Meall nan Tarmachan

It has been a while since the last walk! Finally, with word on the street (ie. mwis) being that there should be some snow on the ground, I managed to persuade Ann to go hillwalking with me! The target for the day was Meall nan Tarmachan. After setting off at about 9am, we got to the hill at about 11am, parking just beyond the bridge half a mile north of the national trust visitor center. Luckily, the singletrack road to the parking spot was driveable - ie. not frozen/sheet ice, unlike the other times I've tried it.

For most of the journey up it was fairly foggy but almost no wind, with almost no rain. Ambient temperature was about 1-2 degrees lower down but with no wind and some strenuous walking, that made it feel fairly warm. As we got to about 700m, we began to see isolated slithers of a very light dusting of snow/ice. We had a quick stop for lunch, where we deployed our small gas cooking stove (MSR Pocket Rocket) to whip up some bacon sandwiches. No HP sauce though, but apart from that, very tasty.

After lunch, onwards. At about 900m, the snow cover hit about 50%, ie. more of the ground was snow covered than non-snow covered. We hit a small top at 923m, then down a bit and on to the final ascent to Meall nan Tarmachan itself. This final part of the walk changed character a bit - instead of large grassy or heather-covered slopes, this final section was quite steep and rocky, and combined with the snow everywhere, meant we had to tread carefully.


At about 3pm we hit the top! From about 1000m up, it really was beginning to feel wintery. Between 900m-1000m the snow was just a thin dusting which had partially melted, but above 1000m it began to feel a bit more authentic, probably it was just cold enough to stop any melting here. Time for some photos, then back down the way we came.

Ben Challum

Another early start, meeting up with Matt and then heading up to do Ben Challum. We got there at about 9:45am and with grey skies and low cloud lying on the hills, we headed through Kirkton Farm and past a friendly horse, then across the railway bridge. The snow started as occasional patches in sheltered depressions at the car, and as we climbed higher, it got deeper and harder, soon waist-high fences were almost covered by it!

However, a far more significant problem -- and the reason why I have very few photos from this walk -- is that the combination of the white snow - which as we climbed higher, became an unbroken blanket over the ground - and the white mist/cloud combined to give near zero visibility! Hour after hour we trudged upwards, eyes on the ground infront of us as there were no features for our eyes to pick at anywhere else, walking with compass in hand to give us a bearing to walk on, lest we stray off our heading and end up going the wrong way.

Suprisingly, it was quite warm and there was little wind lower down, so combined with the lack of anything to see, the air was still and there was no sound except our footsteps on the snow. It felt a little surreal at times, almost like a world different to the one we left that morning, perhaps a taste of a real Arctic landscape.

Eventually, after a long, steep climb up an icy slope, we hit the main ridge. The wind finally picked up (far more familiar conditions), the temperature dropped and the snow was crusted over with small ice sculptures formed by the wind. So it was windy, slippy, visibility was about 10m but because the mist and the snow were the same colour, in practice we could only see about as far as our feet. So while confidently striding due North with compass in hand, we almost didn't see this:

I know, it's hard to see anything in this photo - it was hard for us to see anything at the time (and hard to see anything through the camera viewfinder when trying to photograph it), although luckily we did see it when we were about 1 ft away from the edge and caught a glimse of some black rock 20m below through the mist, and with simultaneous expletive-laden exclamations, we lept backwards (Matt) and went to ground with the ice axe digging in (Steve). Looking carefully in the photo you might just be able to make out the start of a steep drop running slightly diagonally (upwards) through the centre of the picture! We crept back for some photos but I couldn't get as close this time as I had (accidentally) the first time - the snow/ice underfoot was slippy, I was lucky to manage to stop the first time. One of our footprints is visible at the bottom right of the above photo, that's about a foot from the edge... Next time we're on a ridge in a white out, we should still pay attention to the compass, but I guess the lesson is not to pay too much attention to the compass, at the expense of what else is around us! Sometimes I read news stories about people who walk off cliffs in whiteouts ; I can now sympathise with these people a lot more and have a far better appreciation of how easily it can happen.


After boxing round this cliff, we finally made it to the top of Ben Challum, not that there was a huge amount to see. A few victory photos and we started heading back down - it was too cold to hang around. Luckily my orange hat is also a balaclava - I just pulled down the balaclava part and I was happy again, no more wind-bitten nose for me!


A while later, when we were almost down, the cloud on the far side of the valley began to lift and we caught some glimpses of Ben More and Stob Binnein, snow clad and lurking menacingly in the mist! For next week, perhaps?

Beinn Achaladair

So for a second time, I decided to do Beinn Achaladair, this time with Alastair. It has good parking, is fairly straight forward to get to, and I didn't see much last time I was there. It was quite wet and windy previously, this time started similarly although without the rain. The long slog up the valley was reasonably uneventful, although as we rose higher up, the cold artic winds changed from fast to very fast and were of course heading straight down the valley towards us, for maximum noise and atmosphere.

Eventually we hit the snow line and entered a mini-arctic landscape, all good fun. The ground was relatively flat around here though, and peppered with streams and ponds - although most of this was beneath the snow so we couldn't see it, and the snow was just beginning to melt so was quite unstable. Careful navigation (ie. staying away from any natural sloping depressions in the ground) and the occasional sprint-and-hope ensued, until we'd got past the trouble area.

Finally onto the main ridge and now we weren't in the shelter of the valley, we were exposed to the full force of the winds. I've had some windy days on the hills, this is now the windiest hill day I've had to date! Awesome stuff. Funny how things turn out in photos though. Whilst on the hill, in the wind, you're surrounded by a terrific thundering noise, with constant buffeting which makes movement a real challenge. But later when you look at your photos of it, you just see a guy crawling on the ground -- what the hell is he doing? There was a good reason for it at the time!

A good walk overall, and pretty good weather in the end. Got to see out from the top this time, although with the relentless wind, we didn't stay long to enjoy the view - the priority was to get off the top of the mountain and get some shelter for a lunch break!

Stob Ghabhar

The first hill of 2009: Stob Ghabhar. Although we've had some looow temperatures across the UK over the past week or so, there hasn't been any significant amounts of rain, so very little (if any) snow. So we weren't hoping for too much and at the start of the walk it was pretty much as expected with little snow, although every river, stream and -- quite often -- path we found was frozen over. However, we were approaching the mountain from the sunny south and once we got in to the center of the mountain, surrounded by steep cliffs, things began feeling more wintery. There was frost on top of frost (layered many times, looking like a light-dusting of snow). And then higher up, the rocks would be covered with a thin film of slippery ice/frozen dew. And as things got steeper and higher, hard pack snow/ice began appearing, until we found ourselves scrambling up iced over rock on one of the harder approaches to Stob Ghabhar. There was no way back, so we pressed on, finally hitting the top of the "Aonach Eagach" ridge on Stob Ghabhar (not the other Aonach Eagach ridge to the north of the A82 beyond Rannoch Moor) at about 1:30pm. And then after a food stop, it was an easy walk up to the summit of Stob Ghabhar, and then the long walk back down Stob Ghabhar, taking a south-facing (so snow/ice free!) route back down, over a grassy slope. Got back to the car at about 4:30pm and left at 9:45pm, not too bad a walk.