It’s my birthday today, so I decided to head to my favourite place – Schiehallion. Having gone out for a meal with friends on Friday night (to the excellent Cafe Andaluz) I was all on my own today!

It was dry and overcast when I set out from Glasgow this morning, and when I started up the path to Schiehallion it was clear there’d be no view today – the cloud was very low and covering the top of the mountain, although the summit was just visible.

Once up on the main wide, flat back of Schiehallion the clouds looked almost close enough to touch, and they were doing a good job of framing Loch Tummel below.

Climbing up onto the secondary ridge meant passing into the clouds, and it became progressively mistier the higher I went.

On this rocky section there is some amazing lichen – some if it entirely natural (like the bright red colour below) and some of it given a helping hand (the ring patterns below were probably created by “painting” yoghurt onto the rock, which the lichen then grows on).

The summit was quite busy and relatively cloud-free, with views through patches in the clouds visible from time to time.

By the time I started making my way back down, the cloud had lifted slightly, although the wind had picked up and it was moving huge sections of cloud across the mountain quite quickly.

Back on the flat near the bottom I stopped briefly to take a picture of some stunning foxgloves against a back-drop of heather, before heading to the car and setting off south.