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My wife and child are *not* keen hillwalkers, to put it mildly. But when my wife suggested a short trip to Aberdeen and remarked that "you can climb some hills", I had a bit of a brainwave. What if we diverted through Deeside on the way back and parked at Glenshee Ski Centre? If the weather was ok then maybe they would be tempted by the quickest and most straightforward Munro in the world, Càrn Aosda, then headed round to the second quickest one, The Cairnwell? It might be the only chance for my wife to stand on top of a Munro and, while I'm not really wanting my daughter to get into hillwalking (I prefer having a full head of hair), there would be no better chance to bag the first one or two?

The River Dee at Balmoral.

We briefly parked at Balmoral for a photo op, but the castle tours were sold out and the tour of the grounds was a tad pricy. So on we drove, up and up and up to 650m! Now's the time to finally get into Munro-bagging, family!

Update: No.
See the problem was, the weather was absolutely dreadful for the quick climb of East Lomond the day before. We had left in clear sunshine and about 10 minutes it was chucking it down, forcing my wife to give up and run for cover. My child battled on through the rain and we reached the summit, but it wasn't the best fun. So the day after, they were still a bit scarred. My wife took one look at Càrn Aosda, saw the steepness and the grey cloud gathering overhead and promptly remarked, "NO WAY!!!

" My daughter agreed. Cafe it was then. I paid the £4 parking on my phone and they ran inside for a coffee. Solo hillwalk then: normal service resumed...

Just after 3:30pm I was off, but as soon as I saw the steepness of the access road up to the Octagon Cafe I figured that my wife would have struggled with it, even in good weather. She had knee problems in childhood and struggles to run, let alone Munro-bag. I reached the cafe in four minutes, but just those four minutes would have been enough for her to turn back, guaranteed. I guess that big dark cloud saved us all some stress then...


From the Octagon Cafe to the 750m junction was a bit gentler, and I could see that the road up to the 795m col was gentler still. But I was headed for the shortest route, cause I figured this would be my only chance ever to reach a Munro within half an hour.

15 minutes in(!), I reached the steep pull just under 800m. I should be having water breaks, or at least some food, but since I'd ended up doing this walk alone I convinced myself it was better to power on ahead and see what time I could reach the summit in. Normally this wouldn't be sensible (times don't matter a jot unless you're running for a bus / train / sunset) but, well, it's Càrn Aosda.

24 minutes to here! Maybe half an hour is in reach...

Bingo.

Hahaha good lord, what a strange mountain.

Confirmation that there was some rain around. It was briefly spitting a bit, hence my wife's flashbacks to East Lomond, but never came to anything here.

Rainbow time.

Never actually saw the Càrn Aosda signpost in the style of a road sign, but did pass this slightly rude-sounding one.

I was never tempted to head over to Càrn a' Ghèoidh, for three reasons: (a) my family were sat in the cafe, probably getting increasingly bored, (b) I'm semi-tempted to leave it for my final Munro, since it's so accessible, but also (c) I was now on 79 Munros and nine for the year. The Cairnwell would be a perfect reach to reach double figures, my original target, and in much calmer conditions than when I reached 10 on Beinn a' Bheither last year, and had, erm, an "incident".

The Lomond Hills, scene of yesterday's climb. I've been gazing over at these hills from other hills forever, so it's nice to have finally been up one of them.

Innovative, like it, 8.5/10.
Round about here there was a bit outcrop over to the right. I marched past it thinking nothing of it, then suddenly remembered that I'd recently given into temptation and joined the Hill Bagging website. Was this a Tump? Should I double back and bag the top of it (there was a *massive* cairn). But after wasting the best part of five minutes trying (and failing) to load the site I gave up. It would later turn out that this bump *is* on Hill Bagging : even though it's not a Tump (the drop is only 20.5m), it's marked as a "Sub-Simm" (I mean......) and also a "High Hill of Britain", which...ok, let's move on.

The way ahead is...clear. No route-finding issues on these hills...

The chairlift that heads up towards the summit of The Cairnwell was open when we arrived. I think it stops around 4pm, so it was closed by the time I came back down. Not likely to be popular with the purists, but maybe we could come back here one day and my wife could finally stand on top of a Munro.

We're here! Just 1hr 15mins in, and it's the world's ugliest Munro summit. But today I'm not caring, because this is
#80.

Yeah maybe don't actually climb the building, no need in hindsight.

Just a few seconds away from all the paraphernalia, there's a brilliant view down Glen Shee.

I could also see over to the Glas Tulaichean group, scene of my longest walk in a decade the Sunday before. A very, very different type of walk, but it underlines that this area is good for getting the numbers up quickly. It's so rare for me to climb five Munros in a week.

See? A beautiful sunny Munro summit, just like all the others.

Thanks, I'll be sure to check online for the other colours. What's the address again?

The inside of the wee shelter building has seen better days, probably not helped by prats like me climbing on the roof to touch the highest stone.

That explains why there was actually a signal.

A great view across to Lawers and Schiehallion.

The time was getting on for 5pm, and my wife had texted to say the cafe had close earlier than expected, so they were already back in the car. Càrn a' Ghèoidh would've been a big mistake in the circumstances. I headed back down past the summit chairlift and just carried onto the right of a mssive fence where the tracks split, which took me to the shortcut path down the hillside.

They're in there somewhere.

This path is...muddy. Really muddy. It varies wildly between purpose-built mesh constructions and a total mess. Having walked round the two driest Munros on Earth, suddenly my boots and trousers made it look like I'd been up Ben Lui through the forest.

I tried to take a loop path round the back of the ski centre to complete the circuit, and ran into a gang of sheep? I thought a ski centre would be the last place I'd see them (figured the developers would put up fences and cattle grids to keep them out), but as ever they were terrified of me and scarpered.
I got back to the ski centre in 1hr 51mins, which included a big old break at The Cairnwell and the big old pause at the NW Top trying to work out if it was a Tump. In theory I *would* recommend them for first Munros, but my family took one look at them and bailed. But it was the ideal way for me to reach double figures for this year, in much less...trying...circumstances than last year. Anything from here on in would be a bonus, which was just as well, given that August (AKA The Month Of Floods) was next up......
