free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Reading through the forums always gives me great pleasure and sometimes you come across a new member request for hill walking buddies. But lets be honest, seeing a request from someone without any experience, or walk reports or a picture, is not the greatest candidate, after all god knows what strangers they actually could be.
When I actually I across such message I thought exactly the same, but then reading words like…I would love to climb Munros, but I don’t have a walking buddy or a car, reminded me about myself many many moons ago. Thinking a few days about it and being reminded about ‘Do a good thing every day’ I contacted that member to inquire about fitness level and what he was actually looking to do.
After an exchange of a couple of messages and a phone call to discuss logistics, we arranged to meet Saturday morning. As I was asked to pick the Munro/s I decided that xxx and Ben Oss looked like a good day out, which would mean I also would complete the group of 4.
Arranging to meet a complete stranger for a hillwalk, especially when you are a female can be quite nerve wracking. After all it could be a mass murderer, rapist or good knows what,
but as first impressions never failed me I decided that if alarm bells would start to go off I could always bail out.
When he arrived first impressions were positive and after a chat we set off up north. During the journey up I also found out that he had been a bit worried and had me down as a potential axe murderer.
So the Munro virgin and the axe murderer set off to do one of the boggiest Munros in Scotland…
We started the walk at 9:30 and chatting away we completely missed the cut off point to the hill, it was in fact a good half an hour later when I suddenly thought…hold on this mountain is supposed to be terrible boggy…and we are on a perfectly dry and wide path…what happened???
Checking the GPS I saw we were indeed still on the way to the hill but actually well past the cut off point. Looking up the mountain and the map I decided to cut down the hill, cross a wee burn and stay to the side of the forest. A decision which turned out to be brilliant, as the bog factor was 0. It was also pretty easy to navigate as you only have to keep the forest to your left and head up the hill.
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- The bogfree way up
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- Crossing the burn on the way up
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- The path up along the forest
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- Looking back...the 'normal' path is on the other side of the burn
When we arrived at the open hillsite the path I choose joined the other path so it was great as we found the original path again and managed to walk up to Beinn Dubhchraig.
Seeing Andys proud face when he reached the top was brilliant and together with another hillwalker I met on the way up, we congratulated him on Munro Nr1.
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- Andy approaching his 1 Munro
While Andy looked around, totally gobsmacked and constantly repeated how amazing everything is and that he can’t believe how many mountains there are, he left me quite touched because it was like being reminded about the first time I stood on top of my first Munro and was amazed about everything.
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- Ben Oss
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- me as Munro guide for the day
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- Walking up Ben Oss
After having something to eat, I had to drag him off the top in order to climb Ben Oss…reminding him there are equally nice views.
Following the path between the 2 Munros is pretty easy and you only loose about 250m in height. Continuing along the past, I suddenly realized we missed the official path and started walking around the site of the mountain
(easily done) Looking up I saw 3 opportunities…continue and walk up from the left, walk back a wee bit and climb it from the right, or straight up for a bit of scrambling fun.
I explained the 3 options to Andy and asked him what he fancied doing…to my surprise he also fancied the scrambling part and so he followed me up the steep mountain site. Again a great choice, as it just adds a bit of fun to the walk and you can make a round out of it.
From the top of Ben Oss you have great views across to Ben Lui and from there we walked back the ‘normal’ path back up Beinn Dubhchraig and down again. Coming to the point where we walked up to the forest, we decided to give it a miss and walk back down the boggy path, as the ground was pretty dry. Urgh bad decision! Even though it was better than I feared, it was still pretty boggy and in comparison to the other path a bad choice. But at the end we managed it back to the car with many breaks about 8h after setting off in the morning.
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- Ben Lui
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- The bridge on the other side
On reflection about using this forum also to meet people to go for hillwalks with, I would like to say to anyone who also shyed away taking inexperienced people to the hills…give them a chance as well, as I found it pretty rewarding and after all I had a great day out.
