Meall Tairbh, perfect ascent, imperfect descent.

[TheTortoise]

It was a perfect day, sunny, clear, snowy peaks and no wind. And it was great to go straight up a hill with no obstacles such as fences, no complicated route finding, no preliminary tops. We set off from Forest Lodge, with the frosted grass sparkling in the sunlight.

sparkles on grass

The SMC Graham book made the approach to Meall Tairbh sound unappealing, with its lush boggy vegetation and boggy hollows higher up. Luckily all this was frozen, making progress easy and enjoyable. Good views back the way

Looking back

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As we got onto the ridge, we found a very well built little cairn. We weren't sure why it was there except to make some nice foreground for the splendid views across to the Etive hills.

Little cairn

After lunch at the summit admiring the views, considering the super day and not the hours of daylight, we rashly decided to cross towards Ben Inverveigh, and it was quite fun negotiating the bumpy ground on the way up.

Looking over lumpy ground to Ben Inverveigh and the Tyndrum Corbetts

We were pleased to find more views as we went along to enable us to identify distant hills such as the Easains and Innses and Ben Alder (too far away for a good photo), and looked over the Orchy Corbetts to Beinn Chabhair.

SSW from Ben Inverveigh

If you look at the sky in these pictures, you can see that it is a bit late to be up here.

Looking towards Auch

We continued along the ridge which seemed (for those with a daylight deadline) to go on for ever. We found the track but sadly the Hare fell on ice in the failing light, and was rather sore. We took a direct line across country which was ice free. We negotiated the hillside in the gathering gloom surprising successfully though not particularly enjoyably. It may well have been better to stay on the track and join the WHW and use our head torches. Anyway. safely back at the car in the pitch dark. And the views all day made it worth the later inconvenience.
Our approximate route

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