Meall Garbh (Loch Tay)

Had a weekday off and was looking for a hillwalk to do, something nearby so I could be back in Edinburgh sharpish. I've done Ben Lawers before but haven't done the whole ridge, and didn't fancy doing the whole ridge - too long if doing a circle, and I'm a bit bored with the route up Ben Lawers, done it too many times. So instead I decided to go up Meall Greigh from the North, starting at Inverar.

Went with someone from Edinburgh Hillwalkers, was a good walk. Almost entirely off-trail and a good opportunity for navigation practice. Going up is easy than going down, it is less ambiguous. We made it back in good time though. It was, I think, the wettest walk I've ever done. A combination of a lot of rain and perhaps also my equiptment getting old? By the end, my boots were soaked through (puddles on the inside) and more concerning, my trousers were completely soaked even though I was in full waterproofs plus gaiters. Don't know what went wrong, will need to investigate my waterproofs in the shower sometime. Gave the boots a snowseal coating when I got back, hopefully that will sort them out.

An Gearanach

A while since the last walk and wanted to do something different from the usual Crianlairich stuff, so we headed up to Glen Nevis on the Friday night, camped in the car (fold flat rear seats + air bed = slightly annoying due to center storage box which doesn't move forward, but still a great alternative to camping - much quicker setup time) and then headed into Glen Nevis to do the first part of the Ring of Steall.

We started walking at about 6am (driving the night is awesome for this) and made our way through the valley and into the Glen itself. At the end of the Glen we could see the Steall waterfall, but first we had to cross the rope bridge. The handholds are just wide enough apart to make it a bit unnerving, and about halfway across it starts wobbling like mad (or was that Me and Matt wobbling like mad?), but made it across. Next we got to the base of the waterfall which, given that it had been raining hard all the previous day and was drizzling today, had quite a volume of water rushing down it. Great to see, not so great to try and cross. We headed downstream and did the boots-off-and-wade through approach. Sensibly, I took my trousers off too but still the water got my boxer shorts wet - it was deep and really cold. I couldn't stop swearing, loudly.

After the river crossing, it was straight up to An Gearanach then back down the way we came. Started raining more heavily on the way down and got fairly wet. Decided I wasn't going to faff around with boots off and just charged straight through the river on the return part, this actually worked fairly well. On the return to the car we passed quite a number of tourists - it seems that the Steall waterfall is part of the tourist circuit for all visiting tourists.