longer on my own, but the thought of it still filled me with some trepidation. I have wee short hobbit legs so sometimes reaching for holds isn’t so easy for me as for others blessed with longer limbs! That being said, it was actually fine. The path leading up to it is steep, and the gully itself is slightly exposed but there are plentiful hand and foot holds so long as you take your time and look around. An Stuc (fortunately, rather than un-stuck) has to be the quickest munro in history; something to be said for very steep ascents and descents!
Summit
We checked our time and decided that if we kept on at this pace then there was potential for munro’s number 6&7 too - something that was in the back of my mind when planning, but if I’m honest I wasn’t expecting to be able to do them. We laughed and decided to hold that decision until Beinn Ghlas.
I had expected the ascent to Ben Lawers to be a bit tough and it was. On and on it went (or so it felt) and when we arrived it seemed like the whole world was there too! We had a good long stop here as the sun was shining and the views were magnificent. The cloud had finally cleared from the Loch and the sun was glinting on the water. I again realised how amazingly lucky I am to live in such a beautiful country.
The guys on Ben Lawers
I took a panorama
Ahead to Beinn Ghlas, no5
After soup and sandwiches, we set off down towards number 5, Beinn Ghlas. Ben Lawers is a big tourist destination, and although there isn’t yet a pub at the top, the paths are built and stepped and made for far less pleasant walking than the previous, less popular hills.
Number 5! We took this on a timer and running back into the shot was painful
With Beinn Ghlas in the bag, we decided that we were pretty tired and that 5 munros in one day is a fairly respectable total and headed down. Had I been on my own I probably would have done the extra 2 as the daylight was holding up, but I’m also pretty sure I would have regretted it!! The walk down through the nature reserve felt like the longest walk ever. Our knees and feet were screaming by the end and we collapsed at my car, all of us very glad not to have to walk any further!
Heading down
Looking back up
It was a brilliant day, just what the doctor ordered for me as I now feel like I can do anything! I love how you can meet people completely randomly and have a fantastic day together in the mountains, in a way that just wouldn’t happen anywhere else.
Sun starting to set on the slopes above Ben Lawers Hotel
Now to go make my Lawers munros blue and plan for Monday, my final mountain day for the foreseeable!
