Sunday Walk up Meall nan Tarmachan, Hill Opposite Ben Lawers.

Well today is Sunday and after a good sleep we get up and have our full Scottish breakfast, we get car packed and say our thanks and farewell to Micheal.  We head to Loch Tay, past Killin taking us about an hour. We plan to do Meall nan Tarmachan, which is opposite to Ben Lawers.  Today weather is clear and cold, a good day for walking.  We park the car up and get ready

The time is 10am, and we set off hoping today will be successful, looks promising.  We pass the Ben Lawers sign, this National Trust sign may read 'Ben Lawers' but that's the name of the estate.

 After going through the gate we walk along land rover track for about 300m until a cairn marks the start of a clear path heading off to the right.  This will take us up the slope to a minor summit at 923 metres. (pictured below)

It's a nice and easy walk as we get higher there is more snow and ice.

 We carry on up the path, there are 3 people in front heading the same way as us, and more following.  It is a popular path and the day is good. (Spot the 3 pictured below :D)

 

The views are great, down below is Lochan na Lairige which is a a modest reservoir retained by a massive buttress dam.  The loch provides water through pipelines and a tunnel to Finlarig Power Station on the north shore of Loch Tay.

 We continue going up taking photos of our surroundings as we go.

As you can see from the picture below, the wind is starting to pick up?

 In some places the snow is 130 cm deep, used my pole to measure. :)

We reach the small summit and it quite breezy, not as bad as yesterday though, and we look towards Tarmachan.

 The journey to get to that summit does not look good but we press on for a while.  We spoke to people passing and they agreed that crampons and axes were required to get to the top.  We had neither so we agreed that this would be our limit today.  Once again so near, but not today.

So time for a coffee and a bite to eat.

We continue to go back down, Roy having a couple of breaks in between.  :)

This time he fell in a cross drain that we probably put in many years ago, as volunteers with  the National Trust for Scotland Tayside conservation group.

Nearly back down.

We arrive back at the car park at 1pm, it was a good 3 hours walking, we felt a bit disappointed, but we know we will get to the top the next time and maybe do the whole ridge.

Well until the next time...

Walk Today up Ben Vorlich in Crieff!

Well today's walk did not go to plan, we set off at 9am leaving a sunny Crieff, but in the 25 min journey hit snow showers.  That's ok we don't mind them.  We parked the car and got ourselves ready, boots etc. on and left car at 9.30am.

We head up a track passing a cow and her sleeping calf, yes snow on again.

We carry on up the path, it's a bit windy and cold but nothing to worry about and showers are short lived.  It's quite a steep climb straight away and hats, tops are removed as we get a bit warm, but best having them handy.  We carry on up the trail and the winds are getting stronger, but again we don't mind, we knew this was to be expected.  The flow of the river water is going incredibly fast.

Walk is good and enjoyable at the moment as we contiue our acscent towards Vorlich, though skies keep changing and wind getting stonger, snow and ice appear but not too much.

We see the changes within minutes, so yes hats have to go on as it's much colder.

The views are great. :) We meet three men coming down that had been to the top but said it was getting very windy and was just ice.  We thanked them and wished them a good day and on with our walk we go hoping it won't be too bad.

But oh how wrong could we be!?!  We're completely out in the open and the gusts are so strong they were taking us off our feet and we had to dig our poles in to stop going over.  It is so bitterly cold now, fingers are a bit numb so camera does not come out after this.

We meet a guy who has said he had gone a bit further but decided the risk was too great as it gets narrower and gusts of up to 80mph meant it was no fun.  We go up a little but we are really struggling, we decide it's too strong and cold and although trig point is only a short climb, today we were not going to get there.  Down we stuggle until we come across a large rock, the sky was very grey with more bad weather on the way.  So out comes our Vango storm shelter to be used for the first time, immediately we feel the difference, it's draft free and cosy.  We have our sandwich and coffee in good conditions, though very blowy.

We have a video clip, shows how windy it actually was! :)

Well we can't stay here, though it feels cosy, because of the wind chill, ice is forming inside our shelter.  So we pack up and once again enter the stormy weather.  More people are passing, but they too soon turn back.  We can do it another day though, it's not like the mountains are going to go away any time soon. :)

Down we go back to the car, it's much better down here.  But as we're driving back to Crieff the snow blizzards return.  We finish by having a nice pint, before returning to James Cottage for a rest before showering and going out for tea at The Gurkhas.  Let's hope weather is good to us tomorrow for Tarmachan Ridge.  

Visit Scotland Photography Competition

Okay so if you've been following this blog and the Facebook page etc. you'll have hopefully seen some of the amazing pictures that the Parental's have been taking of around Scotland.  :D  So anyhoo, I've been looking around for photography competitions and stuff, you know, more ways for them to share them with zee world!  And that's when I discovered that Visit Scotland were holding a photography competition for amazing images from around Bonnie Scotland!  Funny story though, they'd seen it as well and we had all decided on the same photos to enter, lol.  Mum then entered another couple as well.  The competition is to be judged by a panel of judges but you can click to LIKE the pictures through Facebook.  Visit Scotland will be tweeting the best pics so the more LIKE's that a pic gets, the better I assume.  So yesss, it would be amazing if you could show your support by liking your favourite pics.  These are the ones that have been entered.  :)  Jennifer x

The Three Amigo's - Click HERE to LIKE. 

Long Way Down - Click HERE to LIKE.

Harbour Delight's - Click HERE to LIKE.

Clashnessie Coo's - Click HERE to LIKE.

Walking Plans this Weekend for Ben Vorlich and Meall nan Tarmachan.

Well the weekend has arrived, Bags sorted and we plan lots of walking, hope weather is good to us. 
(Wind and blizzards are perdicted, lets hope not, but we will be prepared.)

Tomorrow afternoon we meet Kirsty from Afasic to go over sponsor forms etc. so keep a look out for that information.  We will then head to Crieff to stay for two nights in the friendly B&B James Cottage where we have booked the Rob Roy McGregor room (see below).

Sat morning after Breakfast we will head for Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin.  This is a
straightforward hillwalk (weather permitting) to Ben Vorlich.  Route on to Stuc a'Chroin involves a rocky scramble or an alternative scree path, whilst return crosses boggy eroded ground.
Ascent is 1145m - For more information on this walk click HERE!


Weather is not meant to be brilliant, lets hope it's ok.
If all goes well, weather ok and after a nice evening, another fab breakfast on Sunday we plan to head for Loch Tay and walk Meall nan Tarmachan.  This is one of the easier Munro's to reach in good weather thanks to a high level start point, but it is really just the start of a rocky ridge traverse which is one of the most interesting in the Southern Highlands.

Ascent 768m - For more information on this walk click HERE!

Hopefull good weekend walking, and some good pictures to back this up.  Will post blog on Mon/Tues. 

Look out for our next adventure this weekend, we will be walking up Ben Vorlich in Perthshire. More details with walk milage, altitude Friday

A Day Spent Trekking Ben Chonzie in Crieff, Scotland!

Our Day Trekking Ben Chonzie (931m, 3054 ft)

Decided to go away for the weekend to Crieff and walk to Ben Chonzie.  If you want a quick no hassle ascent then choose the approach from the south west by parking at Coishavachan in Glen Lednock where there is space for a few cars.   From here a track rises steadily all the way to the broad ridge leading to the summit.   It's not particularly exciting but there again navigation is not a problem.   From the top the east side drops away more steeply and gives good views towards Loch Turret.

But we decide on a more interesting but significantly longer approach from Loch Turret dam.   A track follows the NE shore of Loch Turret and then a mile or so beyond to Loch Uaine and from here you can work your way round the crags and steeply onto Chonzie’s NE ridge.

But as Rabbie used to say, "the best laid plans of mice and men".   Driving up the single track road to the car park at the dam a car was partially blocking the road and we couldn't get past.

Parked up and tried to get the car out of the way to no avail, so ended up reversing about three quarters of a mile down the road and parked at the waterworks.   This put us behind schedule by about an hour but decided to go anyway and it was really worth it, air was really clear and the views "awesome" as they say, but you can look for yourselves at the days images. (For more images check out the previous blog post!)

After leaving the dam we followed the track onlong side Loch Turret, paths are quite snowy and the mountain reflections in the loch fabulous!

We continued past the end of Loch Turret to a smaller Loch Uaine, this is when track ends, so we stop for a coffee, and decide what route we will go...

....ok, we then decide on heading up this way and over to the left at top!

This is a continous uphill walk, then the hill becomes steeper with hard packed snow which is icy and hard on the feet, sometimes not the best place to try stay still to take photos.

Loch Turret is down below.

Time to dig in the feet and poles!

As we walk towards Chonzie we need to follow the fence posts to the summit, with the packed snow/ ice its hard going and that summit seemed to never appear.

It's cold, but neither of us feel it, cause our bodies are generating loads of heat, but at last we reach the top of Ben Chonzie.   We only saw one person ahead of us when walking along Turret, but when we got to the top there was quite a few people.   They had used the Glen Lednock route.

After a couple of photos we decide not to stop for lunch as its breezy and weather starting to close in.  We head off towards the Glen Lednock path, for a short time before heading off the other way towards Carn Chois ridge.   This is a pleasant walk, though snow is deep in places.

Going down hill at times proved to be challenging, with many slips and falls due to the icy snow.

Eventually we join the track alongside the loch, we continue on that until we reach the dam, which by then we were very tired and needing a bite to eat and hot drink.

This is what we did, sitting by the dam we had a roll and a cup of hot mulled wine, so warming and gave us that extra boost of energy we needed to finish our trek to car.

While we were treking, someone had built this snowman near the carpark, heehee, "nice hair"!

The trek took us 6 hours in total. So back at the car it was a 10 minute drive to Crieff and our B&B James Cottage where we were met by a cheery guy, Micheal. The rooms are comfy and clean and all with a jolly old Scottish theme, and for a good price and a great cooked Scottish breakfast. We were in the Robert Burns room, which was perfect as it was just after Burns night!

We had a hot soak in the bath and headed out for something to eat and drink, we felt we deserved it!

All in all, we had a super weekend and would highly recommend it! :)