KYQ4: An Stuc, Meall Garbh and Meall Greigh

Lochan nan Cat, An Stuc and Meall Garbh

Saturday, 13 May 2023

Ascent: 1278 metres
Distance: 20 kilometres
Time: 5 hours 29 minutes

Meall Greigh 1001m 1hr 58 mins
Meall Garbh 1123m 2hrs 57mins
An Stuc 1117m 3hrs 32mins

I had planned to walk the Lairig Ghru earlier in the week with John and Keith. My rucksack was packed the night before and I planned to arrive in Aviemore by 9am. We would walk through the Lairig Ghru camp in Glen Derry and then return via Lairig an Laaoigh, the Fords of Avon and Ryvoan to Loch Morlich. Alas, an electrical fault on the car: no information readings or radio, meant I had to abandon the trip after 5 miles, it was 6:45am and a public holiday so no local garage would be open. It was Friday before the car was repaired.

Saturday was to be fine so I planned to climb the three Munros at the eastern end of the Ben Lawers range that contains 7 Munros. I had already climbed the other 4 on what would be a sixth round. I am not attempting another round but old habits are difficult to dispel. I left at 7:15 a.m. and was walking an hour later from the Ben Lawers Hotel on Loch Tay. Several new houses have been built where the road crosses the impressive Lawers Burn. We had parked on the waste ground of some derelict buildings on our first foray to Meall Greigh in 1991. It was now the splendid garden of a new stone-built cottage.

The initial walk starts at the back of the horn carver's cottage and climbs quite steeply alongside the burn. It was a dull morning but the cloud cover was expected to burn off by mid-morning and it was good to climb in the cooler weather. The birch woods were sparkling with their neon green leaves making you think you were in Finland. There are a couple of stiles to cross before you enter the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve and open moorland. There was little to see initially, the hills were lost in the morning cloud cover. After the shielings a path forks off to the right, and 15 minutes later the cloud cover dissipated, I was confronted by the challenge of the steep flank of Meall Greigh. I began to pick up some pace having passed a couple on the early part of the climb and, as the cloud disappeared, I could see a walker reaching the top of the steep path that emerges on the top of Sron Mhor, the outlier of Meall Greigh.

The final kilometre to the summit of Meall Greigh is a pleasant walk on a well-defined path that rises at a more clement incline. The sun had burnt off the cloud across the Ben Lawers ridge but there was a thin layer of cloud shrouding Loch Tay below. The skylarks were providing a soundtrack that would probably win the Eurovision if only they didn't have such drab-coloured feathers. A ptarmigan crossed my path and presumably made a diversion to distract me before returning to its nest. The summit cairn was a loose pile of stones that I tidied for a couple of minutes before sitting in the morning sun, taking a drink and sending some photographs. Life was good and as I was leaving a young woman arrived at the summit asking if this was the real summit. There is another cairn a few hundred metres away but it is 8 metres lower and on the route across to Meall Garbh, She seemed reassured.

It is an easy and pleasant descent to the bealach, Lairig Innein. Just before I reached the start of the 290-metre climb to Meall Garbh a couple of female hill runners passed me, they were talking incessantly on their descent. The air was so still that I had heard them approaching when they were half a kilometre away. I envied them as they began the climb but managed to lose not that much distance before they reached the ridge and galloped away. The lone walker ahead had arrived at the summit just ahead of me and we chatted for ten minutes before setting off for An Stuc, it was to be his 70th Munro, a quarter of the way around. He had that infectious enthusiasm for the Munros that seems endemic when you reach this number of Munros and he shared his plans for the year ahead. He also had an enthusiasm for cycling and cricket so our conversation was non-stop as we climbed the steep loose gulley that defines An Stuc as a difficult hill. It had only just passed noon as we reached the summit and there were another dozen walkers scattered around the cairn. They had come across from Ben Lawers, the summit of which was heaving with walkers. The visibility was excellent although clouds had begun to form in the west.

After a lunch break, I left my acquaintance who was going to take his time on the descent and descended to Bealach Dubh. I followed a winding and steep path down Ravens Gulley, the final patches of snow were visibly melting in the midday sun. There were three other walkers using the same route that I passed on reaching the boggy path that meanders to the south of Lochan nan Cat. The views back to An Stuc and Meall Garbh were exceptional, the corrie is probably the wildest location on the Ben Lawers ridge. It is a couple of kilometres of extremely boggy conditions to the shielings from where a track contours below Ben Lawers. A few hundred metres along the track an excellent grassy path is marked by a cairn and descends alongside the Lawers Burn. It eventually zig zags down to a footbridge and then you are on the final couple of kilometres leaving the Nature Reserve and following the birch forest back to Lawers. It had been a good outing on a near-perfect day, I had felt lethargic at the start but picked up pace as the day progressed. I was home before 4 p.m. and celebrated with a beer and a bath before starting to watch Eurovision. After the first three efforts, I decided that writing up a blog post and an early night would be preferable.