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After a busy week sat at my laptop typing my final few essays as a first year paramedic science student, and 40hrs out on ambulance placement complete, I knew another munro was well and truly needed. With the forecast looking brilliant for the 21st of April, it would be a shame to miss out on such weather. It's no doubt that at university your sleep schedule get's messed up, but pair that with a mixture of constant flipping between day and nightshift and suddenly sleep becomes non existent. So for this walk, I somehow was still in half nightshift mode (think I'd slept until around 4pm that day and stayed up) and ended up leaving Edinburgh at around 2am for the 2.5hr drive up and across to Loch Earn. One think I do love about Edinburgh which there is a severe lack of up North in the Highlands is 24hr shops?? So of course I had to nip into Asda beforehand for some mandatory cheap lattes to keep me going and hype me up for the morning ahead.
For some reason once I'd parked up in the dark, my motivation disappeared slightly as I stared at where Ben Vorlich was hidden in the darkness, procrastinating for around a solid hour. Eventually I plucked up the courage to stick my feet in my boots, sling my pack over my shoulders and blast Taylor Swift to bring back the motivation I had had during the drive through, watching the sky slowly begin to brighten up as sunrise grew nearer.
Sometimes you actually forget how tall munros are and I remember thinking to myself "uh oh my legs have to carry me up there..."
As I slowly trudged up the track which slowly merged into a well trodden path up the hillside, the sky began to illuminate as the sun rose above the clouds. Quite literally, all of a sudden I was above the half cloud inversion, gazing at the sun ad sky in absolute awe with what I was witnessing. The higher I climbed, the better the views became as the clouds below slowly rolled across the path I had just climbed - it was spectacular!
With little sleep, I decided to give Stuc a' chroin a miss this time, however, I was still ecstatic to have conquered another munro in incredible conditions. It's definitely going to be on the list of moments in your lifetime that you will never forget!
