Over The Hill

Schiehallion just seems to invite walkers - so when Lindsay mentioned she was doing a recce for the scheduled walk on Schiehallion just about everyone who was free on Wednesday jumped at the chance of joining her on the recce.

Weather prospects were not too good as we set off from the Braes of Foss car-park and started off along the John Muir Trust track. This track is so well built and maintained that it is a straightforward walk, albeit somewhat steep in places from the car-park until around the 800m height, when the track ends and the boulder field begins.

Around this same height we encountered some low cloud which meant we had to keep close contact with each other as we completed the final leg of the ascent. Somehow the boulder field didn't present me with as much trouble as it had on my previous climb up this mountain, almost a year ago - maybe I'm getting fitter, or just handling boulder fields a bit better.

We were on the summit in just under 2 hours, probable due to the excellent path. We dropped just off the summit to shelter in some of the boulders to have our lunch and discuss the return route. The idea was to depart the summit heading west and drop-off the ridge to the southwest and try to find a route which would skirt below the crags and return east along a line above but paralleling the Allt Mor. Alan and Lawrie had done a similar route in the past and had found a track of sorts, so we hoped to do much the same.

Lunch over we departed the summit in thick cloud on a bearing of 290dgs and made our way down through the boulders. At one point Lawrie found what looked like a path which would skirt around the boulders and went of to investigate - he was soon lost to sight in the mist, so some calling and shouting ensued keep us in contact. Whatever, those of us who continued to scramble over the boulders met up with Lawrie in a very short distance at the foot of the boulders, his path had indeed curved around the boulders.

We continued down the main ridge, heading generally west, leaving the large boulders behind and now on a grass and loose rock footing. We kept a close watch on the map, not wanting to drop of the ridge to soon and end up in the big crags to the south, but not wanting to continue west longer than necessary.

Approximately 600m from the summit, and at about the 900m contour height there was a small but obvious gully sloping away to our right. From the map, we reckoned a heading of 225-230dgs would weave nicely between two sets of crags and should bring us to a point where we could contour around below any other crags.

We descended into the gully which soon opened out to an easy slope of deep heather and peat mounds and continued down the slope, still in pretty poor visibility and a heavy drizzle, for about 600m, at which point the ground was starting to contour nicely in a southeast direction just as we wanted. We followed the line of the hillside, dropping gradually till we were at a height of about 500m, at which point we were just below the cloud base and could now see the Allt Mor flowing through the glen below.

There was no defined path, although at times we would come across what was possibly the makings/remains of old paths through the heather, but in general it was simply a matter of trudging through the thick clumps of heather and boggy peat mounds. We traversed the length of the glen, sticking at about 500m height and had some very nice views of the river and the hills beyond when the misty rain relented for short spells. The low cloud base prevented any views of the crags we had been so keen to miss.

At the end of the glen, we swung northeast and descended to meet the John Muir Trust track at the walled sheep pen for an easy walk back to the car-park.

An interesting walk, and quite an odd variation, in that we reached the summit in 2 hours, but took 4 hours on the return route - quite the opposite to what is the norm. It will be interesting to see what the weather is like when Lindsay leads the walk proper later in July, we may even get to see those south facing crags of Schiehallion.

As we left the car-park, the drizzle turned to heavy rain, and by the time we were driving along the A85 towards Killin it was torrential, so maybe our light drizzle wasn't to bad after all. The Killin Hotel provided a welcome seat and some light refreshments before we continued to Crianlarich and down Loch Lomondside for the journey home.

Great day Lindsay - look forward to the scheduled walk.

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