Scheihallion Beltane Cloud Hike

My bro and I went for a hike in Perthshire for Beltane.
Quite a bracing expedition so it was.

Here's some background on the 'mountain' first:
(I wonder if you're going to read it? )
SCHIEHALLION
This is perhaps the most interesting and romantic
mountain in Scotland. There are two derivations of its
name - the Maiden's Pap which is most appropriate from
the direction of Loch Rannoch, or the Seat of the
Caledonian Fairies. During the last ice age, a great
glacier had its seat on Rannoch Moor. From there it
spread west gouging out the straths. The peak of
Schiehallion stood above the ice like an island. The
millennia of frost left the shattered boulders and
scree that cover the summit ridge. The mountain is
quartz but one large granite boulder near the top was
carried like a cork on the surface of the glacier and
deposited on the shore when the ice withdrew.

On the west side of the mountain lies the Maiden's
Well fed by one of the many crystal-clear springs of
pure water that bubble from the heart of the hill.
Here on the dawn of Beltane, the first of May, the
girls from the townships would dance and drink to
bring health and good fortune for the coming year.
Long important in legend, Schiehallion achieved a
unique distinction in the eighteenth century. Thanks
to its isolated position and convenient shape it was
selected by the Astronomer Royal, Neville Maskelyne,
for his experiment of 1774 to measure the density of
the planet and thus measure the universal force of
gravity promulgated by Newton which underpins the
science of astronomy. He spent a soggy season on the
mountain, setting up observatories and complex
scientific instruments to measure the minute amount
that the mountain attracted a pendulum by comparing
its angle to the stars. Amongst his assistants was
William Mason who invented the contour line to assist
his side of the work which fixed the position of
Maskelyne's pendulum by triangulation. Mason gave his
name to the Mason-Dixon Line which marked the boundary
of the northern and southern states of America.

The Astronomer Royal employed a local ghillie, Duncan
Robertson, whose fiddle whiled away those frequent
evenings when the mountain was shrouded in mist and
cloud, preventing observation of the heavens. At the
end of the first summer on Schiehallion (although
Maskelyne himself was finished, his assistants had to
return to complete their work the following summer and
the one after), the Astronomer Royal threw a ceilidh
in the bothy on the mountain for those locals who had
built it for him. Whisky was taken, the bothy caught
fire and Duncan's fiddle was destroyed. The following
spring the carrier brought a parcel from London
containing a gift from Maskelyne. It was a new fiddle
resplendent in yellow varnish for which the recipient
composed a song The Yellow London Lady'.

In the early nineteenth century the fiddle was broken
and Duncan's descendant sent it to Manchester to be
mended. There is some doubt if the repairer returned
the correct instrument. Nevertheless the fiddle was
handed down through the family and has now been placed
in the Clan Donnachaidh Museum at Bruar.

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Halfway to the base, stopping for lunch.

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Aha! There it is, in the distance.

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Found a shortcut through some woods.

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Can you spot the hippy?

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GOLD!!.... well, pyrite.

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Which way?

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found a spot, set up for when we come back down.

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approach

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er.. now entering the cloud layer.. (another hidden hippy pic )

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put yer back into it! (lots of nice quartz around here)

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Sideways rain pelting away, Howling wind, cloud, just whiteness everywhere, and rocks - endless, i think its affecting my mind wehay!!

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ahah! Reached the summit at last!

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The glorious view (a riot on the senses after being inside a cloud for a few hours).
The route back to camp after coming back down.

 

those look awesome kev, i wanna go hiking in the hills. glad you had a good time!

love peace and smiles
j

 

and yes i did read it

 

Great pics... will get round to reading the garb but after 8 hours a day infront of a pc screen at work my attention span kinda goes ga ga

 

Looks like a great walk. I spent Saturday on Dartmoor, which is about as close as you can get to proper wilderness in England!

 

Great pictures ...when I was a little girl ( many moons ago ) we stayed for a week at a shooting lodge then used as a sheep farm in Kinloch Rannoch....the farmer's son was the same age as me ( we must have been about ten or eleven) and he used to boast about walking up Scheihallion alone..I wanted to climb it with him, although it looked impossibly high to a girl from Norfolk, but as I was only a girl:$ he wouldn't take me....we did climb a lot of the smaller hills around the area, and I saw some great birds, remember seeing black grouse and Capercaillie on Rannoch Moor, dippers in the streams...it was the first and last time my parents ever took us to Scotland, they hated it, but I loved it and would very much like to go back some day............

 

cheers peeps. and good on ya if you read up on it!

Dartmoor Dok? Did you strip naked and paint yourself with blue spirals and dance around the fire till dawn?


Moominmamma, wonderful to hear you've been there. I would have been able to see Kinloch if the clouds hadn't descended. We hiked in from Tummel Bridge.
It's still quite wild, not too much would have changed maybe. (Although some sort of national trust has built a big ugly white path that goes two thirds the way up it. {probably so girls can make it up there })


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I only do that for you

 

It sounds (yes I read it!) and looks so beautiful. I would like to go up there one day.

 

shhhhh!!!!

I'm bringing the blue paint to beautiful days. I wonder if we can get EVERYONE in the WHOLE FESTIVAL naked. If enough of us started the ball rolling....

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heyup xiola, ever slid down the long grass at Rivington Pike?

 

You have a serious nudity fixation!

 

no no, just a serious aversion to clothing








...and a penchant for swirly blueness, i admit

 

Run and tumbled down it many times

In fact I used to keep a horse very close to Winter Hill and had many pleasent rides up there. Happy times.

 

There's only one man that'll get me naked at that festival, and it'll be in our tent!