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Our week around the Tyndrum area was plagued by the typical British summertime weather, humid, wet and a wee bit breezy. Being the "much prefer to be dry and able to see something from the top" types, this rather limited our activities. Tuesday was a good day so we were out, Thursday was going to be a decent day too so that was set aside for another day in the mountains.
Martin (FifeFlyer) had messaged me on Monday about a guy called Jack we'd met on Sgorr Ruadh last year appearing on Eden, a new t.v reality type proggy and to watch out for it, I took the opportunity to ask him if he fancied a day out and suggested the three easternmost munros on the Lawers range, he was up for it, so meeting times were arranged, all we needed was the weather to play ball.
Thursday did come up trumps, clear, bright, just a bit cloudy. We'd arranged to meet Martin in Killin around 9am, we were early, so was he, that gave us a wee bit more time to enjoy the day. We set off for the Lawers Hotel in my car and on arrival found a spot, as soon as we'd come to a halt Martin jumped out saying "I'll pay for the carpark" and was away in a flash so many thanks again for that Martin, its my turn next time.
We set off down the road towards the antler carving shop and took the track next left towards the first munro.
This section is through a wooded area and proved to be a bit opressive in the humidity, loads of insects flitting about including the dreaded cleg, nasty little blighters those.
We arrived at the ladderstile where the woods end and were glad of the breeze we had in the open. From here we travelled about 0.5 km to a split in the path by the shielings and took the feint up hill path towards the front of Sron Mhor.
This was steep but we were soon up the first 350m or so from the stile, the views were great down to Loch Tay and accross to Ben Lawers, An Stuc and Meall Garbh and as we were getting higher and closer to Meall Greigh Lochan nan Cat came into the mix.
Loch Tay.
Lawers, An Stuc and Meall Garbh.
and the same from higher up.
Loch Tay.
We arrived at the summit of Meall Greigh after what seemed to be a quick ascent, I didn't really struggle compared to our day out on the Ben Lui 4 Tuesday.
Denise on the summit of Meall Greigh.
Denise and I.
Denise and Martin.
And with the intended behind, well, minus Lawers.
From the top we were treated to fantastic views of the surrounding mountains, too many to list but, of course, Ben Lawers, An Stuc and Meal Garbh took centre stage, the rest of our route didn't look too bad, the section between Meall Greigh and Meall Garbh looked longer than I thought it was but we had loads of time.
After a snack and a few photo's Martin took the lead and we started to chat about his recent epics in the mountains, He's covered some distances over recent months but the real outstanding day was his incredible solo journey around the Fisherfields at the end of May then Knoydart and Skye with a group of friends in June. I found what he had to say about the areas he'd been in very useful and he gave us a feeling of what to expect when (and if) we get to explore these facinating places, thanks Martin, if you ever fancy re-visiting those places again in the future, we'd love your company.
We had our lunch on a little flat spot about 50m above Lairig Innein at around NN655439, a pleasant little spot with plenty of boulders around to sit on and nice views down to Loch Tay.
Lunch spot views.
We chatted about the W.H website and how its a brilliant tool for anybody to use to find their way around the mountains and how social it is, its great to be able to meet like minded people, complete strangers to start with but everybody we've met so far have been good down to earth folk, we just wish we had more chances to meet others.
Lunch over, Meall Garbh next, we followed the fenceline, an easy nav aid from our lunch spot
Views from our ascent.
Lawers
and arrived at the top in pretty good time.
On the summit of Meall Garbh. Denise and Martin.
Double trouble.
The views were tremendous, so many munros in all directions, a lot of which Denise and I had been to the top of, in Martin's case, all of them, you've gotta be proud of that as have a lot of people using this site, then there's the Corbetts and Grahams and sub 2k's that people have done as well, overwhelming, we've got a lot to do!!!
An Stuc was the main attraction, it looks pretty formidible from here, the general concensus was that none of us would fancy that in winter,
An Stuc and Lawers.
Looking back.
Lawers zoomed.
Looking back to Meall Greigh.
Martin had visited An Stuc not too long after it had been promoted to munro status in 1997 (I think), he'd come up from the other side looked at the decent (our route of ascent) and didn't fancy it, can't say I blame him.
We set off into the bealach between Garbh and Stuc and traced a path up through the crags on An Stuc.
An Stuc from the bealach.
It looked steep (and was) but once we were on it we found it pretty stable and enjoyable, yes, there is a bit of exposure, and we needed hands on rock in places but its great fun and you don't half gain height quickly.
Lochan nan Cat from our ascent up An Stuc.
Now some shots from about 2/3rds of the way up.
Meall Garbh.
Meall Greigh.
Pretty steep in parts!
Meall Garbh.
We arrived at the summit, one of the best in the area and a special one for me because, today, An Stuc was my 141, half way, I never thought I'd get there, Denise and I started collecting munros seriously three years ago we were on 9 and 19 respectively so we have'nt done too bad, we intend to get Denise to her half way by September this year, is it too late to think about compleating? I don't know but we'll have a good bash at it.
No: 141 for me.
Man leg
Denise on An Stuc.
After a very small celebratory sip of a decent malt and some smoked cheese we set off for Bealach Dubh and the steep grassy decent towards Lochan nan Cat, this was difficult in places, it was slippy on wet grass and we had to make sure we avoided Ravens Gully so we followed a small burn down to the Lochan.
Once at the lochan we kept it to our left travelling over wet and boggy terrain, there's a path of sorts but really its a case of heading towards the little dam, we kept the outflow burn to our left and squelched our way to the dam.
Views from Lochan level.
We came down alongside the burn.
Once passed the dam we stayed with the Lawers Burn,crossed it lower down, then it's easy going all the way to the ladder stile above the woods,
This is near the ladder stile, it reminds you where you are
over the stile and into the woods where it was warm again but not as humid as earlier. Back on the road it seemed to take an age to get back to the hotel, I think someone had streched the road, it felt further than it did earlier.
The three or us went for a bite to eat at the Rod and Reel, Crianlarich, not a bad little spot and the food was o.k.
A good end to a great day, many thanks to Martin for his company, it was good to meet up again, he has his own special day in August, so, I'm looking forward to his report on that one. All the very best in advance Martin, have a great day.
