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Having failed a few weeks ago due to severe clag not giving any views and thus giving up not even half way I was determined to give Schiehallion another go..... and Wednesday was the planned date with the MWIS forecast giving a 60% chance of a cloud free summit, that was good enough for me.
Left home unusually early for me, probably the earliest ever at just after 6 am but as I was planning on going via the M90 then I wanted to avoid the worst of the rush hour traffic. Picked up my co-pilot Karen at Linlithgow station and we were on the way by 6.20. I'd estimated 2 hrs to get the 80 miles to the Braes of Foss car park and I wasn't too far wrong. Roads were pretty clear apart from a bit of slush on the B846 approach road near to the car park and on the Schiehallion road. No other cars in the car park at that point but we did meet others later on.
Got suited and booted and we were on the way by 8.40. Pretty chilly but once we got going then we soon warmed up. Didn't use the microspikes till we were probably halfway up but by then the path was more frosted than path so it was sensible. The higher we went the more that parts of the path were covered by snow but it was quite hard packed mostly so easy to walk on.
Back down below and to the west was a huge cloud of what I'm presuming was snow coming in but it stayed on that route and we avoided it completely. Quite chuffed that we had mostly blue skies with the odd tinge of pink with the sunrise as well. On we plodded to the top but as usual I was the tail that wagged the dog and Diane was way in front and even though she was taking more photos than me she still had to hang around for me at times.
Once we reached the trig point at the end of the path it was on to the boulder field with most of them covered in rime ice. A few slippy moments but nothing too serious and before we knew it were at the summit in just under 3 hrs. Well chuffed with that time. And even though the summit isn't particularly big there's decent shelter from the biting wind to stop for a food break.
Going down was harder as the wind really whipped up and my right cheek felt frozen. Surprisingly my £3 thinsulate gloves coped with the cold pretty good, can't find my proper gloves so these were pressed into emergency action...
Spotted a few ski-tracks on the down slopes but I wouldn't have thought there was really long enough runs for proper skiing.... but then again I'm not a skier.
Back to the car just a shade under 5 hrs so well within the WH estimate which was pleasing considering the several stops and the snow as well.....
A few pics now not in any particular order....
- The dark cloud over to the west which we avoided.
- Plodding on....
- Conquering hero...........
- Diane's attempt at planking....
- On top of the world....
All in it was a fabulous day and the icing on the cake was finding out I'd made 50.... I thought I was only on 47 but I found out I'd not ticked off 3 of the 4 Glen Lyon munros that were on my very first trip.......
On to the next 50 now...............