Over The Hill

Firstly, thanks to Lindsay for supplying a couple of photos to accompany this report, and, secondly, an apology from me as I left my camera in the boot of the car so I have no photos recorded for this walk. However, forgetting my camera was the least of our worries; today's walk should have been the scheduled walk for which we did the recce on 19th September (see report), a circular walk from Lawers Hotel to An Stuc via Cat Gully and return via Ben Lawers.

Unfortunately the weather forecast was not very promising, with very low cloud base, rain, and, more significantly the possibility of snow showers above 900m, not the type of weather we wanted for the steep and rocky climb up Cat Gully. Nevertheless, we still wanted to make An Stuc our main objective for the day, and so we decided to change the route and start from the car park at the Lawers Nature Reserve, and climb via Ben Lawers and then over to An Stuc, the only drawback being that we would have to reverse the route for the return, as there is no real alternative to make this a circular walk.

And so we set off from the car park and headed up through the nature reserve before branching off from the main path, which continues via Beinn Ghlas, and instead, heading up the lesser path above the Burn of Edramucky towards the bealach at 880m. From the bealach, the path skirts below the northern slopes of Beinn Ghlas and gradually climbs towards the 1000m bealach between Beinn Ghlas and Ben Lawers, from which we made the final steep climb up the path towards the cairn and old Trig Point at the summit of Ben Lawers.

The weather was true to the forecast, a real mucky day, with nothing but mist and rain resulting in very limited visibility, no views to be had today, a small consolation for me forgetting my camera. Although we didn't encounter any snow showers, there were quite a few snow patches lying above the 1100m level on the summit of Ben Lawers, testimony to the forecast snow falls for earlier on in the week; not doubt we shall see a lot more snow in the coming weeks.

We had made good time to the summit, and stopped only for a quick drink and the mandatory banana, before setting off down the steep track to the bealach, which unfortunately requires a loss of almost 300m of hard gained height, before another 200m of steep ascent on the narrow and rocky path to the summit cairn on An Stuc.

Our objective gained, and Lindsay's 69th Munro "bagged", we stayed on the summit of An Stuc just long enough for our lunch break before we set off to retrace our steps back once again to Ben Lawers. We did contemplate some contouring around the north western slopes of Ben Lawers to save us the steep climb over the summit, but after considering the very limited visibility and wet conditions, decided to stick to the known path rather than chance the unknown, and so it was up and over Ben Lawers for a second time, before descending via the 1000m and 880m bealachs back via the nature reserve to our waiting cars.

Although not the planned route, this was a good and challenging days walk, rounded of with a very nice cream scone and jam in the Bridge of Lochay Hotel as we passed through Killin on our way home.

Great day - thanks Alan