Movin’ on up: Chasing cloud inversions in the Tarmachan Hills

I’d been fog-bound all evening. It was just after dark and I’d settled into my sleeping bag, willing the morning to come. As the oblivion of sleep started to smother me, I heard a familiar sound close by: ptarmigans.

I smiled a sleepy smile as I realised the significance of the moment – I was camping high on Meall nan Tarmachan, or as it translates, ‘hill of the ptarmigans’. It was the first in a series of events that only got better and better.

The Tarmachan hills are a few kilometres north of Killin, and the ridgeline they create is widely regarded as the crown of the Central Highlands. The Ben Lawers range is a stone’s throw away, and below to the south are the cool waters of Loch Tay, stretching a vista-filling 23km in length.

Tourists abound, occupying lodges, tents, caravans and cafés: it’s only up in these mountains that you lose the bustle of tourism. The Tarmachan Ridge (or Ptarmigan Ridge, as I’ll refer to it for the rest of eternity) is by no means quiet, but any tourists up there are walkers, and walkers who know their stuff. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get back to the fog.

On a wing and a prayer

I’d been based up in the Cairngorms, primed for a Ben Macdui epic, but a last-minute change for the worst in the weather made me restless. I needed to take control of the situation. After searching weather forecasts across the whole of Scotland I realised the Killin area looked the most promising, but there was a catch – it looked promising from first thing the next morning.

To contextualise my thought process, let me tell you two things. Firstly it was mid-September. And secondly those ‘promising conditions’ meant only one thing at that time of year – cloud inversions.

Revitalised by that thought, I drove to Killin, bought a map, packed a wild camping tent and some provisions into my bag and parked just south of Lochan na Lairige. After locking the car, I stepped into a wall of water vapour. My plan was to put in the work, climbing up to a suitable wild camp spot high on the ridge, then wake up pre-dawn and reap the rewards of spotting an opportunity and believing in it.

There’s something calming about having zero expectations from a walk and the haul up Meall nan Tarmachan was one such occasion. Windows in the fog and cloud would briefly open, teasing my eyes, then close with the wind, shattering the sky’s good intentions.

I summited Meall nan Tarmachan early that evening, but didn’t stop or even break my stride. I’d be back at dawn when it would hopefully be worth being there.

I headed for the smaller of two lochans about halfway between the peak I’d just climbed and Meall Garbh. Close to the spot that ended my day’s walking I crossed paths with the ridge’s namesake, as a fully-grown family of ptarmigans waddled about in front of me.

It almost felt like they were thinking, ‘This is our ridge: the clue’s in the name.’ Their plumage of grey, brown and white was an effective mountain camouflage; little did I realise the hills would come alive with their calls a few hours later. And so the day ended, in a very different place from where it started.

Up with the birds

Ptarmigans began my day in the same way they’d ended the previous one, but this time I was awake with the day’s ambitions first and foremost in my mind. Pulling the tent flap aside, I looked up, eyes nervously seeking the cool uniformity of a clear, pre-dawn sky.

They weren’t disappointed. I made a coffee and drank it too quickly, while it was still too hot, then abandoned camp for the top of Meall nan Tarmachan (again). With only the essentials in my pack, I arrived at the summit cairn with just moments to go before the fiery orb began blazing a trail through the day.

I stood for a few minutes waiting. I looked up into the sky: all was still, clear. Down below, ghosts of long dead clouds haunted the glens, snaking above the lochs and rivers, lying low for now. The coming sun would reinflate their ambitions, resurrect them, and turn them into fully fledged cloud inversions. But the sun had to rise first.

The silhouette of the Ben Lawers range became harder to look at as a fierceness bloomed behind it, culminating in that life-giving force breaking the horizon. I developed an earworm for the next hour as these words from Primal Scream’s Movin’ on up filled every thought:

I was blind, now I can see
You made a believer out of me
I’m movin’ on up now
Getting’ out of the darkness
My light shines on, my light shines on…

The euphoria of perfection grew in me. On the way back to the tent, everywhere looked spectral as those glen-bound spirits rose before me like fast-changing visions of a dream world. I realised the Tarmachan Ridge would be a tightrope that stretched across the gauntlet of the world below and above a cloud inversion. And so it proved.

Breakfast proper tasted of success and more coffee sharpened every sense. Mornings like those fill the memory banks for decades. I stood above the lochan, draining the last from my mug while my shadow was projected onto the wisps of mist that enveloped me.

A Brocken spectre – a ball of a rainbow with my own shadow in its centre – grew in luminosity before me, then faded into the thought, ‘Was I seeing things?’ I knew I was high in the mountains, but it felt more like I was ‘high’ in the mountains.

As much as I blinked, these unreal visions kept coming. I packed my tent away knowing the walk along the rest of the Tarmachan Hills’ Ptarmigan Ridge had the potential to blow my mind still further. And so it proved.

Light entertainment

Meall Garbh is not quite the tallest of the Tarmachan range, but this 1027m peak is without doubt the shining star of the ridge. Approaching from the direction of Meall nan Tarmachan, it has a crazily spectacular profile: all classically conical until you see the fang-like summit tower giving it a slightly more Tolkienesque Mount Doom vibe. Add in the swirling mist clouds and God-like patches of light, and you maybe get the picture. And don’t worry: things didn’t go sideways. This wasn’t a bad trip. This was perfection.

Up until Meall Garbh the paths had been pleasantly straightforward. But climbing up to that fang, the track narrowed as it climbed in a series of S-bends. Every time I paused to catch my breath, I had it snatched away from me by the stunningly rare quality of the views.

I was gaining height again and freeing myself from intermittent immersion in the cloud inversion. The constantly shifting fog and cloud, along with the clarity of the morning sunlight created visions of perfection that, if I close my eyes now, many hundreds of miles and several seasons from that morning, I can see it all so clearly.

Looking out to the north-east, the inversion clung to the left-hand side of the mountains, and those mountains were the already climbed Meall nan Tarmachan and the roller coaster ridge that reared and bucked its way between us. Far out in the sea of cloud, the summit of Ben Lawers surfaced, taking a breath before submerging back under the cloud’s meniscus. It was like I imagined seeing the Loch Ness monster might be.

The tight top of Meall Garbh was always going to be some kind of revelation, and when I gazed north into Coire Riadhailt I saw what I hoped I might, only better than I ever dreamed. A conical shadow of the mountain I was standing on spread away from my feet, spilling onto the cloud pooling in the glen. On top of that mountain shadow was my very own Brocken spectre.

That wasn’t all. The ridge to the west was the stuff we all dream of: narrow, level and high, with the inversion lapping its right edge. Beyond, the distant landscape was becoming completely cloud-free, with the sun now climbing higher in the sky, doing its best to quieten the glen-bound spirits.

After all, they normally belong to the haunted start and end of the day. It was a fun walk along that ridge – just narrow enough to make you concentrate. I traversed it with a smile.

Pursuing perfection

That smile was unexpectedly wiped off my face about five minutes later. The ridge descended, then hit a steeper band of rock. I was so blissed out with the experience that the short downclimb I had to do (over what would have been an easy scramble in ascent) I found unnervingly difficult.

I just hadn’t got my scrambling head on. I got past the obstacle and reached the third summit of the day at Beinn nan Eachan. From here, looking back along the ridge, it seemed like an impossibly long way, but of course it wasn’t. Such was the quality of the weather and the class of the route, I inevitably met numerous like-minded folk (I met several Trail and LFTO readers, hello to you).

They were all out for the day and consequently didn’t carry a snail-shell quite so big and heavy as mine on their backs. They made pleasant small talk, then blasted on through, but I was content to amble. This was a perfect day.

The bealach south-west of Beinn nan Eachan hides a path not marked on any OS map. It slips away from the hills and joins with the access track which services a disused quarry to the south of the mountains. Once I reached that track, I relaxed and made slow time back to the car, all the while looking over my left shoulder to the sun-warmed slopes of the Tarmachan Hills. Was it all a dream?

When I was nearly back, I bumped into a chap who was just setting out and we chatted. He was buzzing about the potential for the day before him, but when he asked me how I’d got on, I didn’t know where to start.

I certainly didn’t want to take away from what was going to be a great day for him, so I didn’t mention the ethereal world of ghosts I’d been wrapped up in since first light. I just mumbled something about it being ‘bangin’ up there, and then we parted ways.

At the car, with my pack and boots off, I felt like a fisherman who’d just landed the catch of a lifetime and then loses interest in his hobby, ambitions achieved. With that thought in mind, I decided that I hadn’t just had the most perfect day.

How else would I continue this wondrous activity we all love if I knew I’d seen and been to perfection? No, I’m going to forget that trip and keep on searching. I know the perfect day is out there somewhere, if only I can find it.