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As you can see, she's a beauty of a mountain, but I had the devils job of finding the Braes of Foss carpark. Hint...it's nowhere near the village of Foss. Hmmm. However, parked up and the sun was beaming down and as I expected, it was a lovely hill with a nice steady gradient up and lots of boulder-hopping to reach the summit. Nevis was just visible through the heat haze, so had an extended lunch at the summit as there is nowhere else to go from this mountain other than down.
Met some really nice folk in the carpark, so blethered for an hour, then set of for Ben Lawer to find a tent pitch as that was to be the next days climb.
Upon arrival at the Lawer carpark, I noticed there was nowhere to pitch, and just then, a van pulled in and a guy with his Husky dog got out.
Turns out, his name was Colin and he was also looking for a place to camp, so we chummed up and found a perfect wee place a half mile up the glen, and set up the tents.
He was also up...from Devon, to have a go at the Ben Lawer route, but as we were cooking up tea, right in front of us was the mountain of Tarmachan which includes a cracking ridge walk with 4 Munro tops included, so we decided to team up and do that tomorrow.
Pitched with Tarmachan ridge above.
So, with full bellies and I must admit far too many beers, 2 bottles of wine and washed down with a snifter of port, we retired for the night. Disaster....the mattress leaks and the temp dropped to minus 8 and I awoke at stupid o'clock with ice in my hair and the tent frozen solid. The only thing to do was get up and await sunrise to try and heat up. The good thing is, it did, and very rapidly, so much so, that by 9, it was down to T-shirts as we set of to tackle the ridge and summit. It's a peach of a walk. As it was still early, after lunch, we descended down to the lochan via the steep rockface rather than take the north ridge and set off up Meall Corranaich for our 2nd Munro of the day. This one turned out to be a slog compared to the previous summit.
We then came down and met the path leading to Ben Lawer car park and I decided that due to lack of sleep, I would head back to base, and Colin and Nimbus, (the husky), went on to tackle the Lawers range. Well done mate.
Colin on descent from Tarmachan
Next day, with a slightly better sleep and temperature only down to 0 degrees that night, we decided to tackle a route of 3 Munros, being Meall Greigh, Meall Garbh and finishing of with the delicious An Stuc.
The walk-in was nice and easy with it only getting tougher going straight up to reach the summit of Meall Greigh. This hill is a combination of 3 rounded humps and soft springy moss between them.
After a quick snack at the top, we headed along the ridge to Garbh and had lunch and admired the amazing view down to the loch with the majestic curve of Ben Lawer as the backdrop.
Ben Lawer and An Stuc
Summit Meall Garbh
Then the fun part as we descended into the gully and started the climb of An Stuc. The first half is an easy, if steep winding path, then you hit the rock which was to be a mixture of solid and loose handholds, neither of which was really apparent until you put weight on them. It was fun, and we had the advantage of following Nimbus up, who had a feel for finding the easiest routes.
We could have went on to do Ben Lawers from here, but instead decided to drop down to the loch and do out walk-out from there.
Summit An Stuc
An Stuc and Meall Garbh from the Lawer ridge.
Then it was back to the hotel where the cars were parked and a quick Guinness before heading to base camp.
After a wash up, we went into Killinn and treated ourselves to the best steak and chips I've had in many a year, then back to the tents and a few beers before retiring. I woke again at 4 in the morning, frozen through and downright knackered, so broke camp, leaving Colin in his slumber (he had a hot water bottle), and headed home. In the house by 7.30, a long long hot bath and fell asleep on the sofa and missed 'The Wedding'.
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