Sunday 25 Apr 2004 - Meall Nan Tarmachan

I took me 1hour 45 minutes to reach the Ben Lawers visitors Centre.
The car park was open but the building, including the toilet were closed.
A sign said they open on May 1st, that was 6 days time. This highlights how early in the year
this is and this will be my first Munro in the month of April.
There were loads of strange insects fly arround and I think they were searching for heat.
They sat contentedly on the bodywork of the car and on the seast covers.
They looked a bit like clegs but looked more frendly.

It said in the guide book that you can park next to a locked gate half a mile on from the center
and that this is the closest to the hill. I drove on and there is a wee
dirt track car park full with 15 or so cars. There was a bridge over a burn and there were
some cars parked over the other side. I drove over and thought I could squeze in somewhere.
There was an easy space luckily enough.

I started over the gate and followed the dirt track for 5 minutes then a visable path veered off
to the right. It was easy enough walking and the sun was out from the broken cloud.

I wore my baseball cap to guard against sunstoke after my painfull experience on Brariach.
I climbed for 10 minutes and was feeling like a rest and I lay down facing Ben Lawers in the
direction I had come. There was a group of folk starting to walk up from the car park I
reckoned I had 15 minutes start and wondered if I could out pace them.

I was not feeling too stronge or energettic so I doubted if I could hold them off for long.

Just as I was setting off again they caught me and we crossed each other for ten minutes.
I was wearing my Airdrie strip and the guys in the group which included 2 women asked me
if we had won promotion yet. I said we need one more point

As I got higher Stob Benien and Ben more came into view. They looked great with a good snow
cover especially on stob benien. I could work out looking south which peaks were
Ben Vorlich and Stur Chorin(I had big problem climbing that also). I had climbed all these
and it felt good knowing that. I off course had the best view of Ben Lawers and its 3
closest neighbours all of them I have climbed. Just through a gap to the north of
Ben Lawers I could see a really sharp peak. I looked on the map to identify it and found
it was not a munro. There are 2 munros over that side but this was a top which sit in
between.

I was high enough to be on the main ridge now and I was struggling along slowly.
The group od 20 somethings had long gone now. There was a false top (as there often is) on
this munro. I reched there and rested. I could not see the group that had passed me, they
must have motored up the steep hillside. But then they came ito view they were in a dip in
the landscape. The progresses slowly up the steep incline. I then gave away a fair bit of
hieght before climbing again as they had done. I knw it was less than 100 meters in hieght
to go according to the map.

The incline was steep and a a point near the top I lay downa nad rested for a good while waiting
for my heat to het down from 110 bpm.

There was some snow arround but not on the path so there was no problem. I came round the final
bend to see the group ahead sitting at the summit.

I chatted to them and They took my pic and I took theres. They sounded like students or recent
graduates. They were up this hill last week when the cloud was so low and the rain so
horizontal that they thought the false top was the summit and walked back down.

One guy was on the mobile taking to his pal who was here last week and told him he had failed
to bag this munro.

Another of the guys was a Dundee Utd supporter interested in Owen Coyle etc.

They were doing the whole ridge walk but I was too tired already and I soon started down again.

I met an old guy (60 maybe) and a young gorgeous girl (18 maybe.)

We chatted for a bit, she was great and made me smile. The guy was really enthusiastic about
the weather and the hill etc.
Good on him, hope I am still at it in 25 years time.

On the drive back I stopped at Stirling services which is becoming a bit of a tradition with me.
After the customary baked beans and baked potato I continued home alert and feeling good.