Date: 25/08/2019.
Distance: 11 km.
Ascent: 960m.
Time: 4 hours, 10 minutes.
Weather: Warm, sunny, hazy.
Sometime the week before, I had a call from my mate Nick, who I hadn't seen for 6 or 7 years. He was up in Scotland with his family for the first time in ages. Since I was making vague plans to head back up to Inverness at some point, I decided to drop in on him in Killin on the way past on Sunday afternoon.
The traffic up the Callander - Lochearnhead road was dreaful - I had forgotten it was Bank Holiday down south. Out the far side of Killin, I finally arrived at High Creagan, which is where Nick, Pat and Thomas had set up their caravan. After a cup of tea and a bit of a catchup, we decided we could probably do a short walk that afternoon. Beinn Ghlas and Ben Lawers were an obvious choice as they would be fairly straightforward, and also Beinn Ghlas would be Thomas's first Munro.
Pat dropped us at the start of the walk at about 3pm, where it was still pretty warm. We passed any number of people heading back down, and I realised that I'd never actually been up this route before (in fact I've only been over any of the summits in this range once each). We also had Finton the dog with us - a natural troublemaker with other dogs who had to be kept on a short lead for the whole walk
.
Meall nan Tarmachan
We made pretty good progress and decided to do Beinn Ghlas first. I barely remembered Beinn ghlas from my previous visit - just a bump in the ridge surely? But it is actually a very pleasant hill with a couple of well defined ridges and good view of Lawers from the top.
SW ridge of Beinn Ghlas
Meall Corranaich
Loch Tay and Ben Vorlich
South over Loch Tay
Ben Lawers from Beinn Ghlas
Nick and Thomas on Beinn Ghlas
Looking towards the Cairn Mairg hills
An easy descent took us to the final ridge of Ben Lawers, which was much steeper. It was a bit breezy on top, the better to keep the midges away, but also enough to stop us from hanging around too long. Time was getting on, so we retraced our steps and took the contouring route around Beinn Ghlas this time.
Final ascent to Ben Lawers
Looking back to Beinn Ghlas
South across Loch Tay
Thomas on Ben Lawers
SE ridge
Me and Thomas on Ben Lawers
An Stuc and Lochan nan Cat
East along Loch Tay
The descent was unsurprisingly much quieter, and we made pretty good time, only taking 10 minutes longer than my off-the-top-of my-head prediction of 4 hours. I love it when that happens! Thomas had done well to climb his first couple of Munros, although with regular visits to Wales, Yorkshire and the Lakes he was no stranger to the hills.
After a short amount of confusion as to our whereabouts, Pat picked us up and we headed back to the caravan for dinner. Unsurprisingly I had a couple of drinks and decided to stop for the night, which made for a fun Monday morning drive up to Inverness for work the next day!
