Schiehallion

Monday, 10 December 2012
Ascent:     805m
Distance:  9km
Time:       2hrs 58mins

m  Schiehallion  1083m    1hr  43mins

The pressure was rising, the temperature dropping and a cold day with a stiff northerly wind was forecast. A good day for Schiehallion with the possibility of a corbett in Glen Lyon afterwards. By the time I had assembled my winter gear, unloaded the logs from the car that I had collected the day before and filled up with diesel, it was 8:15am, about half an hour later than planned. The traffic on the A84 was light but slow in the icy conditions. Loch Tay was glorious and the slopes of Ben Lawers were amply covered with snow although the summit was in cloud. The drive through Fortingall and then over to Tummel Bridge was perfect, watched over by buzzards on telegraph poles and pheasants in the hedgerows. The final 3 miles of road to the Braes of Foss was on sheet ice and required patience and a delicate touch on the accelerator. It was 10:00am before I set out in winter boots, with ice axe and crampons strapped on my rucksack and with a walking pole to help me stay upright.

The car park was a skating rink and the path was initially an extension of this, it was like walking on Fox's glacier mints, even Peppy would have fallen over. After the flat section the path steepened and was a mixture of crunchy snow and gravel path which had been built by the John Muir Trust in 2003 on the first of their land purchases to safeguard Scotland's wild places. Before this there was an overused muddy path which had scarred the north face and made Schiehallion a must avoid hill. The reality is that it has an aura of magic, with its history of scientific discovery and the magnificent views in all directions. The long broad summit ridge is a jumble of quartzite boulders that lighten up the bleakest of days as well as testing your dancing feet.

I made good time up the path to the ridge at 700 metres where extensive snow cover meant crunching through the snow hoping that the sun kissed crust would not break. It was like walking over a meringue, or should that be a pavlova, because when it did collapse it was knee deep soft snow below. It was energy sapping as well as slow progress. A pure white ptarmigan appeared at about 800 metres and accompanied me for a few minutes, one of the simple delights of a winter walk. At 900 metres there is a cairn/ shelter and a lone walker appeared out of the mist on the descent. He was equipped for the worst of weathers although like me he had resisted the temptation to put on crampons. We chatted for a while, he had driven down from Inverness and was trying to make the best of the good winter conditions.

It was bitterly cold in the northerly wind and I regretted not having a hood on my down jacket. Although the lower slopes were blessed with low angled winter sunshine, Schiehallion was draped in cloud with visibility down to 40 metres or so. It is a long haul over the boulder strewn ridge to the summit which is a bit of a disappointment: a micro cairn on a small rock outcrop but with some good rock shelves which are south facing and sheltered from the northerly winds. I stopped for a drink and tried to capture the cold loneliness of the summit on camera.(see above) Last time I had been here I was accompanied by about 25 people and several bottles of bubbly.(see below)

The descent was tiring because of the concentration needed over the boulders at first and then the snow and ice on the path lower down. I met another walker on his ascent and he could have been dressed for one of Scott's expeditions. When I described this on returning home I was admonished for not taking sufficient clothing: an icebreaker base layer with a lambswool sweater and a lightweight down jacket was all I had. I was down by 1pm and after a coffee I had to decide whether to go up to the head of Glen Lyon to climb my last corbett in this part of the highlands. If the road was as bad as the Braes of Foss road it would take over 45 minutes before I could start walking and then 3 hours on the hill. Did I want to be out on an ice crusted hill after nightfall? For once logic prevailed and I drove home, although as I soaked in the bath at 3:30 it seemed a terrible waste of a good day.

And in more clement weather, 2008 compleation