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Met up with my Dad on Saturday night in Tyndrum. He has ambitions of compleating before his 70th in June, so we will no doubt have a few trips this spring
We were up early on Sunday - Cruach Ardrain and chum were the most interesting munros that Dad had left to do in the area. I had descended to Crianlarich down the ridge the last time I was up 'em, so seemed like the logical route.
We left the road just outside Crianlarich, within sight of one of the new roundabouts. There was a railway bridge there, and it looked like the most direct route, although the exact way through the forestry was vague in the memory. Patchy clag saw hillsides come and go, and the still air felt rather warm once we were going.
We got up to a familiar feeling track and followed its big bends to the tell tale baggers cairn. The way up the ride was squelchy, and above that there was a horrific 100 yards through a young plantation to the open hillside. I had almost erased the horrific memories from my last visit of the wee section through the trees, but they all came flooding back
A steep little pull onto the ridge, with snow patches becoming more frequent and up we went into the cloud.
The ridge was great in the mist because you couldn't really tell what was coming next, ups, downs and craggy bits all came as a surprise.
Eventually a long feeling descent led to a very steep long and sweaty ascent to the 2nd top of Cruach Ardrain. The snow came on, which cut visibility further and the huge drop and re-ascent to the actual summit turned out to be an optical illusion as the reality was a tame 2 minute stroll
On the way down to the bealach, we started meeting groups of walkers that had come up from the other side - it was nice to have some chats
An easy ascent took us up to Beinn Tulaichean summit, which we reached by surprise, I thought it would be a bit further/higher/more effort
We hunkered behind a crag out of the breeze and Dad stole half my piece
before we headed back the way we had come. Within 15 minutes, the mists finally started to clear
My Dad was sorry to see that there were cliffs at the point he wanted to traverse and we needed to climb half way back up Cruach Ardrain before we could think about it. I was happy to stay on the ridge now the sun was thinking about making an appearance
Eventually we traversed, the hillside getting quite steep eventually, so didn't carry the axes for nothing after all.
We got back to the ridge we had ascended, and looked for a way down into the glens either side, but they looked a bit boggy and unforgiving, so we ended up just going back the way we came.
The ridge was a lot less mysterious in the blazing sunshine, and with the snow turning to slush there were some slippery slidey moments
We really didn't want to go back through the bog forest from hell, but there are few other options. Dad forged his way through the plantation on a parallel course. I followed on but the fight was ridiculous, especially with an ice axe sticking up from your backpack
It was borderline better than the path though, and we were soon on the trudge down the squelchy ride back to the track.
It was beautiful by the time we got back to the car, and all memories of clag and snow seemed a lifetime ago
Really good day up a really cool ridge
