Meall Nan Tarmachan and thoughts on the pointlessness of Munro bagging
The last few days have ushered in the start of spring. A perfect day to head up a busy munro and ponder the purpose of bagging Scotland's highest peaks!
Arriving at Ben Lawers car park you could be mistaken for arriving at a music festival. It was busy with hikers walking in every direction and van lifers watching the commotion from the comfort of camp chairs. I had foolishly expected it to be a bit quieter than it was. My mistake! Munros are usually busy, regardless of location or time of year and I should have been more prepared. I prefer the Munros smaller brothers, the Corbetts for their piece and solitude. We were lucky to find a parking space, costing us £4 for the day.
By Munro standards, Meall Nan Tarmachan is simple to bag. It can be extended into a fun, albeit short ridge walk along the Tarmachan Ridge creating a nice circular walk. Completing the Tarmachan Ridge will also bag you the tops of Meall Garbh and Beinn nan Eachan.
Meall Nan Tarmachan translates to ‘Hill of the Ptarmigans’. It ranks as the 149th highest peak at 1043.6m, or in old money, 3424ft and is located west of the Ben Lawers range of Munros in the Southern Highlands near Killin.
Bagging the Munro and completing the ridge walk was our plan for the day. However, as with any plan for a day spent in the Scottish mountains, it has to be as flexible as a rubber band! The conditions on the summit had made their plans for us, meaning we, as well as a group of other walkers, had to retreat from the ridge. But more on that later!
It was just before 9 am and we had driven through thick fog to arrive at the car park. We hoped the low-lying cloud would persist long enough for an inversion. We were not disappointed! As I have written before, inversions are one of the magical phenomena all hillwalkers hope to witness (and of course the epic ‘bothies’ that are waiting for you when the wind, rain or snow is hitting you at ninety degrees!).
Being antisocial by nature we were happy, relieved even, to see most of the walkers leave the car park and head up the Munros of Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas. This didn’t mean we had Meall Nan Tarmachan all to ourselves of course. At no point could we not see (or hear) any other hikers. We still felt relieved to have avoided the worst of the throbbing crowds that we could see on the opposite side of the glen!
The trail starts with a small opening at the bottom of the car park and then follows a thin rocky trail to cross a track used by farm vehicles. This is where the mountain trail starts, slowly heading uphill.
We had already risen just above the clouds. The sky was a brilliant blue and the temperature was rising quickly. If we had shorts with us, we would have considered putting them on. It was that warm. Spring was upon us but winter has not yet departed either!
In the mountains, as with long-distance trails, we are no speed demons. We walk slowly, methodically absorbing every moment, every view, smell, taste and sensation. Being in the wild and remote (and sometimes busy) places is what we live for. Speeding along or up the hills and along paths might allow you to bag a Munro or complete a trail. But at no point can you truly experience it!
There is a world of difference between completing something and experiencing it.
With a countless amount of walkers speeding past us, talking of little more than their Munro count or ascent time. We couldn’t help but ponder the very point, or more specifically the pointless endeavour of Munro bagging for Munro bagging sake
Eve and I spoke at length about the purpose of being outdoors, exploring these places and what it meant to us. But more importantly and more specifically, why we do it. Why do a father and daughter spend so much time away from phone signals and distractions of modern life, metaphorically lost in some wild and inaccessible place of the British Isles, specifically Scotland?
The call of the wild isn't to tick off some arbitrary list of peaks, based on nothing more than the human classification of what does or does not constitute a Munro, Corbett or any other ‘list’. It’s the freedom, the absolute beauty and superiority of nature and the geology that we walk through. Seeing the ruin of a cottage can provide a glimpse into the recent history of human activity. It’s also the rocks and water that cascade down the mountains that hold a history dating back to the very formation of the land we walk on. It remedies us of our fragility and pointlessness to the evolution of the world around us. It gives us the chance to be free and uplifted beyond the height of any munro, and forces us to be humble and respectful to everything we may take for granted.
I know that sometimes I can write in a way that’s cryptic, philosophical or even poetic. But that's what the wild places do for Eve and I, and could do for you too. All you need to do is slow down and stop ticking those boxes. Scotland has so much more to offer than a tick list of Munros!
If you want evidence of this, and the effect it can have on you, look no further than Scotland’s most famous poet Robert Burns or even the physicist Albert Einstein and the Naturalist and geologist Charles Darwin whose daily ritual involved walking, several times a day for miles!
Their thoughts and writing didn't come from a list but from walking and spending time outdoors and in their thoughts; feeling the world around them and pondering the deeper questions to find the most profound answers in their way. You and I are no different, even if our ponderings don't write such beautiful verses or describe the evolution of nature. The effect it can have on you can be just as profound.
Have you ever looked at a map of the Munros?
Look at their distribution and I can promise you this, you will inevitably drive through some of the most magnificent and quintessential landscapes on the British Isles just to get to your Munro bagging car park or layby! If you stop on route, and explore the places you drive through, instead of heading up and back down a Munro just to ‘bag it’, you will experience everything Scotland's mountain landscapes have to offer and more.
Munro bagging at its core is boring. The journey and experience is everything! So why are Eve and I Munro bagging, Corbett bagging, Donald bagging and Graham bagging?
For our autistic minds, the list provides a structure that in all honesty I would love to be able to cast off. But we are who we are and structure is what we need. The list whittles down an endless and infinite list of possibilities, to something manageable. It’s not about Munro bagging, Corbett bagging, Donald or Graham bagging. It's about the outdoors, the journey and the experience. Being away from people, phone signals, pressure and distractions of everyday life that all too easily overwhelm us. For Eve and I, it's a medicine more potent than any antidepressant or antianxiety pills and more addictive than alcohol or cocaine! If the list of Scottish mountains can help us with that, then I will reluctantly call ourselves Munro Baggers.
You can hold me true to this statement. I will gain no more pleasure or satisfaction the day I bag the last Munro than the day I reach the peak of the first Munro. For Eve, I don’t know how she will feel, and in all honesty neither does she. What she will tell you (if she feels comfortable in your presence), is that the only summit she wants to bag is that of Mt Everest!
As we walked higher up Meall Nan Tarmachan we could see the Lochan na Lairge dam coming into view. It’s a feat of engineering that only comes into perspective from above. But like all things, it paled into insignificance when, with every few paces, we stopped to look behind us at the inversion.
With every stop, we would have walkers pass us. Most would say ‘hi’, a few would be too busy focusing on their breathing and the rest would ask us ‘What [munro] number are we up to?’. But what surprised us the most was the amount of children we saw. We must have had over 20 children all younger than Eve come past us, which was fantastic to see especially when one young gentleman proudly stated that this was his first Munro! “Congratulations and well done” was our response and the father was also very proud. This is one time when munro bagging for the sake of it, is worth everything and more! I feel proud to have shared such a brief moment of such an epic day for a young father and son. Well done!
The route for most of the ascent was straightforward. We walked over rocks and up steps made out of boulders. Meall Nan Tarmachan appears in most lists as one of the easier Munros to climb. The reality is there is no such thing as an easy Munro. Meall Nan Tarmachan is just less technical as it has a starting point higher up, meaning less ascent than some. No Munro should ever be considered easy and treated with disrespect.
As we approached the summit, we passed over a few small patches of hard snow. For most, this is just something to walk over, for Eve and I, it’s another place to play and explore. On virtually every patch of snow Eve would launch herself onto it with great excitement. Followed shortly by the thud as a snowball (more of a ball of ice) struck me! Not to hurt but out of joy, and I was all too pleased to oblige her as a target. I made a mental note of all the impacts so that, when the number got sufficiently high, I could reap my revenge and obliterate her with a hail of snowballs at a later date with little to no feeling of guilt or remorse. I await that day with great excitement!
Before the final steep ascent, we had to drop down ever so slightly, climbing a fence peppered with damage from crampons and spikes from winter ascents. It’s hard to imagine on a sunny day, how stark and bleak this would be in mid-winter. Something we would love to find out at some point!
The summit of Meall Nan Tarmachan is reached with little warning. The summit is also nondescript and can easily be misidentified as the south top just before the true summit. The summit of Meall Nan Tarmachan felt very different to the lower sections, with a strong wind and a windchill to make it feel well below freezing.
The view from the top was breathtaking and awe-inspiring. For a few minutes, we even enjoyed having the summit all to ourselves. On the route up, we passed the same group of walkers as they paused for breaks and to get some video footage. They looked very well equipped with bright trousers and large backpacks.
We both agreed to take photographs of each other on the summit before descending slightly to escape the wind. By now it was about midday and lunchtime. We were both hungry. For lunch, we had homemade Biscoff flapjack; one of our favourite lunches to enjoy on any summit.
As we sat eating and sipping from our flasks we watched other walkers arrive on the summit, take a photograph and descend the same way they had come. We have done this before, retracing our steps but it’s also one of the things I dislike about Munro bagging. This is standard for so many people.
Eve and I prefer a circular route, even if that takes us off the main path. We had planned to carry on to the top of Meall Garbh before starting the ridge walk to the second top of Beinn nan Eachan. But this is where our plan changed.
After a short lunch break, Eve and I continued onto Meall Garbh. We left behind every other walker, apart from the one group that we had been passing all day and one individual who was making his way back towards us.
We reached the top of Meall Garbh quickly and with ease, passing a small lochan and a few patches of snow to reach the start of the ridge walk.
We paused for a break hiding behind some boulders to keep out of the wind. This is where we started to have doubts about completing the ridge walk. The wind was even stronger and the ridge was wet. Eve and I had a discussion and agreed to backtrack and find an alternative route without retracing our steps all the way back.
It was then the group of walkers we had taken pictures for came over the ridge towards us. They explained that they had turned around as it was too steep, wet and windy to carry on safely. Their retreat confirmed what we had already decided. If they weren't happy with it, there would be no chance I would be attempting it with my 11-year-old daughter!
We would have to forgo the top of Beinn nan Eachan. We will return!
Eve and I descended off the rocky top of Meall Garbh and followed a path on the map heading almost directly south. The path was good to begin with but soon faded into a maze of animal tracks and bogs. We could see the main track a mile or so below us, so we made our way slowly down, sidestepping the worst of the wet. It was fun but slow going. The descents are always much harder than the ascents and require more care and consideration!
Once at the bottom and back onto the main track we had crossed that morning the wind had gone and the sun's heat made us sweat. We walked at speed towards the car park with people in front and behind us. Before long the car park came into view, and with it throngs of people milling about. It's an odd sight from above, looking down onto moors that extend as far as the eye can see and in the middle is a huddle of cars and countless people! To our relief, we could see our car!
Seeing the car gave us a sense of relief, not because it offered an escape but purely because it wasn’t stolen! It’s always a concern given that we leave the car in some very remote and isolated places for our escape into the hills!
Arriving at the car is also bittersweet. The ending of a good day but knowing we would be drinking a hot cup of tea and relieving the day's adventure for Sarah to hear about, albeit with a sense of envy for having to miss out!
The day had been superb! We experienced an inversion. Bagged another Munro. Made the hard decision to retreat and of course, spent the day in the wilds of Scotland as father and daughter.
Thanks for reading and indulging me with your time! If you did enjoy my writing you can buy me a coffee or a hot chocolate for Eve. Your support is hugely appreciated! Thank you.