Schiehallion from the “Queen’s View”
This was our first attempt at a hill in winter, just before Christmas. Schiehallion was supposedly one of the easiest climbs with a path all the way up and in summer is reputedly just a stroll. Unfortunately for us the weather was not kind. For two days there had been gales and blizzards and for about 24 hours before we started there had been incessant rain and there was still a steady downpour and a howling gale blowing when we started. The only good point, however, was that despite the wind the weather was mild and there would be no snow. The first problem hit us immediately at the edge of the car park. The little burn was a raging torrent and the wooden bridge was two feet under water. However, a few yards upstream was a peculiar fence straddling the burn - under normal conditions it must be 3 feet or more above the burn . Anyway it saved the day for us as we were able to clamber onto it and across. The pathway thereon was tortuous. Heavily eroded it acted as a stream for all the rainwater coming down and we were walking up in a mixture of mud, often a foot deep, and flowing water.
As we climbed the conditions got steadily worse. The rain had become horizontal and incessant and the wind kept threatening to blow us off the path. At one point with me in the lead I breasted a subsiduary ridge and whether or not there was a wind funnel effect I was almost blasted off my feet. The ground was sticky (about one inch of mud) and I found my body walking almost parallel to the ground like a skier. At this point I found the whole thing ridiculous and thought if it's like this here what will it be like on the main ridge. Both of us agreed to call it a day and we almost flew down as the wind was now at our backs.
Later in the car supping our oxtail soup we saw two people way up on the main ridge and it looked as if they were going to make it. I think that if there had been people ahead of us we might have been persuaded to try a bit harder. A disappointing day but an experience.
The second try at this mountain, with better conditions and with Neil (son-in-law) and Graeme. Started off using the bridge this time and could see that what we crossed the last time had been a fence presumably intended to block animals. What a difference it made not having gale force wind and rain (well we did have rain on and off but it was no problem). The path (not a river) was easy although very eroded. It is clearly the most eroded path I have experienced. It starts off easily becoming steeper halfway up before easing off nearer the summit. Despite being such a prominent path we still took a wrong turn. We saw a group ahead, off the path, having a break and as we passed them we followed what we thought was the obvious path. However, this path went round the mountain, not up it and we should have gone where the group was - obvious on the way down but not to us at the time. As it was, when we realised the error we had to make our way straight up the side of the hill. Graeme and Neil went direct towards crags but I went round. Reaching the ridge again, and the path, I met the two of them. They had had a hairy scramble which they hadn't relished but felt they had to do when met. The way gets stonier as you get higher and as we approached what seemed to be the top I had a feeling of disappointment that it was so easy. However, this was not the top and a rise appeared out of the mist. When we reached this another rise appeared. "The next one is definite" we said, but it wasn't. Nor was the next and the next. By the end we were getting frustrated as out of the mist yet another top appeared. Then we found ourselves circling a rocky top and made our way over large boulders to find we were on the real top, quite sharp and rocky which was not expected. Lunch, and Guinness, was had in the lee of the top, out of a nasty cold wind, avoiding an area some creep had obviously used as a toilet.
On the way down the mist cleared showing us a) lovely views and b) the false tops in series, hidden to us in mist conditions. Coming down was fast, certainly the easiest and fastest descent we have had.
