Tim versus the mountains: Stuchd an Lochain

12th September 2010

A fabulous walk from the western end of Glen Lyon, hairy coos, great views and sore legs.

Stuchd an Lochain (960m) Stook an Lochan - "Steep Conical Hill of the Lochan"

With only the Tarmachan ridge to do I've climbed the majority of the mountains in the Ben Lawers range, but I hadn't yet been over to the other side of the ridge and into Glen Lyon. For Sunday's walk I took my first foray into this magical valley, a really stunning place. To enter the Glen I drove up from Loch Tay, past the (now defunct) Ben Lawers visitors centre and down narrow single track road into the glen.

It was on this road I had my first encounter with the Glen Lyon Highland coos. A mother with feeding calf were stood half on, half off the road. I drove up to them extremely slowly so as not to startle them. I succeeded; they didn't even notice me, so much so that I got within in inches of them and they didn't even turn their head to see who was coming. I inched slowly forward, the cows took maybe half a step off the road, I inched a little bit more. It went on like this for 5 minutes until I just had sufficient room to get past and get the passenger side of my car wiped clean by a big hairy ginger mop!

I eventually got to the dam wall of Loch na Daimh, parked up, got out of the car only to realise I was surrounded by yet more of the ginger docile beasts. The Meggernie Estate, to which the area belongs, has quite a herd.

I set off on the hike, passing below the dam wall and up onto the south bank of the loch. The path contoured around the hillside for a while before taking a sharp turn south and straight up the ridge of Creag an Fheadain, climbing about 400m in 1km. Pretty hard going, especially as the path up had a dual identity, also being a stream flowing down. Once this bit of hard climbing had been done the worst was over and the views east down the valley opened up.

The walk from here was pretty straight forward with a gentle climb up to Sron Chona Choirein and then a slight descent before following the ridge round to the final climb. Throughout this part of the walk I had great views to the south across Glen Lyon. The landscape was as though it was taken from a glaciology text book. The hanging valleys were perfect.

The final leg of the climb followed a broad sweeping shoulder before a short steep kick up to the summit. All the while I had a good view down the corrie to Lochan nan Cat (see first photo). The weather was starting to turn at this stage so I didn't hang around and covered the ground quickly.

The views from the top were awesome even though the weather was murky. To the west Ranoch Moor was in view, to the south Ben More, to the east Glen Lyon and to the south east the Ben Lawers ridge. The notch between An Stuc and Meall Garbh clearly shows how steep (and scary) the descent of An Stuc is.

The route back was the same as the way up. Once off the top the weather cleared and it was an enjoyable quick stroll back. This was the first hike I'd done with two trekking poles, which I used throughout. Once I got into the rhythm of using them I found them to be extremely useful. They certainly took some weight off my legs, meaning less soreness the next day and gave my arms some exercise too.

Once back at the car I needed to negotiate the Glen Lyon herd again. Another cow wouldn't move off the road and was quite happy to drive along side her, open my car window stroke her nose. The next cow laid down on her belly didn't really want to move from her comfortable pose either, with legs crossed in front on the tarmac. An excellent day and a great inspiration to visit this magical glen again.