The aim for the day was the Tarmachan Ridge.
My guidebook describes it as "an entertaining ridge walk". It says it "curves in an S-shape above the blue expanse of Loch Tay, at some points narrow and rocky, at others broad and grassy. The traverse of its four tops provides a scramble which is unfailingly entertaining"
The weather was lovely in Perth when we left, but by the time we got to the starting point at 10.30am it was dull with low cloud and mist obscuring the tops.
Undeterred we headed off up the first summit - Meall nan Tarmachan at 3421ft.
The cloud was unrelenting, and as we traversed from east to west reaching the summits of Meall Garbh (3366ft) and Ben nan Eachan (3264ft) we saw precisely nothing except the ground 3 feet in front of us!
The first part of the ridge (between the first 2 peaks) is broad and straightforward, but between the second and third peaks is narrow, rocky and requires some fairly extreme scrambling. I will confess to being shit scared at times, especially since the wind got up considerably and we estimated was gusting to 40-45mph at times!
With no sign of the weather clearing we bailed out without attempting the fourth peak.
True to form, as we descended, the clouds began to clear and by the time we were only 1km from the car, the sun was out and 3 of the 4 peaks were clear of cloud...I think that's what they call "sods law"!!!
We also got a beautiful view of Loch Tay in the sun .......
So, we'll be back to do it again....in better weather.
6 comments:
Sensible to bail out in the circumstances. All the photos are quite awesome :-)
Those photos are very good. But it will be fun to compare with the ones you'll take on a sunny day. I truly like the misty one.
I fear it may be next summer before the sunny ones appear....and even then, there's no guarantee in Scotland ;-)
You can't, of course, know, Ruth, how much I do appreciate other people to climb (Scottish) hills/mountains and take photographs that let my heart rise like falcon up to the sky - with joy.
Thank you.
You can't know Sean, how much I appreciate being able to climb those mountains, and also my visitors kind comments about my photographs ;-)
It may not be the best of days but wow those views look like they were worth the effort!
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