Over The Hill

As I arrived Ben Lawers Nature Reserve car park I was reminded of the last time I climbed these two mountains. That was some 25 years ago, when my wife, Muriel, and I completed the round in quite different conditions. Today the old Visitor Centre is now a pile of rubble and a new car park and intepretation area have been built on the opposite side of the road. The weather also was quite different, my last visit we set off in low thick cloud, and stayed in cloud all day with never a view other than a few metres, or in those days, yards visibility in front of us.

Today, promised to be a better one as far as the weather was concerned, with clear, sunny skies greeting us we were hopeful of see some of the wonderful views these two mountains offer when the visibility is good. And by the cars already in, and arriving at the car park, we were not the only walkers looking forward to a good days walking.

We set off across the road and onto the new nature trail which leads through a gated fence and into the reserve proper as it winds its way steadily uphill alongside the Burn of Edramucky before eventually crossing over the burn and continuing to the northern end of the reserve where you exit through a second gate onto the open hillside.

The vast majority of those climbing these two mountains will continue up the very clear and obvious track, heading for the summit of Beinn Ghlas, and then onwards onto Ben Lawers before returning via the same route, as indeed Muriel and I did the day we climbed these mountains. Ian however was intent on taking a circular route via the bealach at the head of the Burn of Edramucky and climbing Ben Lawers first, leaving Beinn Ghlas until the return.

Therefore, we left the main track just a few hundred metres beyond the gate, by a large rock, and turned north on a smaller, but still obvious path slightly above, but paralleling the eastern banks of the Burn of Edramucky. It was a surprisingly easy and very steady climb to the bealach and small cairn, which sits at about 880m height. At the bealach you are immediately below the mass of rock that is the northern shoulder of Beinn Ghlas, although the summit itself is well hidden, as is Ben Lawers, however, directly north there are great views across to An Stuc and beyond.

The path beyond the bealach initially contours around the northern shoulder of Beinn Ghlas before it climbs steadily towards the bealach between Beinn Ghlas and Ben Lawers. It was along this section that we came across our first patches of residual snow that was still lying around in these north facing slopes.

From the bealach we set off on the final, steep climb up the zigzag track towards the summit of Ben Lawers with ever increasing amounts of snow covering the rocky path, which was quite slippery in places, due I guess to the compact snow trampled hard by the numerous boots pounding there way up this narrow section of path.

Once on the summit, we did indeed get the views we had been anticipating, it was a clear crisp day, with wonderful blue skies, so much so, that we could clearly see the snow capped summit of Ben Nevis sitting majestically above all else around. We settled on the snowy northern slopes for our lunch, and when the time came to leave it was a struggle to get up the effort to set off for Beinn Ghlas, it was a day for just sitting and enjoying the mountain top.

We retraced our steps to the bealach, before making the relatively short and easy climb up to the summit cairn at Beinn Ghlas. We then started the long, steep downhill walk on the eroded stony path down the southern ridge of Beinn Ghlas, during which we had great views of 5 or 6 hang-gliders sailing above and below us as they picked up the thermals rising from the slopes to the south of us.

Once back at the nature reserve, we retraced our route through the reserve and back to the car park, it had been a marvelous day, with weather beyond our expectations, all nicely rounded of with a quick watering stop in the Bridge of Lochay hotel.

A great day - Thanks Ian