The weather forecast for today looked very good, with clear skies predicted. There had been snow falls over the hills during the week, so I decided to head for my favourite mountain today – Schiehallion.

Last week was very wet and the bridge at Aberfeldy had been closed, and since I didn’t know if it was open again I went via Pitlochry and Loch Tummel which gave me an excuse to stop at the Queen’s View where the view was particularly good today.

Schiehallion‘s summit looked fairly free of clouds, so I was hopeful of a good view from the top. After chatting to another photographer for a while I continued on round to the Braes of Foss car park and made my way up the approach path, stopping at the cup-marked rock on the way.

About half way up the steep initial climb onto Schiehallion‘s long ridge the I reached the snowline, and once on the ridge itself there was about 20cm of lovely powdery snow but with the rocky surface poking through.

As I made my way along the wide, flat ridge the cloud came down and reduced the visibility considerably. But by the time I’d started climbing up towards the summit it had lifted again, giving great views back along the mountain towards Loch Tummel.

Ahead of me though the cloud was coming in again.

By the time I got to the summit itself any chance of a view had more or less gone. I got a brief and hazy glimpse of Loch Rannoch before everything went white.

I braved the freezing conditions for about half an hour in the hope that the cloud would lift again, but I couldn’t see anything to the west and this was as good as it got to the east.

As I made my way back down from the summit and came out of the clouds, I was treated to a beautiful view of Loch Tummel as the sun started to set.

Rather predictably now that I was down from the summit the clouds had disappeared leaving Schiehallion resplendent in the low winter sun.

By the time I got back down to the car park it was getting dark, so after a brief chat with a friendly robin I headed for home.