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About 30 years ago not long after we were married, Rudolph and I had a lovely week camping near Killin, in a campsite overlooking Loch Tay. We had beautiful weather and went up some hills, including Ben More, Stob Binnein, the Tarmachan ridge and the Lawers ridge.
At that time the visitor centre was open. Rudolph dropped me in the car, where I sat in the sun and knitted - as I recall it was a pink fluffy tank top which I probably wore once or twice then gave away as it was not "me" at all - Rudolph then drove the car to Lawers and cycled back to the start. We had a lovely day and got to the top of Meall Garbh and looked over at Meall Greigh which looked a long way away. We felt we had had enough for the day. So we missed it out.
That little red balloon has been mocking us for years, and it was time to turn it blue.
Having heard about difficulties with parking at Lawers we decided to walk up from Fearnan and camp just on the edge of the moor above the forest. We'd then go up the ridge to the top, and back down the same way.
We knew it was going to be grotty weather everywhere on Sunday so we decided to go for it anyway as at least it was not going to be too windy in Perthshire.
Here's our route.
We set off from Yorkshire in good time mid-morning, were bowling along up the A19 when I suddenly remembered I had not packed my walking poles - and worse than that, no boots!! All I had was my old trainers with almost holes in the soles. There was nothing for it but to turn back and go and get the boots so by the time we got going again we had lost a good hour.
I have to say Rudolph was very good about it. At least we had not got to Fearnan before I realised!
After a quick stop in Edinburgh to drop some stuff at CWH's halls of residence, we were away again, this time to stop in at Perth Tiso's to pick up some maps that Rudolph had asked to be set aside for him. And then finally we reached Fearnan about 6.15pm, a little later than we would have liked, and parked on the street signposted to Culdees Bunkhouse.
We walked up the track and past Boreland. There's a huge parking area there and I'm sure nobody would have minded if we'd parked there. There was a lot of noise and excitement from some young men out the front playing with a caber. The track continues and zigzags a couple of times getting more overgrown all the time until it pretty much disappears altogether under a fallen tree; a steep climb up a grassy thistly bank then brings you out onto a metalled road at about 340m although it's not clear from the map where that starts and finishes.
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- looking over Loch Tay
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- Track in the woods leading up onto the moor
Anyway onwards and upwards, we came across a padlocked gate with a nice bit of wooden deer fence to climb, and a little further on another similar gate which brought us out onto the moor. A few yards further on and we found a nice place to camp with views over the loch and running water nearby, in a fairly sheltered spot. We got some lovely moody evening views from our camp site.
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- Lights coming on in Fearnan
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- Moody Clouds over Loch Tay
It was getting dark by this time so we cooked our tea and went to bed.
In the morning it looked bright... ish, with some sunshine ... and a rainbow - but it was not long before the rainbow was overcome by the rain and that was about it for views.
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- Morning from the campsite
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- and the other way.
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- rainbow. It's been a good month for rainbows!
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- rain. Ho hum. See you later, tent
Never mind, we were in good spirits as this was no worse than expected. We set off initially along the Landrover track which wound up onto the ridge. Leaving this track when it neared the crest of the ridge we went uphill and uphill some more following an ATV track we came across, and then a bit more uphill and eventually we reached a cairn. Now I had expected to reach the subsidiary summit just to the north west of the top but this looked like a top kind of cairn, and there was a fairly steep descent beyond which we would not have expected from the subsidiary summit, so we used the wonders of modern technology (MX Map mobile and/or Viewranger) to check and right enough we were on the summit.
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- Rudolph's 200!
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- me on the top.
Coming down was a bit more interesting. As you can see from the trace, a straight line on a bearing would not take us where we wanted to go. There were some features to the landscape but the visibility was pretty poor. Actually we are rather proud of the line we took which was not at all far off the line we took going up.
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- This is a cairn. Or is it a ruined shieling house? Anyway it marks the spot where a vague path aims uphill towards the summit. On the way up we decided it was a bit of ruin and went on a bit further, finding the path/ATV track a bit later.
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- The cairn as you would see it from the track on the way up. Not hard to see.
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- Going back down the track towards the forest
It was wet when we got back to the tent so we sat inside the bothy bag and checked the weather forecast for the best place to go next. Both the Met Office and MWIS suggested going West, so that is what we did. A great excuse to stop by the Real Food Cafe for late lunch/early tea.
