free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
A rather wet start to our long weekend around Perth, we decided to have a go at Stuchd an Lochain and Meall Buidhe on Friday.
This was plan B as the east side of Scotland was showing rain for most of the day, the weather looked promising around the Killin area.
Its a bit of a drive to the start point for these two from Perth along single track roads, so access isn't that quick, infact it took 1.5 hrs to drive the 60 miles.
When we arrived at the parking spot near the dam the tops were hidden in a veil of cloud, that wasn't too much of an issue due to there being a good path all the way to both summits from here, it was just the thought of yet another couple of clagged out summits that "dampened" the spirits.
Well, it may improve
West looks best, well, sort of.
We set off anyway choosing Stuchd an Lochain as the first one, I suppose it was the hope that if we were to get any views at all we felt they would be better from this one, well you can hope. Loch an Daimh looked moody and with the clouds hanging on to the steep sides of the mountain it looked like something out of an Arthur Conan Doyle novel. There was a brisk breeze making it feel a bit cool, as we got going we soon warmed up, that's the advantage of this kind of weather during summer, it's not usually uncomfortable.
We followed the track from the dam, climbed over a metal gate which has a chain and padlock keeping it shut, we hesitated at first wondering if we should climb over it but there is plenty of evidence on the gate to suggest it's the norm so over we went.
Soon after the zig and zag in the track a path on the left marked by a cairn starts a rising traverse up the hillside, easy at first, if a little damp, then much steeper as it heads towards the wide ridge leading to the 888m spot height on the OS map.
Getting steeper, Loch an Daimh with Meall Buidhe beyond in the clouds.
Height is gained very quickly and as you gain the ridge there's a small cairn and then the fence posts which stay with you all the way to the summit.
Cairn and fence post.
Here we entered the clouds so it was a case of head down and plod, plod, plod.
Denise, Cairn, fencepost and disappearing loch.
Thataway
When we reached the cairn marking the 888m height most of the hard work was done and, even in the clag I thought it would be an easy and quite enjoyable walk towards the summit.
As we walked around the rim of Coire an Lochain we could only imagine the view down to Lochan nan Cat, in the mist this section seemed to take longer than I'd thought it would, I kept saying to Denise "we'll start the climb to the summit soon", it felt like "soon" had been stretched or the mist was slowing us down it seemed to take ages but eventually we did start the final pull up to the summit and arrived there 1hr 45 mins from the carpark.
Summit with default views
Another misty summit, ah well, maybe next time we'll get the views. The wind had become quite enthuiastic by now so we didn't hang around too long, we set off down planning to have something to eat at the car before heading up Meall Buidhe.
The way back didn't seem to take any time at all, on the way we met a couple on their way up, the first people we'd seen all day, they were a bit fed up of the weather too but, like us, felt they had to get out.
We reached the start of the steep descent towards the Loch and were still in the clag so the cloud level had dropped, in fact we didn't get the first sight of the Loch until we'd got to around 550m and spotted the boat house so it had dropped quite a bit and now it had started to rain
, we were debating wether or not to do Meall Buidhe when we met the couple, they assured us it was easy enough so we had decided to give it a go even though it would only be done to gain a tick, now the rain had come that tick was going to have to wait I think the real deciding factor was the wind, it was driving the rain hard against us and in no time at all we felt quite uncomfortable, back at the car we bailed out chucked the rucksacks in the car took the boots off and went for the softies option, there's no fun in spending 3 hrs out in driving rain especially when there's the lure of the car to help with the decision making.
Decision made, we had lunch, watched the weather get worse, that sort of made us feel better, then set off back to Perth.
It's a shame we didn't do Meall Buidhe but at least we got one, even that one was just ticking for tickings sake, I guess when we get to do Meall Buidhe we'll wait for a good day and do Stuc an Lochain again.
