Glas Maol & Creag Leacach with tops

[Bluehackle]

So this was our third outing with our 6 year old daughter to add two more Munros to our/her tally, todays challenge was to summit both Glas Maol & Creag Leacach incorporating the Munro tops as well.

We started off at the car park at Grid Reference: 13947565 at 10 o'clock ( bit later than we wanted to), following the traditional route as indicated in the Munros book, our daughter found the initial steep ascent a bit of a challenge today (this was unusual as she is a very determined little girl). We walked along the ridge to the hut at Grid Reference: 14847650 located adjacent to the Grouse butts, we decided to stop here and have some lunch and let her little legs rest after the initial ascent (good job as it allowed us to shelter out of the rain that came in). There was a gas BBQ and also a gas heater in the hut if you needed heat and cooking facilties, note to other walkers using this facility, please make sure you close the door when you leave to protect the inside of the hut from the weather.
From here we headed north towards the ski lift along the track that is shown on the map, then heading West towards Meall Odhar and then making our ascent towards Glas Maol. The going at this stage was failry good under foot considering the amount of rain recently. We took the opportunity to look back at our route so far, take in the stunning views of the glen and also point out to our little girl where we were on the map.
On reaching Glas Maol (Munro 4) we did our usual (touched the Trig Point, took pictures, spoke to other walkers that were there before us/arrived after us and had a snack), it was a bit misty at the top but the wind soon got rid of that. We saw a little mouse which provided no end of entertainment to us, popping its head out from different places in the cairn built around the Trig Point (made a little girl happy).
From here we set out towards Little Glas Maol (we didn't stop here), we about turned back towards Glas Maol skirting round the side of the Munro to joining the path leading to Creag Leacach. We followed the dry stone wall leading to Creag Leacach over the rocks and boulders along the route ( this is where our daughter got her second wind), the challenge of trudging over the rocks and boulders turned into a little adventure for our daughter.
Reaching Creag Leacach was Munro number 5 for us and quite amusing for our daughter as the summit was depicted by a shovel sticking out of some rocks at the top.
Time to start our decent back towards the car park from which we started, on route our little girl asked "What is that mountain over there?" (South West Top), we have to do that one as well, so up we went to summit the SW Top (more pictures).

Finally time to decent back down towards the car park, decent was steep in areas and the ground under foot was slippy, so extra caution required at these points ( we should have headed back towards Glas Maol and retraced our steps of the intial ascent as this would have been easier and slightly less risky with a small child). Decending down towards the stream at the bottom of the gully and heading back towards the car park meeting up with our route that we took on the outward leg of our walk, reaching the car park at 16.45. It was a long walk but worth it in the end, some amazing views and some good fun throughout the day.
Mission achieved Munros 4 & 5 in the bag.

[Grisu]

Congratulations to your daughter