Meall nan Tarmachan

So, back in the van after a month or two mostly indoors in yoga training.. I headed back up to Perthshire. The forecast was good and Meall nan Tarmachan was in my sights. This lovely beast sits on the North side of Loch Tay, alongside the Lawers range.

Having not been in the van in a while, I was able to complete an *inordinate* amount of faffing while I assembled and packed my hiking kit. Also a bit (lot) of dithering and squinting up at the summits while I tried to calculate whether it was worth lugging the ice axe up the hill for the patchy-looking snow at the top. I took it. Because you’d all shake your heads at me if I didn’t and slid off the mountain into a hospital bed.

I started hiking somewhere not far off 11am…(!). Imagine my embarrassment when early on I met a lovely pair of ladies on their way down the hill who had set off from home in the borders at 3am that morning. I had camped *in the car park* and still couldn’t get my lazy ass onto the trail much before lunchtime. Champion. Though I read in a book once that being a morning lark (not me) or a night owl (absolutely me) is mostly genetic, so lets not stress about things we probably can’t change hey.

The hike up was lovely, if lung-busting. My body had clearly gotten used to nice yummy yoga practice of pretzeling around on a mat, and was happy to forget that cardio fitness is a thing. A thing I don’t seem to have. Fortunately the nice weather meant I could pretend to be admiring the view rather than fighting for air.

A chunk of the way up (that’s the official distance) I stopped for my first fake-cheese roll (since I’m now a vegan hiker) with a view of Beinn Ghlas and Ben Lawers. Vegan hiking is much the same as non-vegan hiking, except I seem to eat more, which is one of the big bonuses of being vegan they don’t tell you about. 👌

The stretch up to the summit of Tarmachan presented a choice of slushy slip and slide, or very steep grassy slope. I took the slip and slide because it looked pretty fun and I had brought the ice axe after all. I questioned that decision halfway up with the slush melting under my boots. But it wouldn’t really be a proper hike without at least one slightly-dicey moment no? 😅

As I hiked it in to the cairn, the sun really belted. It’s hard to beat sitting on top of a snowy peak in full sun. I made a new friend – Chrissy – who enthusiastically took some cheesy snaps of me pulling out some mountaintop yoga poses. 😂

I stayed at the top enjoying the sun for a while, and the absolutely spectacular views. I decided I was having a chilled hike today, so I headed back down, saving the rest of the Tarmachan ridge for another day.