At the Ben Lawers Scottish National Trust car park we managed to squeeze ourselves in - it was packed. Most of the walkers and tourists were heading for Ben Lawers and we felt like seasoned veterans going the other way up the road. The first disappointment came half a mile up the road at the point you leave it when we discovered we could easily have driven there and had unnecessarily added a mile to the total journey. Through a gate and along a trackway going slowly upward was the first stage. Just at the point where we could see other walkers making their way up the hillside we saw a pathway and followed this up over boggy ground. The climb was steady but not too steep although Graeme seemed to be finding it heavy going. Towards the top, once over a bump you can see the way becoming very steep. I took the lead climbing up a very steep gully ( called a rake in the book) which at times required the use of hands to get up (mini scrambling). The way was clear and I easily reached the summit some way ahead of Graeme.
The rest of the Tarmachan Ridge is more interesting than just Meall nan Tarmachan although from the latter there are good views of a dam and of Beinn Ghlas/Ben Lawers. Getting on to the ridge was easy but disappointing in that route finding is simple. The pathway is absolutely clear and there is no way, beyond absolute stupidity, that anyone could lose their way.
The first top is Meall Garbh and was the most interesting one. As you get towards it the ridge gets narrower and begins to look knife edged - it is also going up and just at the end you have to edge round a corner, with seemingly steep drops underneath (I didn't look) and then up to a fairly sharp top from which you could see a pathway go along a very narrow ridge. Graeme went first to test it and at one point I shouted to him to turn round for a photo. He did so and was hit by vertigo having to hold out his hands for balance. From his encouragement that it was not too bad I went down and although I felt very apprehensive, by walking very carefully got through. Our first experience of a narrow ridge completed successfully. [By comparison with what we did later in the week this was tame but it didn't seem so at the time]. Shortly afterwards we met our first real scramble. The path suddenly went vertical for about 20 feet.
"Are you sure this is the path?" I'm shouting, but Graeme was by then halfway down. Hand and footholds were good so there was actually no problem once you got into it. This led into a valley and going up the other side we could see two more walkers reaching the scrambly bit. From their actions I could imagine them also saying "Are you sure this is the path?". The rest of the ridge walk was easy and uneventful. It is full of ups and downs and eventually you reach a point where you can go no further forward. First we tried a path that led down the last top but clearly led only to cliffs and we had to backtrack. At this point looking down the slope, although steep we felt we could give it a bash. It turned out to be dead easy and we went straight down. The journey down was boggy but straightforward leading to a trackway. This seemed to go on for ever but eventually became the path we had started on and so on back to the car park.
