Ben A'an & Meal Reamhar - Scotland day 1

Despite being rather obsessed with going up mountains I've never been to Scotland before. My partner Mike has been lots of times though and has been up a fair few Munros. With my Brother nearly completing the Munros I decided it was about time me and Emma got ourselves to Scotland, it also happily coincided with my 30th Birthday. In the week leading up to our trip there was a countrywide dumping of snow on all the hills causing road closures, power cuts and big huge snow drifts. The weather had settled down a bit before our trip but there was still a bitter Easterly wind and large amounts of snow in places.

We weren't arriving in Scotland till lunchtime so decided on a small hill en route - Ben A'an. There is parking for a fee on the shores of Loch Achray and a good engineered path to the top.







The top isn't the true highest point which we didn't go to. The path was fairly icy near the top and we had to don our microspikes to stop ourselves slipping over. The views were fantastic especially when the sun appeared though the snow clouds which were bringing snow showers on the wind.







As the sun was shining and we were feeling fit we decided to continue on to Meal Reamhar. There was a good path, but this soon disappeared leaving us to the mercy for the rough heathery moorland which had lots of ups and downs.









We eventually reached our second top after as bit of a struggle in the deep powdery snow. It was then downwards through the forrestry to join the path leading along Loch Katrine. Getting through the young forrestry was a bit of a bramble fest but Emma coped admirably and we were all happy to reach the track.





As we wandered along we found a wind up box which when wound up played Ave Maria which seemed perfectly timed for the parting of the clouds and the sun coming through.



We were hoping to get a bag of crisps in the pub marked on the map near the Katrine Pier as we were starving having only planned a short walk originally we hadn't taken too much food. The pub was sadly shut so we headed back to the car to get chips in Callendar and to continue our journey on to Crianlarich.