RTC wrote:I'll speak to the shepherd if I see him, Dave.
The one I spoke with recently was a youngish and quite cheery chap - not sure if I'd seen him before - rather than the rather quiet (but friendly in my experience) bearded guy who is more often about. Dunno if they're sharing the work or if there's been a change of shepherd.
Reached 1023 Dumyats. I should have let you know about 1000th but didn't want a fuss and sneaked up on my own. Apologies. Only 72 Ben Cleuchs.
No worries - nothing wrong with enjoying such things on the quiet. Congrats on the 1000 - that kind of thing always takes some doing. Hope you got a nice day for it. You've probably told me before and I've forgotten, but do you know when ascent no.1 was? Incidentally, the previous 1000 Dumyats do I went to - Alex King's - was at night in lashing rain, and rivalled my own 1000 Cleuchs do for horribleness.
The Law seems to get steeper and have more false summits every time I go up. How many Ben Cleuchs for you?
The one last week took me to 1075. Recently reached 800 Ben Evers. Every one of those has involved going to or from Ben Cleuch - Ben Ever is a classic sidekick summit, a bit like Brim Fell in relation to Coniston Old Man. The next proper landmark is that I'm closing in on 500 ascents of the Law - the most recent one of those was no.487. Tend to do low-20s per year, so assuming no injury/illness etc problems 500 should be next spring sometime. I've once - back in 1995 - had a Cleuchless Law ascent. (Have you been up the Law other ways? The route up the flank from the Daiglen Green bridge is just as steep, and pathless, but makes a nice change, and of course there are other options - eg cutting across to follow the fence from halfway up is quieter and not much longer than the standard path.)
Re numbers, next come Andrew Gannel (288) and King's Seat (235). Long term, I'd like to get all nine of the main Ochil 2000ers into triple figures. Tarmangie and Whitewisp aren't now far off, but Blairdenon and Innerdownie are only on 67 and 45 respectively, with just four or five tending to be added each year, so it's ages away yet. I like these long-term, slow-burn cumulative hill games - much more fun than rattling round standard rounds of things in next to no time.