Stuchd an Lochain: making new friends

[Anne McNaughton]

Here I am at 63 years young, retired and wanting to add to my Munro tally.....I walk with my daughter in law however she works and is not available as often as me to get out in the hills. Therefore I somewhat nervously joined a group on Facebook called Scottish Women's Walking Group...… I have to say I really didn't need to be nervous as it has all worked out very well, meeting up with like minded people who only want , like myself, to enjoy walking in the hills and have some company along the way.
So that said ( hope its ok to mention Facebook on here) this is a report from my 1st walk with members of the group...
The plan was to meet at the Giorra Dam at Loch an Daimh and undertake the 2 Munros up there, one either side of the dam, Stuchd an Lochain and Meall Buide.

I arrived at 9.30 am the plan being to start walking at around 10am. there were 4 of us planning to meet and walk and I was quickly joined by a lovely lady, Caroline. We chatted and I thought " this is going to be grand". After some time we realised that our 2 companions were very late....

Each car that appeared raised our hopes briefly only to be dashed when it wasn't them....spoke to a few other walkers heading the same way as we hoped to be.....



Oh dear what to do and more importantly are they alright ??
Eventually at 10.30 we decided to go back down the glen in one car to try for a phone signal in case of messages.... lesson learned; its all very well to exchange phone numbers but with no signal its not ideal
Just at that a car appeared with our fellow walkers , Jackie & Barbara, who had gost lost on the way up.... They were very apologetic but these things happen....
After introductions and a quick cuppa off we set....

Off we go.....

Initially you cross the Bridge at the south end of the dam and follow the path....there is a small cairn a little way round marking the beginning of the path up the hill...… well we did spot it on the way back
Maybe because we had just met ( 2 girls knew each other already...myself and another were newbies...) or maybe we were just too talkative. Either way we missed the cairn and carried on up the track towards the boathouse. At that point we realised we should have been looking down on the boathouse from up the hill, not walking past it... oh well we decided to strike off upwards in the hope of eventually meeting the path.

We climbed quite a steep uphill section and then did eventually meet up with our path As the day was quite clear we had lovely views back down to the dam

Reservoir in the distance

looking back down Glen Lyon

From here its quite an easy walk to the cairns on top of Creag an Fheadain, then following a line of fenceposts downhill slightly, turning right and along the ridge. There are fine views down to the beautiful ( in sunshine!!) Lochan nan Cat.

cairn on top of Creag an Fheadain

following the fenceposts....ridge and summit clear to see...

Long way down to Lochan nan Cat

It seemed no time at all until we reached the summit, catching up with some guys we had met in the car park earlier...we had said that we were intending climbing the two , they were set on one....

A lunch stop and the obligatory summit pics , thank you guys for taking one of the four of us together...somewhat better than my selfie pics !!!!

summit pic... long drop down behind us eeeekkk!!!!

wonderful view from the top..

summit

Then having enjoyed our break we set off back down, now discussing whether it might be too late to fit in the other one and face a 2 hour drive home...

Found the path down...

Wow at the bottom where the path joins the track behold a cairn marking the way !!

cannot believe we missed this....it's not exactly small

We had noticed a few highland cattle at the car park and no surprises there they were on the way down, sometimes a bit too close for comfort. Those horns look sharp!!!

So peaceful

I'm watching you

The guys we had met earlier drove off and as it was by then getting a bit late we decided not to attempt the second hill....we all agreed it had been a great day and we will try to meet up to climb the slightly shorter and easier Meall Buidhe another day.

Thank you to my new friends for their company it wont be my last outing with the group.....