Yesterday saw me complete the Ben Lawers group of mountains, with an ascent of Meall nan Tarmachan - the Hill of the Ptarmigan - at the western edge of the range.
A look at the map in the link above will reveal that the hill has crags and cliffs all along its eastern side. Those become rather taller and nearer in the mind when the wind is a westerly force 8, gusting as high as force 9 or even 10 at the very top and leaving one very aware of being near such a perilous lee shore.
It was typical Scottish mountain weather: a week after midsummer, and we (I had both dogs with me) set off in drizzle. This became heavier and heavier rain as I neared the subsidiary summit to the south-east of the Munro itself, and the heavy cloud cover descended as low as 500 metres, leaving visibility at only twenty or so metres at times. On the lower, 923 metre hilltop I met some English girls, well kitted-out for the weather but a bit nervous in the worsening conditions, who asked if the peak would be dangerous, and what the weather would do. If they thought that a person alive could predict the weather on the Scottish high tops then they were clearly new to the experience. I told them that, in the next hour, they would probably get snow, glorious sunshine, driving rain and heavy fog in roughly equal quantities and, if sleet counts as snow, then I was proven quite the prophet.
The final ascent of Tarmachan is, however, well-protected from westerlies: a snug - if rather fierce - chimney leads up below the ridge, and then only the last hundred metres or so are exposed, as one doubles-back to the south to gain the summit. Thus, I went from tranquil, misty peace to roaring, sub-hurricane gales that threatened to pluck me off the hill and grant me a more rapid descent than I desired. After hanging around on the peak for as long as was bearable, optimistically waiting for the clouds to break, the weather cleared when I was a mere twenty metres below the hilltop: frustrating since the view from the top is, you just know, always going to be the best one. I then realised that both the dogs and I had, when on the summit, been a mere six or seven metres upwind of three sheep without so much as suspecting their presence. To get an idea, here are some other people on the same hill, in only slightly better visibility:
Most of Tarmachan is, in fact, sealed off from sheep and deer and the benefits are beginning to show, with arctic flowers and montane birch beginning to flourish here and there. The more immediate advantage of this is that the hounds got to run free for hours, sprinting up and down the grassy slopes with their usual zeal.
Oh, and by the time I got off the hill it was beautifully sunny, and I spent the evening outside, relaxing with a well-deserved bottle of Hoegaarden. Scotland: if you don't like the weather, just come back in fifteen minutes.
As mentioned, I've now been up all eight peaks in the Lawers range in the last six weeks or so, and loved the experience. I adore the Perthshire hills: generally grassy or mossy mountains, often surrounded by crags. Where now? Mheal Glas and Beinn Cheathaich, just twenty miles south-west, offer a decent challenge together from the south-eastern approach, requiring a 30km hike by the time one returns to the road-end. Or, if I ave less time, perhaps the short, sharp shocks of Stuchd an Lochain or Meall Ghaordaidh to the west will do. And I still have to return to the two hills that have so far defeated me: Schiehallion (which I will wait and hopefully again climb in snow, to whittle down the numbers on the hill) and craggy Stuc a Chroin, which I will not, this time, attempt from the bealach in dense fog.