An Stuc, Meall Garbh & Meall Greigh

Day 2 of Mont Blanc "warm up walks" saw Chris and I almost melting in a scorcher of a day and experiencing a total nightmare traffic chaos.

We set off from the usual meeting point at the Little Chef at 10:30 ish and headed up Lomondside to meet a queue of traffic and police diverting traffic via Arrochar due to a "serious road accident on the A82"

So we followed the diversions and took sat in crawling and stationery traffic as caravan numpties and buses squeezed and scraped past each other on the far too twisty roads. We changed our plans and decided to head east to avoid the snarling queues once at Crianlarich and headed over to Killin and Loch Tay to climb the 3 Munros at the east end of the Lawers range.

2:30 we eventually set off from the Lawers hotel for An Stuc and plodded up to the stunning surroundings of the lochan in heavy winter boots. A steep climb up to the bealach betwen Meall Garbh then we dumped our sacks and summited the steep scrambly slopes of An Stuc. After that it was back down again, grabbing the sacks and on to the summit of Meall Garbh in half an hour, which seems like a bit of a cheap summit for this range.

The last munro is Meall Greigh which sits a good way out from the rest but is must gentler in stature. We summited that in evening sun and headed back to the car and a pint of fresh orange and lemonade in the Lawers Hotel.

Fearing the road might still be shut I phoned Jim to check the internet for news, he said there was no notices of the A82 being shut so we headed off to Crianlarich.....to find the A82 shut! No warnings before the town just a barricade and a "road closed" sign. No diversion information posted either, so a complete nightmare for any tourist heading from anywhere north of Crianlarich trying to get to Glasgow.

So we doubled back again to Killin and down to Sirling, then to Glasgow, past both our houses and half an hour onwards over the Erskine Bridge to pick up Chris's car in Dumbarton. Doubled back and home by 11:30

6 hours walking in glorious weather on a grerat route but 7 hours in traffic hell.

Meall Glas & Sgiath Chuil

This was my first walk since hurting and resting my achilles tendon and was a bit of a test to see how the recovery was doing with a week to go before Mont Blanc, luckily everything seems to be back to normal.

I set off from Auchessan farm in claggy conditions and followed a faint path up past a forest plantation and on up a ridge to a brief clearing of the clag and a faint view over the A85 and Glen Dochart, it was at this point I realised I was on completely the wrong side of the Allt Essan (burn) and my 465m height gain was in vain. Turns out it was Creag Lubhair and a good lesson to me to get the compass out and not blindly follow paths.

So, down the steep slopes over broken ground (ankle feeling fine) due North to head straight for Meall Glas. If you haven't walked in clag before it's really disorientating and on occasions I'd swear i was walking in the wrong direction. But trusting my bearing I plodded on and eventually, counting steps for distance, stumbled upon the summit, which only came into visibility in the last 10m or so, and startled an elderly gentleman enjoying his lunch.

We chatted for a bit and since we were both heading over to Sgiath Chull (the 2nd Munro of the day) we decided to walk together. Turns out he will be 70 next year and is having a big final push this summer to finish off the 20 or so Munro's he's never done. Big respect to these old boys who wander around the mountains on their own at an age when most of his peers, at best, are engaging in more leisurely pursuits.

Sgiath Chull is a steep pull up it's heather flanks with over 300m (1000ft) of climb in less in half a Km.

At the top of Sgiath Chull we had 15 mins or so chatting and having lunch sheltering from the roaring wind, with jackets and hats on, then parted company since the retired ski instructor had approached the mountains from the north side in Glen Lochay. I headed South back to the farm.

As I dropped out of the clag at 400m or so the day was sunny and warm and looking back the summits were beginning to clear. I guess the best part of the day would have been the evening.

Back to the car in 6 hours feeling fine, happy that my ankle felt fine on it's first test drive.

With my extra summit I guess around 1500m of ascent and a 16.5km round trip.

Sorry, not many good pics on this tip.