Don’t be fooled by the height, this is a hard hike!

[kenster197]

Myself and my mate are currently training to do the National 3 Peaks twice in 48 hours this April, so we are always looking for difficult, challenging climbs, this absolutely ticked that box today!
Like its neighbour ‘Garbh Bheinn’, this is another that when you start to climb, you really climb.
There isn’t anytime to warm up the thighs, it’s straight into a pretty brutal ascent (for hillwalking), right until you reach the first summit.
There are hundreds of higher summits in Scotland, there aren’t hundreds of harder first 2 hours!
So, be prepared.
The weather today looked decent as we set off, but it was actually very wet, soft and boggy under foot the whole way up. And by the time we reached the first summit we were in 60mph winds, so it was head down and crack on.
After the first summit, you walk across a ‘relatively’ flat ridge (not narrow) where you make great progress very quickly. The second summit is very underwhelming, so take it in and head on.
You then start the descent, it’s okay as you drop the first 200 metres. But from 500 metres up it is very, very steep. The underfoot conditions probably made it worse coming down today, but take it steady and you’ll be fine.

All in all, it’s a hard but satisfying hike, and on another day it will offer up some spectacular views.
It’s a really steep, hard first 2 hours (possibly more as we were charging on a bit). A nice easy middle, then a really steep finish.

I’ll definitely be back to complete this again in the summer months, and I’ll be bringing a towel, as there are 1 or 2 brilliant pools in the waterfalls that are worth a dip.