Woke up to low cloud ,It had snowed all night and carried on all day, and warmer than predicted temperatures.
My wife dropped me off in Glen Falloch and I followed the river along the tree line before turning East and heading up to Grey Height 686m. The snow started at around 200m and every hollow was full and every fold banked out with powder making for very hard going. Visibility was down to between 100 and 200m but I enjoyed the hard work, having already cancelled 3 trips to Scotland with friends this season due to lack of snow. I walked up onto Meall Dhamh 814m and then had a good look at the map. The next peak was to be Cruach Adrian 1046m but from the little I could see the North West face looked steep and rocky and possibly holding a lot of new snow.
I decided to contour around trying not to lose to much height but the going was so hard I dropped a few hundred metres to better ground and made more progress. unfortunately I came out above a narrow but deep gully and the ground I was on was steep and not ideal with the run out being that gully. I dropped height again to get below the gully and onto the other, better ground on the opposite side. I was Cursing the time it was taken before stepping down into the bottom of the gully and walking straight into a group of 6 female Red deer. They trotted off to around 200m and kept the distance between us. Worth every extra meter I had to walk. I fought my way up through the coll and onto Stob Glas 813m. It was now late in the afternoon and legs feeling like I'd just gone through a scrummaging session with Jim Telfer I decided to make my way to the meeting point with my wife and just got there at the arranged time meaning I was in time for a beer and a fright as Scotland handed England a second half thrashing.
Area :
Loch Lomond to Strathyre (Ben More)
Ben Lomond (974m) and Ben More (1174m) sit on opposite sides of this area which stretches from Loch Lomond to the western end of Loch Earn. There are two distinct sections, to the north and south of Glen Voil, with the remaining peaks sitting to the south of Loch Katrine. Access to the majority of the hills in this area is commonly from Crianlarich, Aberfoyle or Callander.
