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4 Munros in under 8 hours ? Aye, bring it on ! How have we no done these ones before ? Munro count to trip ratio is gettin really high this year. 6 trips and 11 Munros done, although only been Munro baggin 4 times, done 1 repeat so that`s 10 new Munros in 3 trips, no bad, considerin the terrible weather and lack of opportunities to get into the great outdoors this year. But you know the best bit about this trip ? It wasn`t bloody freezin !
Jim, my ever present companion on the hills and part time rally driver/chauffeur arrived to pick me up at the agreed time of 7am, i kept him waiting as usual, but we were soon off. He had decided to take us on the more scenic route to Glen Lyon, I thought he was going to take me up the whangie
but we just drove by, once on these country roads, rather than the more straight, flat roads of the M80, I realised that Jim really harboured a secret urge to be the reincarnation of Colin Macrae. The flask of tea i made before leaving was going more up my nose than in my mouth, i should have brought a straw (aha, next time
) it was a nice day - to die-not as nice as the previous few, but it was promising. We found our way to the road up Scotland`s longest Glen in no time at all, which was clearly signposted, and drove towards Inverar. I rolled down the window (electric windows, but rolled sounds better) to hear the birds chirping in the trees and felt the coolish country air waft in, (at 50mph !) I remarked to Jim that it would be great to get out of the car and walk along to take it all in, because it`s a beautiful glen, shaded by trees and the river flowing down below us, ( nothing to do with my sudden fear of being passenger to Jackie Stewart). Hares darted off the road in front of us and pheasants did that thing were they play chicken with approaching cars and slowly saunter in front of you. We passed a lone hind drinking from the water and cows and horses grazed in the fields adjacent to the road. Magic. A special place. We soon (well with Jim in demon driver mode it wasn`t going to be anything else) got to the car park to start the walk. It was pretty busy looking with 3 or 4 cars already there and more turning up before we left. There was a few hi`s, hellos and how you doin`s before we left and i opted not to put on my gaiters and kinda regretted not bringing my shorts. Fleece and jacket were suitably stuffed in my rucksack ! There was a hell of a lot of crows in the trees and they cackled loudly above us. They were probably telling us not to take the path to the right of the crumbling building and read the signs that said take the detour path 50M up the road
Anyway onto the new path which took us by an old (resurrected) Lint Mill. It was a nice setting to start the walk.
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- Lint House
There are green and orange marker poles along this way which takes you back onto the path through the forest onto the main Carn Gorm hill path. It`s a short walk through the trees but good none the less. I like a forest walk on the way to the hills, you never know what`s lurking in them ...woooo. As soon as we came out of it , it hit us, the Sun ! For the first time this year ! Aw yes, trousers and sleeves were rolled up and summer was here at last ! By the time we got to the rickety old bridge i was sweating buckets and had a good old wash in the cold burn.
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- Jim on the bouncy bridge
Jim waited on the other side till i approached the bridge, then bounced up on down on it causing it to nearly throw me into the raging torrent below ! So childish , Jim
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- rapids !
We trotted on, funny guy leading the way. We took the path up to the left towards the ridge of Creag Ghlas past some old shielings. I`ve read on other people`s reports that they`ve took a more direct route up towards An Sgorr, which looks like a great little hump but by the time you cross it from Carn Gorm it`s pretty flat.
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- An Sgorr
Once up on this ridge the views towards the Lawers range really start to open up.
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- down glen lyon
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- Lawers range
We stopped and looked back over at the hills we did not so long ago, which were then covered in snow and the steepness of An Stuc and laughed again at how we got down from it. The tarmachan ridge was also in view and for the first time we could look at a range of mountains and say we`ve done all them
We carried on up the steep climb to the top of Carn Gorm, passing a couple of others on the way till we got to the top. The path up is quite good and it was dry , hardly a boggy patch at all. Once onto the summit plateau the views were awesome
I didn`t realise it at first, but we could see right over Rannoch Moor to Glencoe. It was warm, but clouds covered most of the sky, and they sat just over most of the peaks from west to north to east of us.
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- Glen Coe
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- Jim heading to cairn
We stopped at the summit for a bite to eat and to take in the views and were joined by more walkers, some stopped themselves others just kept walking. It was here we first met fellow wh member louise993 who kindly offered to take our photo before heading off herself.
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- Carn Gorm summit , no.49
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- zoomed glen coe
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- panoramic loch rannoch from my phone
We could see the other 3 munros from here, so i decided to put the map away as it was quite windy and it was spinning round and round nearly choking me,
It was a quick drop down to the bealach between the next munro and we actually went around An sgurr, that`s why it seemed pretty flat.
Jim has been recording all our walks on everytrail with his garmin watch but has never actually downloaded a gpx file onto it to follow, until today. I asked him at the start of the walk to set the route and follow it, but he was scared to press any buttons in case he wiped out his vital stats, anorak ! He let me in to his secret anal retentive obsession, by telling me that he once took one of his junior runners around millport for a run but after 2km into it he realised he hadn`t switched his watch on, and dragged the poor boy back to the ferry to start again ! I should also note that he left me half way up ben nevis to run down it because is battery was going flat !!!
Dedicated to recording every step.........Anywayyyyyyy, the watch automatically told us when we went off route, and then back on it again and it was reassuring at least for any time we should get lost in the fog. 49 Munros later Jim, but anyway, well done
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- an stuc close up
The walk round towards Meall Garbh was a fairly pleasant stroll and we talked some on the way round. But as we were out of the wind again it was jackets off again as it was still really warm.
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- a wee birdie
After a quick climb uphill, the iconic view of the Meall Garbh summit cairn appeared in front of us a vision of ...beauty ?
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- Meall Garbh Ironwork
We had reached Munro no. 50, a small milestone for us, and it was good to make it together....aaawww
Louise993 was there again and again she took the picture that marked our milestone.
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- 50th ?
Although going by that picture it looks like my 5th and Jim`s 35th !
Well, we did another couple of takes and got it right, i think. We walked off with Louise towards Carn Mairg, were we learned that she would hopefully be doing her 50th on the Inn Pinn this weekend !
Best of luck Louise and i hope the weather is kind to you.
We left her alone and headed down again to the 3rd Munro. We now had fine close up views of Shiehallion and i spotted a Ptarmigan in the rocks. I crept around behind it to get some good pics, all the while it just stood there pretending to be a rock.
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- Ptarmigan
We walked on from here up to the ridge on which was marked with a cairn with a wee man sitting on it.
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- jelly baby and Schiehallion
It was getting windy again up here as we walked along the ridge and we got talking about all the iron fenceposts on these hills. Why were they hear ? Were they marking borders ? Who carried them up here ? Did one farmer put them there to keep the others farmer`s sheep from his ? (there`s a thing, never saw a sheep up there) Just why ?
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- Old steel fence post
We climbed up off the path onto the stone strewn rubble along the top of the ridge to see loads of large quartzite rocks among them.
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- stones
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- still some snow up there
From here we carried on up to the summit, i did go explore the tor where a couple of older guys were haning out, one of them came up to me holding a leaflet
That is a first. It was for a mountain aid charity and i was happy to take one before joing Jim at the summit cairn, were we met, you`ve guessed it, Louise. We had a longer chat this time and she took our photo again.
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- munro no 3 Carn Mairg
We descended south from this summit and it was quite rocky, we should probably have taken the gentler path south east, but it was ok, after all we are men ! An easy dry walk again across to the last one, although we did cross a large patch of snow near the summit, but on reaching our fourth munro of the day, it didn`t really feel like it. A quick round of 4 indeed.
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- Ben Lawers behind me
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- Glen Lyon
On the way down i started to get a bit of a sore ankle as my left boot seemed to be pushing it over to one side so i took both off and walked down the dry grass just in my socks which felt much better. I put them on agin when lower down as the path was getting more rocky and boggy. This allowed Jim to dissapear ahead of me and i just took my time to get back down to the forest again. Walking through the trees, i saw something move. It was a red squirrel.The first live one i`d ever seen. It was like a showdown at midday in the ok corral. Me , slowly reaching for my camera, slipping it out of it`s holster, the squirrel eyeing up the tree in front of it. I whipped it out and shot rapidly, as it darted up the tree. I missed it, so i tiptoed into the thicket and just sat watching it scurry about above me.
So as i said an easy four munros but do them on a nice day, the views are awsome.
And as for the drive back, well i better not say anything else , because you might think Jim is a maniac,(he`s not really) or that i`m just a big fearty in the passenger seat (more like the truth).
