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After having several recommendations from work friends about this hike, I decided to make it my intention to climb on my 19th birthday - weather dependent of course because who wats to spend their birthday out in the true Scottish weather?
We set off pretty early that morning and throughout the whole drive up, the sky was claggy and thick with clouds, it didn't seem like it was going to clear at all despite what MWIS had excited me with that morning. As this was only to be our 4th and 5th munro, my navigation skills weren't the best yet so I did worry slightly about completing the transverse so before we began we decided just to attempt to smash out the two munros.
For only having done a couple of fairly straight forward munros prior, the decent was super tough and within the first couple hundred metres of decent, I doubted what I was about to get myself in for with the rest of the hike. Needless to say, I still continued on with burning calves, struggling lungs but a burning sense of ambition to spend my birthday afternoon at the summit of one of Scotland's finest peaks. The clouds began to lift slightly, however it wasn't looking too promising for witnessing the classic view of the pinnacles from the first munro.
After spending too long messing around with OS maps on my phone trying to figure out where the path lead to, we ended up tagging alongside a solo hiker who was telling us all about the many hikes he had been on in Scotland, think these munros were to be his 220 something? We were just completely fascinated by all of his stories having only started our adventure journey a couple of months prior. I can never remember his actual name but we referred to him as "Dave", so "Dave" if you ever happen to read this report, give me a shout!
Anyway, after we finally caught up with the cloud that was lingering just slightly below our first munro of the day, I suddenly began to feel just a little disheartened as I truly believed that it was going to be the perfect day out with incredible views. I have since learned that it can still be an incredible day out, views or no views - it's all about the journey!
The summit of Bidean a' Ghlas Thuil ended up having some occasional breaks in the cloud but I still didn't get that glimpse of the pinnacles that I had seen pop up on my Instagram for the past couple of weeks. We sat up there for a good half hour, took some mandatory summit pictures with the birthday hat on and discussed our plan of action. We nearly never went across to conquer Sgurr Fiona as I didn't feel too confident with the conditions, however decided just to give it our best attempt.
- Got the birthday hat on for the occasion
- Birthday pose at on the Bidean a' Ghlas Thuil trig
Then...
All of a sudden the cloud slowly began to lift and then within minutes it was completely clear. I genuinely could not believe what I had just witnessed, it was truly magical. Nothing will ever describe that instant feeling of pure job and happiness when the cloud lifted to reveal the epic pinnacles. Pictures just never do it any justice at all.
- After the clouds lifted after descending the summit of Bidean a' Ghlas Thuil
- Panorama - absolutely out of this world
- A classic shot
That was the moment I had been waiting for, the moment that was going to make my 19th birthday absolutely perfect. We then decided to head on up to Sgurr Fiona to conquer our first day completed 2 munros in 1. Again, it was brutal on my unfit legs but the views definitely kept us motivated to keep going.
- Summit picture on Sgurr Fiona
- View on the way up Sgurr Fiona
- Lord Berkeley's seat from Sgurr Fiona
After spending far too long in total just taking in the views as well as the actual hiking, we definitely decided against doing the ridge as we already felt as though we had accomplished enough for one day and needed to get back on time. I will definitely be back very soon to complete the circuit now that I'm a lot more confident in my navigation ability.
- Looking back towards Sgurr Fiona after descending
What a day!
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