I parked up at the entrance to Auchessan farm (448275) early in the morning. Unlike the day before which started out foggy, I could see blue sky, and nice calm conditions. I kept my map in my pack, no need for it today, given I walked the same route a month ago. Although that time it was a blizzard, this time I could see my route clearly. I crossed over the bridge following the track up to the farm houses and took a left at the last farmhouse, everything was nice and clearly signposted. Its always a pleasure to have understanding farmers. signs help us on the right path, and stop us from straying to areas the farmer wouldn't want you to go.
- Bridge crossing to farm at start
- Track to right of river and left of wood
The track follows the river and comes to a Y-Junction. It looked like a new road had been built to the left for a new hydro scheme. I took the right path which followed to the right of the river keeping to the left of the wood. There were quite a few nice waterfalls here which I took a mental note of to return to with my camera gear some day.
After 1/2 hr or so the track came to a stile and the route opened up into a sea of heather. I decided to continue North and crossed the river at this stage. As I climbed I could see the weather was slowly changing into another cloud inversion. I couldn't believe my luck ! Two cloud inversions in two days....a bit like buses
- Views of Ben more with inversion starting
- Inversion progressing
The path eventually faded away and it became a trudge through the peat bog. I now understood how I found it so hard going the previous month as the peat bogs where snowed up I was falling into them knee and waste deep! It wasn't easy going in the blizzard! However today was a different day. Spring conditions and a joy to be on the hill!
With no time pressures I took a leisurely pace, have stops every now and then watching the inversion materialise around Ben More. Then I heard the recognisable sound of the mountain rescue helicopter whirring past. It flew off to Ben More and was circling around it. I hoped there wasn't trouble as I knew another group that had gone there to climb it...but given conditions were perfect it seemed unlikely. I managed to get a shot of the helicopter flying over the Crianlarich hills, with the inversion building up.
- Mountain rescue helicopter around Ben More (the dot in the middle!)
- Helicopter above the inversion
- Stunning inversion around Ben More
As I continued climbing the cloud around Meall Glas slowly dissipated and I could see some snow still clinging on to the steeper sides near the top. It was more craggy than what I was expecting. There was also the Allt Glas river to negotiate. If this was in spate it could be a tricky river to cross. However today there was no such difficulties. I stayed off the unstable snow near the top and climbed around the crags. I was certainly glad I wasn't doing this in a blizzard as the crags were steep enough to cause yourself injury if you took the wrong route and slipped off.
I got to the top in about 3.5hrs with my leisurely pace. The top was calm and the views were stunning. Here's some of the pics I took:
- Cairn in distance
- Ben Challum and Ben Lui in distance
- Ben More
- Selfie
- Crianlarich Hills
- Ben Challum
It was one of those days where I had no other plans but to climb the hill and enjoy the weather, so spent an hour up there just chilling out it was so nice! I could see walkers on top of Sgiath Chuil and heading over...at that point I decided to pooter on down again the same way at a leisurely pace.
- Crags near the top
- Allt Glas still snowed up
- Snow melting slowly
- View of Meall Glas walking back down
I got back in time to hit the pub and watch the 5pm kickoff Ireland beating Scotland (sorry)....which made a perfect ending to an enjoyable day out. I later found out the police were searching for a guy who had abandoned his car at the foot of Ben More a few days previous and had got the mountain rescue involved....makes you think!
