ron-t climbing
27 January 2017 ................ Beinn Ghlas
Another foul day of freezing fog, and I was desperate to get away from it, so I went up the small road that climbs away up from Loch Tay, past Lochan na Lairige, and down into Glen Lyon - and climbed Beinn Ghlas, just to the southwest of Ben Lawers.
I did get away from the fog, but the weather did go downhill quite a bit through the day
Climbing up the long southwest ridge of Beinn Ghlas, and the cloud starts to drift across between me and Meall nan Tarmachan -
Not long after, and the cloud was getting more serious -
Higher up the ridge, and the cloud is starting to drift across the summit of Meall nan Tarmachan.
However no sign of the cloud on Beinn Ghlas yet - I am about two thirds of the way up the ridge here, and looking up to the summit.
Except that I found when I got there that it wasn`t the summit, the summit of Beinn Ghlas is away to the back of what you can see as you climb up the ridge.
Finally made it onto the summit, and an unbelievable freezing cold wind - looking across to Meall Corranaich, and the long ridge that connects it to Meall á Choire Léith.
Looking past the side of Meall Corranaich towards Stuchd an Lochain which lies away up at the head of Glen Lyon above Loch an Daimh.
Beyond it I think you are also seeing Meall Buidhe, which lies to the north of Loch an Daimh.
Round to the right of Meall Corranaich and Meall á Choire Léith, there is a deep valley that points due north, and ends up in Glen Lyon - one of the many munros along the north side of Glen Lyon is Carn Gorm, right at the back in this picture, and off to the left is the corbett Beinn Dearg.
Last, and very definitely not least - looking across to the huge bulk of Ben Lawers, with a couple of the other munros in the Lawers group.
The first summit behind Ben Lawers is Creag an Fhithich, then the munro An Stuc, and then the munro Meall Garbh - there is another munro further round, Meall Greigh, and the whole lot form a superb ridge walk, but it is quite a trek, and there is no way I could do it now.
I took the above photo about ten minutes after I arrived on the summit of Beinn Ghlas - five minutes later it looked like this -
Five minutes later it was gone, and I never saw it again.
So if I had been ten or so minutes later arriving on the summit, I wouldn`t have seen it at all.
Sitting have a cup of tea - and I disappeared into the cloud as well. And that was just about the end of my views.
It wasn`t a problem coming back down, it is a well defined path, and I made good progress, and soon I was below the cloud.
At one point I stopped to take a picture of something, and for just a few seconds I got a view of Ben More and Stob Binnein just showing over the cloud - I took the photo and then they were gone again.
Further down the ridge, and the sun is thinking about making an appearance - it never made it, the cloud won.
By the time I was back down to the car park the cloud was well down on Meall nan Tarmachan and on Beinn Ghlas, and not much later after arriving back in Strathearn it started to snow. So I guess I was pretty lucky with my timing for the day.
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