Sron Nan Colan & Meall Odhar - Day 1 Glengarry Lodge

Our Easter plans were to head to Scotland for 2 weeks, although the weather had been glorious leading up to our trip a weather front had moved in and we were treated to snow on our first morning. We'd managed to find a reasonably priced cabin to stay in at a B and B which was just down the road from Tyndrum. The forecast was more strong winds and snow so we decided to stay local and head up a hill I'd visited a few years ago. My report can be read here.

We couldn't face the walk along the busy A82 so parked at the free car park in Tyndrum near the visitor centre. We took a slightly alternative route to the previous occasion, crossing the railway line at Tyndrum Lower station to pick up the forest track which led us to our ascent route. Although the route up is steep it was pretty with all the lichen covered trees around.

Emma even remembered where the geocache was! Despite there being snow on higher ground there was frogspawn in the ditches already.

Once out the forest the path winds its way though the old lead mines, it's a little tricky to follow at times, but thankfully it wasn't covered in snow on this occasion so we didn't have too much trouble. Once we reached the snow line Emma had a bit of a go at sledging before we continued on to the top. Sadly the views weren't great due to the low hanging cloud, but the weather was reasonable enough that we could stop on the top without getting too chilly.

We continued along to higher ground on various undulations to Drochaid Am Droma, another minor hill top where we found a spot to shelter and have our lunch before heading to our final destination for the day - Meall Odhar. When we visited before we headed up the middle of it at it was really snowy  icy, on this occasion any snow that was there was just wet so we followed the ridge which heads up alongside the woodland. It started to snow and it was quite windy so it was a case of head down, head upwards!

A quick photo stop and we were back off in search of an alternative way down - earlier in the walk we'd seen what looked like mine buildings which we fancied checking out. This involved a bit of a steep descent (of which walking poles were essential!) to pick up some forest breaks through the woods, it's always a bit ambiguous in forestry if the break you are on is actually going to lead to the outskirts of the forest, it often feels a bit like you are in a Labyrinth!

Thankfully on this occasion the map corresponded with what was on the ground and we were soon out after more snow showers.

We had to head back up again to reach the mine buildings and once up close we realised they were just farm buildings, instead we continued on to take a look at an impressive looking waterfall.

Reading up about it afterwards though I believe that the buildings might have been part of the Gold Mine located there. It looks like there are plans to reopen it as it's recently gone through planning, more details can be read here The waterfall is from the river Allt Eas Anie river and is really impressive. I didn't try and get too closer look at the rock on the sides of the gorge looked pretty unstable. The waterfall is also a winter climbing location in colder conditions.

As we headed back down following the track alongside the River Cononish the heavens started to open, sadly we were below the freezing level so go pretty wet. We took a left turning onto a forest track which led up back to the station we had crossed earlier in the day. As we headed back we bumped into the owner of our Cabin who was out of his Quad Bike also getting soaked in the rain.

Once we arrived back at the cabin we were treated to the site of Red Deer in the back garden. No matter how many times I see Deer I still get excited, like a kid at Christmas time..