19/Jun/2011 GM/CS-026 (Meall Greigh) and GM/CS-004 (Meall Garbh)
After yesterday’s heavy rain the forecast was for a better, but still
showery day, with following days less good. The mountain forecast
suggested that cloud would be above the high tops, so we decided to
take what might be a rare opportunity to go high. Caroline wanted to
do the two easternmost summits of the Lawers range, though Martyn
feared this might be too adventurous. We were also less sure about the
weather holding, but there was an obvious escape after the first
summit. Surprisingly this pair were last activated in 2008.
We parked in the lower car park at the Lawers Hotel - the hotel allows
walkers to park there if they either patronise the hotel afterwards or
pay 5 pounds. There’s no other parking nearby so we paid our 5 pounds
and set off down the road leaving it by former mill which is now a
horn carver’s workshop by the Lawers Burn. We were in shirtsleeves in
bright sunshine, but with waterproof trousers and were soon getting
rather warm as we headed up the path through pretty wooded lower
Lawers Burn valley. After leaving the wood for the open hill we
followed the path for a while, leaving it when it started dropping
down to head north up Sron Mhor. Progress got slower as the hill got
steeper, and we stopped to talk to a couple of lads descending - they
were doing a traverse of the Lawers range and had spent the wild rainy
night camping on the hill! Around 800m as we were approaching a sub
summit a faint path appeared, and the gradiant became easier. The all
round views were excellent.
Meall Greigh’s stony summit is marked by a cairn. If we were to do the
second summit, we couldn’t spend too long on this one, so decided to
try a VHF only activation, setting up the SOTA beam on the fishing
pole. We had put extra layers on for warmth at the summit, but just
as we started transmitting, a cloud crept up from the north and we
were suddenly battered by heavy hail shower. We both worked enough
stations on FM to qualify the hill, and by the time we had worked the
initial batch of FM callers the hail had stopped, but everything was
rather wet. At this point we were glad of our waterproof trousers.
With the rain easing we could finish our lunch, flipping the antenna
horizontal to try SSB, with one talking while the other ate. By the
time we were packing up the sun was shining again and the ridge walk
to Meall Garbh looked very inviting. The evolving views were
worth the effort, though we were hit by another short but even more
stinging hail shower just as we started on the ascent of Meall Garbh.
Our second hill of the day was also marked only with a cairn -
surprisingly none of the hills we climbed from Killin the year had
trig points. The summit is relatively narrow, and there was more wind
on this hill, so we went a little beyond the summit finding
shelter by dropping down slightly on the east side of the hill.
There were ominous clouds as we got to the summit, and these were soon
followed by the sound of distant thunder. We wanted to do HF on this
one, but might have to beat a hasty retreat. We decided that Caroline
would use the rucksac antenna to try to qualify the hill on 2m FM,
while Martyn worked out how to get the HF dipole up on the eastern
slope of the hill. Caroline got a good number of callers, and by calling
Martyn over to take calls, we both had the hill qualified on 2m FM before
the HF dipole was up.
The thunder wasn’t repeated, and the rain held off, so we settled down
for a proper activation. Since the rucksac antenna was getting out
well Caroline carried on with that on 2m FM. When the callers dried up
she moved to using the telescopic whip for 70cms, but with no takers,
so paused for something to eat. Meanwhile Martyn had got only 5 calls
on 5Mhz but then had a good run going on 7Mhz, calling Caroline over
for a pair of S2Ses with Carolyn GM6WRW and Helen MM0YHB. It was time
we were packing up, but the the 7MHz callers kept on coming, so we
swapped operators so Martyn could have something to eat while Caroline
worked the rest of the 7Mhz callers. By the time the run finally ended
Martyn had wandered over to the 2m FM station and picked up another 3
callers. The cloud had lifted and the threat of rain had gone, leaving
a lovely evening.
We had considered continuing on to the col with An Stuc and descending
to Lochan nan Cat from there, but as we were running late we headed
back towards Lairig Innein intending to drop down to the dam on the
Lawers Burn from there. However when we returned to the summit ridge
we were blown to a halt and had trouble standing. The wind had got up,
making the ridge path very hard going. We left the path to head down
more directly. A few paces after leaving the ridge the wind suddenly
dropped and we could hear ourselves think again. The descent was steep
but not difficult, running into a slightly boggy area as we crossed
the streams feeding the dam. We had hoped to cross the burn at the
dam, but there was no way over, but we found a rocky area below the
dam where we could cross to pick up the track on the other side.
We followed the track for about 300m to a cairn marking a faint path
off left. This attractive path followed the top of the valley of the
Lawers Burn, giving us good views in the now pleasant evening
sunshine. The path zigzagged down to a bridge over the burn before
rising gently to meet our outbound path. It was 8pm before we dragged
our weary legs back into the Lawers Hotel car park. Despite the hail
showers that was a stunningly good day on the hills. At 18 points it
was also our personal best haul of activator points in a day.