Wednesday 6 October - Schiehallion and Meall Tairneachan

Schiehallion (NN713547; 1083m)
Start Point: Braes of Foss Car Park (£2 all day).
Distance and Ascent: 10.8km and 750m
Weather: Excellent, if a bit cool first thing.

We were just up the road from Schiehallion yesterday morning when I noticed that the forecast for today was excellent. In the middle of a week of wet windiness, we were to have a day of calm sunshine. It thus seemed to me that it would be wasteful not to grab the opportunity to pop up the most notable hill hereabouts.

Knowing it to be a popular hill, we opted for an early-ish start, arriving in the Braes of Foss car park at ten to seven, just as it was starting to get light. That gave us the pick of the spaces, as we were the first vehicle there, although only by about a minute.

A couple and a singleton set off up the hill before us and got a good headstart as we first paused for breakfast, following by a period of bag-faffing, before getting ourselves out the door at ten to eight.

The summit was hidden by cloud as we ascended and we started taking guesses as to what time it would clear (11am, I reckoned, when we were on our way back down). By and by we gained height (always a good thing when visiting a summit!), climbing up to meet the cloud. At least we'd had a good view for the first 600m of ascent, we said. 

To our surprise we soon popped out above the cloud and by the time we reached the top the cloud below us was breaking up considerably. We thus sat on the summit picking out places we've walked before (most notably our TGO Challenge route from 2009).

Above the cloud

Fine sky up here! 

After a flask of coffee, and a chat with the singleton chap who'd set out before us (along with his 10-month old dog, whose first Munro this was), it was time for the inevitable: we had to face the horrible bouldery rockiness in the other direction. 

Selfie at one of the possible high points. Cairn where we'd had coffee (and Loch Rannoch) behind me. 

I like a good boulder field, but this wasn't a good boulder field by my definition. The size of the stones was largely 'rocks' rather than 'boulders' (again, in my book; I accept that other people's definitions of these things may vary) and it went on for far too great a distance to be any level of fun.

We'd not long cleared the rocks when we met a chap (carrying nothing) and a woman (carrying a handbag). Her response to our greeting was "Is it really still morning*? I feel like I've been on this mountain for days.", which didn't bode well for her feelings when she got to the end of the excellent engineered path and onto the rocks. (*It was only 1030.)

My comment that the path wasn't as busy as I'd expected was premature. Just around the next bend the snake of people heading up commenced. We returned to a car park containing far more cars than there were spaces (i.e. they were abandoned on every bit of verge that was big enough for a car).

We, of course, took care to make sure that we parked neatly, so that we weren't taking up any more than one car's worth of parking space. Unfortunately, not all the cars were so considerate. I reckon you could have squeezed four cars in there if they'd parked better.

With the car park so busy, and people still arriving, we didn't stay put for lunch, as I would have liked, but freed up our space for a car that had just arrived.

Meall Tairneachan (NN807754; 784m)
Start Point: Lime Kiln Car Park
Distance and Ascent: 7.25km and 550m
Weather: Fantastic!

The reason that I'd wanted to have lunch at Braes of Foss car park was that I was minded to have Mick drop me off at the quarry track, about 2km north along the B846 from the Lime Kiln car park. Mick could then return to the Lime Kiln and I would walk a horseshoe to finish there. That would have made my walk up to Meall Tairneachan easier (track almost all the way and no undulations).

Of course, I could still have asked Mick to drive me there after lunch (and he would have obliged, because he's a jolly nice chap is Mick), but by then I'd had a change of plan. This hill wasn't originally on the agenda for today, but as we were back from Schiehallion well before noon, and given how good the weather was, it would have been a waste to sit around in my PJs for the rest of the day, only to trudge up this hill in the rain tomorrow. However, I wasn't entirely sure how much I really wanted the extra exercise today, and if Mick dropped me down the road, then he would immediately have to drive off, removing any easy way for me to abort the outing. If I ascended from the Lime Kiln instead, then if I found legs or head to be unwilling, I could simply turn back.

Happily legs and head were perfectly willing and the going was pretty friendly too (an ATV track to NN78593 54527, then relatively easy walking through not-too-deep not-too-tussocky bilberry and heather), even if it was a bit more undulating than I'd noticed from my quick glance at the map. (I'm sure the descents on the outward leg wasn't as big as the re-ascents on the return!) 

Looking in this direction, the landscape put me in mind of the Rhinogau

My opinion by the time I reached the trig point... 

...was that this hill is far nicer and more pleasing a walk than Schiehallion had been this morning. Whilst Schiehallion is undoutedly a striking hill to look at (if viewed from an angle from which it presents itself as a conical lump), I personally struggle to see any other reason why it's so popular. It probably goes without saying that I didn't see a single person (even from a distance) on Meall Tairneachan.

Another benefit of this hill over Schiehallion is that it has Schiehallion in its view (as well as a huge number of other lumps and bumps, on such a clear-aired day)