Meall Nan Tarmachan – The Perfect Easy Munro

A lot of people who have never climbed a Munro before can feel a bit intimidated, and if like me, you are taking to the hills a bit later in life, then you might not be sure of your own capabilities - will you make it up to the top?

More importantly, will you make it back down?

A search of easy Munros to climb often comes up with hills such as Ben Lomond.  Now Ben Lomond is a straightforward climb, but it does start at sea level, and I would suggest that if you are new to this game, then it is actually quite a challenge.

You could go to the other extreme and climb Carn Aosda.  The car park is over 600m high, and you could easily be at the top of your first Munro in half an hour.  However, climbing through all the hardware of the Glenshee Ski Centre is not the most attractive ascent, and it could well put you off Munros for life.

Meall Nan Tarmachan is the perfect compromise.  Car park about 400m, so you still have a bit of work to do, beautiful scenery, and a straightforward and very enjoyable climb.  I would recommend this as a first Munro to anyone - especially any elderly climbers like myself!

If you are just going straight up and down, this should take you about 3 hours.

Meall Nan Tarmachan - Part 1 - Getting There

The car park for this climb is the same as for the Ben Lawers climb.

For the Ben Lawers climb you have to cross the road and head up Beinn Ghlas - this climb is in the opposite direction.

The path for this climb starts on the other side of the metal barrier at the back of the car park.

Part 2

Follow the path behind the metal barrier and you soon come to a signpost pointing to the right - take that path.

When you come to a track crossing the path, go across it and find the path on the other side.

Now there is not really much more to say about this climb in terms of directions - you simply follow the path to the top.

As you climb, you begin to get great views of Loch Tay behind and below you, and to the right, a fine view of the dam at the end of Lochan na Lairige.

As you climb higher, you start to get your first glimpse of Ben Lawers peaking out from behind Beinn Ghlas over to the right.

In our case we only got a brief view as the weather was closing in fast.

There is time for a breather on a level section before tackling the final steep slope up to the summit.

My climbing companion for the day, Freddie, at the summit of Meall Nan Tarmachan.

There is a well known and highly recommended ridge walk that continues on from here and we had planned to continue onwards...

....but as you can see from the picture, the weather was deteriorating fast and we were soon in thick fog and heavy rain.

Now we are both getting on a bit, but were not daft!

So whilst several younger climbers pushed on past us to complete the ridge, we decided to head back down to a warm dry car and leave the ridge for another day.

Anyway it's a good excuse to come back.

A really enjoyable climb.