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I left this house at 9am - a little later than usual - and began the 2 hour drive to Inverlochlarig. The drive in was beautiful and Loch Voil looked like a huge piece of glass reflecting the landscape. I parked at the car park at Inverlochlarig and set off around 1130am.
The ascent to Beinn Tulaichean was exhausting! As far as I know there is no path and I just headed straight up the steep and unrelenting slopes. I was knackered! I gained height fairly quickly and the views down towards the Glen were excellent:
As I got further up, I started to see more and more snow
Eventually, at about 800 meters or so into the ascent, I managed to find some sort of path and made my way to the top. As I continued to ascend the clouds rolled in along with hailstones! It was almost white-out conditions for about the last 40 mins but I eventually made the summit:
I couldn't see anything from the summit of Beinn Tulaichean, so I took a bearing from my map and headed off in what I hoped was the right direction. After about 5 minutes, the sky suddenly clears and the sun began to shine in all its glory. The views were tremendous!
Just as the clouds lifted:
The weather had turned from pretty poor to amazing in the space of 5 minutes and with the clouds lifted, I managed to get a glimpse of Cruach Ardrain which looked like a very impressive mountain. I made my way up the ridge onto Cruach Ardrain which offered some fantastic views on the way. I felt like I was in the Alps.
At 1440 hours I made the summit of Cruach Ardrain and I didn't want to leave. I took loads of pictures and just stood in awe at the amazing scenery.
Once I started to get cold, I started my decent down in the bealach and descended down the valley back to the land rover track.
Down we go:
Looking back to Cruach Ardrain:
A few km later, I was back in the car with a massive smile of my face
