I have done the Tarmachan Ridge before and loved it. Sarah had decided that she wanted to try ridge walking and I felt this was a good introduction.

We started at Ben Lawers car park with some very low fog/cloud. Could definitely feel the moisture in the air but, with the temperature around 14 degrees, we decided to just wear t-shirts at the start.

Having done the route before I decided to do the long 5km walk in to start. This gives a chance for legs to warm up before any real ascent and saves having to do that walk out at the end of the day.

During the 5km walk in I was hinting to Sarah that she may get to see her first temperature inversion. She did!

Just before the top of Creag na Caillich we popped our heads through the attic door and straight into the blue skies and sunshine. From there we moved round to Beinn nan Eachan with a little scramble and then onto Meall Garbh for some real hands on.

I have never understood why people choose to do the route anti clockwise as it does mean a very awkward scramble down Meall Garbh. From the people we saw today and some of the words getting used, this was very evident!

Sarah absolutely breezed up the scramble and was soon on the ridge, going over the summit of Meall Garbh.

We stopped for a bite to eat and then carried on to summit Meall nan Tarmachan.

From there we headed down the shoulder before veering off east to head back towards the Ben Lawers car park.

With a time of 6.5hrs Sarah did a great job on her first ridge walk and was rightly proud. The only way to celebrate this properly was with a double scoop ice cream in Callander