SCHIEHALLION!!

My Dad came up to visit! I was very excited to see him, and not just because he agreed to take a car full of stuff I wasn’t using back to storage aka his garage (thanks Dad!!).

Dad was keen to do a Munro with me, and requested we pick an easier one since he hasn’t hiked a Munro in around 40 years (there aren’t v many munros in Lancashire). I suggested Schiehallion because we had unfinished business with this hill. We had intended to climb it one New Years Day when I was about 6 or 7 but turned back before we even got to the foot of the hill because the wind was flying me like a kite. So it felt right for us to come back and do this one together. From a glance at the book (really just a glance) this hike sounded manageable. It’s a walk straight up the ridge, what could go wrong?

We stayed up in Pitlochry – Dad stayed in a very nice hotel and I stayed in a car park 😄 – and set out at 9am, excited. The road to Schiehallion was a bit too eventful. I met a logger at a very narrow point in the road with a drop to the side. I squeezed over as far as I could, but pretty much cried when he edged past me, 1.5 inches from the side of my beautiful vehicle/home. 😩 I came out unscathed but unhappy for the experience.

When we set out walking, it was a lovely day. Some sun breaking through clouds, and barely a breath of wind. We were pretty excited on the way up.

We trudged up some steeper sections and the nice weather faded away taking some of our enthusiasm with it. It turned misty with a damp chill in the air. Not long after we had crested the ridge, the path vanished into a boulderfield. And not just any boulderfield, but quartzite boulderfield, which is so slippery in the wet that it’s like trying to hop over ice boulders. We kept seeing a path, which would vanish again after 3 steps leaving us to toddle precariously over the slippy rocks. I hadn’t read about this bit in the book. It was around about now when Dad stopped talking to me 😅

We stopped for a sandwich, donned the waterproof troos, and soldiered on. We eventually found a better path, though this led us to a scramble up to the summit which we hadn’t bargained for. Anyway when we got there it was the usual *could be anywhere* photo.

We met someone at the summit who had found a better route through the boulders on the way up. After he took a photo for us, we followed him down – Dad picked up the pace, clearly keen to get out of the bouldery mess.

On the way down, when we were just far enough there’s no way we’d be going back up, the wind blew the mist off the top. Gaaah. But I was happy to have sun shining on us again.

I’d been telling Dad on the way up about Brocken Spectres, which are an unusual phenomenon when the sun casts your shadow onto mist with a rainbow orb around it. Dad was a bit confused for a while about what was so unusual about “rock inspectors” on mountains 😂. I was merrily looking towards the sunshine when my brain put together that we had sun, mist, and us in the middle. I turned round and shouted “LOOK INTO THE MIST!!!”. We each had our own Brocken Spectres – first time I’d seen them and WOW. So so cool. I was snapping away and Dad was busy making snow angel arms with his shadow.

The Brocken Spectres faded as the mist thinned out. And all of a sudden it was a beautifully sunny day! We stopped for our second sandwiches and basked in the view for a while, a bit giddy from the stunning turn in the weather.

We toddled down the hill on our tired legs, getting back to the car park just as dusk was falling. We headed back to Pitlochry – me having a run in with a coach this time, who aggressively drove towards me while I was reversing blind in the pitch black hoping the road would widen up. I’ve now struck this road off my map.

We finished off the day with a massive curry, happy that Schiehallion was now well and truly conquered.