20/09/15 - Meall nan Tarmachan to Ben Lawers - (me, Steve, Conners)

We travelled up on 19/9 (the day Scotland voted to stay in the UK (potentially fortunately...)). We stayed in an apartment on the Taymouth Estate. The morning consisted in fried breakfast, sandwich making and then a drive up to Ben Lawers car park. The mood was jubilant and somewhat overly confident.

We added Meall nanTarmachan at the beginning of the route on the basis that I'd found I'd covered routes quicker than the routes advertised themselves as.

The walk to the top was steep - the banter and confident displayed in the car soon dissipated and I started to regret adding Meall nan Tarmachan to the start of the route.

We soldiered down Creag an Lochain, it was steep, off path and hard work. We then walked round the reservoir and started the proper route. With no path through the very boggy terrain we opted to skip Meall a Choire Leith and head straight for Meall Corranaich - i.e. straight up the side of it, with no use of path. This was hard slog. The banter was now aimed firmly at me and my choice of routes - I started to worry that people weren't enjoying it. However, we eventually got to the top (with Andy counting down nearly every metre with his GPS), found the path and the collective mood picked up as we started to walk along the ridge.

We soon took in Meall  ??? and even Ben Lawers was a breeze in comparison to what we'd already dealt with. However, we didn't have the energy or remaining daylight hours to continue so we headed back to the rather than continuing on the rest of the route to the Lawers Hotel. Regrettably there was a reluctance to take in Bein Ghlas on the way back, but even I was very tired by the time we got back to the car.

We drove to the Lawers Hotel, had a well deserved meal and pint and then had an early night. Main lesson learnt - don't extend the route at the beginning and don't take short cuts off path....

Munro - Meall nan Tarmachan, Meall Corranaich, Ben Lawers

GPX File