Today I thought I would grab the chance to get out before the weather completely spams out with the deep low arriving imminently. I need Beinn Mhanach (Monk Mountain) for my second round, and I also wanted to recce the easterly approach from Glen Lyon, as the approach from Auch is characterless in my memory, and has troublesome repeated fording of the burns, irritating at best, in spate, impossible.
I had always wondered if an approach up the 'longest, loneliest and loveliest glen in Scotland' (Walter Scott) would be better? Thankfully I didn't need to drive all 34 miles of it, but did have to cross from Killin to the Bridge of Balgie over the high pass that is the Lawers access road. This ascends to over 550m, and can be very troublesome in winter conditions. I took my 4x4, and though it was icy and covered with a light dusting of snow, it was fine, taken slowly.
Eventually, (this route may be short and sweet, but the drive isn't), I arrived at the far end of the public road, just below the dam and hydro station. Parking so as not to block the narrow road or any gateway, I set off on foot up the track on the north of the loch. I had read that you can use a MBK for the 6k ride to the fording of the Allt Meran, and now having walked it both ways, I would recommend doing so - I was just too lazy to dig out the bike, load it up, and moreover clean it afterwards, so taking to Shank's pony, I marched it in about 75 mins.
The stepping stones over the one and only burn crossing, the Allt Meran, are excellent. Real big ones, testament I suspect to how high the water can get. I would think if it was ripping through and you were teetering on the boulders, a good set of poles would be more than welcome, probably essential. 
From then on, it was just follow my nose up. I had spotted on the map a nice easy to follow burn, and that did have the least-wet ground. It was easy-angled, but relentless, and totally off-piste. Typical Scottish terrain, boggy and strength-sapping. As I got higher, the snow increased, and freezing level was around 800m, where the snow was like icing on the grass.
As you approach the summit, it narrows nicely, with a lovely coire to your right, so is a much better ascent than the featureless slog from Auch in that respect too. There were cornices building on the leeward lips of the coire, and it had a really wintry feel up there. I waited a few moments hoping for a view, but it was cold, so I made short work of the descent, back the way I came. The soft ground made it very quick indeed, and I was soon back at the burn.
After a snack and a tea, it was just the tedious slog back, (I detest track walks out, but what can you do?). As I said, a mountain bike would make it a lot easier.
​A nice day out, a nice tick, a nice recce, a nice alternative route. And back in time for my dinner.....what's not to like?

So said the famous mountaineer George Mallory, when asked in 1923 by a reporter about why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. He couldn't think of a better reason. My objectives are usually rather more prosaic in comparison, but the urge he so aptly described is probably the same I suspect - I mean, why would I choose to get up at 5am, drive 120 deer-dodging miles in the rain and dark, spend all day slogging up a boggy mountain for zero views, get wet, cold and footsore, then drive home again? Why, if not compelled to do so?
Well, I often ask myself the same thing, but there is never one answer. 'Because it's there' does encapsulate one urge - that to 'compleat' the munros a second time. Why do I want to do that? Well that's another essay I'm afraid. But it runs deeper than that. I NEED the hills, and it isn't important which ones usually. I am in a slow period in a mountaineer's season. There's not really any winter conditions yet, people are thinking of Christmas and the like, the nights are long, the weather usually unpredictable, so work is thin. January kicks off the Winter Skills training, so I will be very busy, but for now, I need to keep my fitness up and mojo honed by such days.
Of course, doing recces on hills I haven't climbed for decades is always useful, and it is entertaining to read my log from previous ascents. I think I remember so much, and yet I don't. Memory is an odd thing. I may remember a particular rock or view even, but the human aspects of the climbs are lost in all but my few words in the log. I found this a slog yesterday, and I did 13 years ago. I had a sore ankle yesterday, I did 13 years ago! I still came back. I still enjoyed it.
My pint last night tasted all the sweeter as it always does after a hard day. Had I stayed at home, despite always keeping busy chopping wood, doing long-neglected maintenance and more often than not fixing Lambrettas, I would not have felt the same. I get stir-crazy, my Rousseau-esque needs can only be satisfied by the outdoors, by adventure, by toil, by sweat.
Gulvain is set in wild and remote country, a finger of land stretching north from Loch Eil to Loch Arkaig, not often crossed by the public. It is 'dah dah daah' Tick Country as so amusingly but helpfully posted by the estate at the entrance marker post. As a solitary hill, not easily climbed in the pleasant circular trip that satisfies the senses, it requires a long walk (or rough MTB ride) in, and then a hard 850m straight up, before the same effort out. Purists and masochists only. But it ticks the boxes. It IS there :)