Ben Lawers, Glen Lyon & Schiehallion

Ben Lawers | Tarmachan Ridge | Glen Lyon Circuit | Schiehallion

The area around Loch Tay and Glen Lyon is home to a large number of Munros & Corbetts including Ben Lawers, which is the highest in the area as well as 10th highest of all the Munros! Sitting above Loch Tay, Lawers and the rest of the range attached to it, offer both superb views and walking, with various options for ticking a number of Munros off in quick succession. It also lends its name to the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve, famed for its collection of rare arctic-alpine plants and lichen.

The area includes other well-known Munros such as the Meall nan Tarmachan, better known as Tarmachan Ridge, a classic little ridge that requires a head for heights and provides a lovely circular route if you cross and descend past it, and the Glen Lyon circuit. This circuit is another popular loop with baggers, gaining you 4 ticks on your Munro tally while also providing some brilliant views over the glen to the Lawers range on a clear day.

It also offers plenty of lesser travelled walking deeper into Glen Lyon and Glen Lochay for that more remote and off the beaten track feel. Meall Ghaordaidh and the Corbett of Beinn nan Oighreag are one option that certainly have a remote feel with fairly pathless walking up to the initial summit and then some steep descents and reascents over the Corbett if you want to link the two together.

So why not join us on our guided walks to see what this lovely area has to offer?

Ben Lawers

Despite being one of the highest Munros, Ben Lawers is often done at the beginning of people’s Munro bagging journeys along with its neighbour Beinn Ghlas as these two make for a relatively easy day out. This simplicity is in part because, navigationally, they have big tracks meaning less reliance on solid navigation skills. With the car park sitting just under 400m high on the pass over to Glen Lyon, giving a head start on the walk, this is also a factor for the popularity amongst first time or early Munro baggers. If you’re feeling a bit fitter, however, it is also done as part of the Lawers 5 and the Lawers 7 (blog from our winter traverse of the Lawers 7). As the names suggest these routes include 5 and 7 Munros in their rounds. Both of these require some planning regarding logistics as they tend to be a two-car job to avoid a potentially very long walk back along the road. Alternatively, hitch hiking back to your car is another option.

Keep an eye out for all these options as we like to mix it up and offer different versions of this fantastic Munro, each appealing to a different abilities.

Munros: Beinn Ghlas, Ben Lawers, An Stuc, Meall Garbh, Meall Greigh, Meall Corranaich & Meall a’Choire Leith

Fitness:

Ben Lawers & Beinn Ghlas - a great Beginner Walk, 4-6 hours

Ben Lawers 5 - Solid day, good general fitness required, 8-9 hours

Ben Lawers 7 - The 5 plus 2 more! This is a long day & requires good hill fitness!

Tarmachan Ridge / Meall Nan Tarmachan

This famous ridge is renowned for being airy and needing a good head for heights. It’s not very long but, compared to anything nearby, it is definitely a skinny ridge worthy of some wariness. However, to summit the actual Munro you don’t need to walk along the ridge as it lies after the Munro top of Meall Garbh. That being said, the advantage of walking across the ridge is that you get a lovely circular route rather than out and back the same way, and it can be a great place to build up confidence ready for other areas where ridges are more of a normal feature.

We normally do this Munro in a couple of ways depending on the objective. If we are there ticking off all the Munros across the whole weekend, we will take the out and back option to shorten the day and save energy for the rest of the weekend’s walking. Of course, we head along to the ridge for a look and to walk along it because it would be rude not to. Secondly, we do the full loop if the objective is just the Munro and ridge itself, that way we can enjoy the rest of the route out from Meall Garbh before circling back below the mountains to the carpark.

Fitness: Beginner Walk - But with an airy ridge!

Duration: 4 - 7hours (route depending.)

Glen Lyon Circuit

Offering fine views over Loch Rannoch and The Lawers range, as well as a direct view to Schiehallion, these Munros make for are a great day out. The route offers up the four Munros of Carn Gorm, Meall Garbh, Carn Mairg and Creag Mhor. Being broad rolling mountains, the walking is mainly undulating between the summits so not much steep descent and re-ascent.

Fitness: Reasonable general fitness required.

Duration: 7-8 hours of walking

Schiehallion

Another incredibly well-known Munro, it’s famous as the first known use of contours by mathematician Charles Hutton in 1774. Albeit not actually to represent height on Schiehallion but in an effort to solve a problem he had been given; weighing the mountain. This Munro offers a brilliant introductory walk for beginners building up their hill fitness. It has a good track for most of the way before hitting a boulder field towards the summit and is a relatively short day out. It also affords some fantastic 360-degree views as it is a satellite Munro, sat all on its own. It mostly appears as a ‘whaleback’ when viewed from afar but if you see it end on from Loch Rannoch it is a perfect cone. It’s visible from a lot further away than you think when you know what you’re looking for.

Fitness: Beginner - Fantastic walk for beginners getting into mountain walking.

Duration: 4-6 hours

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