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Was on my very first visit North of Inverness and the intention was to try and get Orkney & the whole North coast cracked in three days. Had the family booked too and got them to believe me that I had the weather booked as well!
Now Orkney was fascinating and the history fantastic however my excitement could hardly be contained when I clamped my eyes on these two.
As the day was quite late I decided to push on to where we were staying for the night in Durness at Smoo Cave and the hotel by the same name appropriately. Smoo Cave was a cracking visit too!
The views above of the coast line were even better especially as the sun was setting.
Anyway on to the walk. I was up and running at 4-30 as it was still an hours drive from Durness to the start point. The wildlife that was running around that time of day was awesome enroute and I had to be very careful driving there.
Well there was no denying where the start point was.
Now one thing I don't enjoy when starting off up these hills is steep starts as I have my first hour where I like to warm up and this fella definitely denies this! So I took it easy with plenty of breathers on the way up. The path was very good and easily identified all the way to the peak.
What made this a cracking day for me was the inversion that was threatening to happen and I was observing the whispy white stuff creep along Strathmore towards Loch Hope the higher I got. The snag with being quite steep was I was now counting my height gain and wishing the trig point & cairn to appear all too soon! But oh it still seemed miles off!
Now one thing that always makes me smile on the hills are these felllas. I never seem to fail to see one !
Added to this the views were beginning to become stunning!
Finally this appeared and what shocked me was I was only 2 hours into the walk however it rammed home how steep this climb up the south ridge is.
Quick Breakfast at the top and here's my shots from the peak.
I descended the same way and managed to avoid any souls all the way down. A fantastic short day and the beauty of this is that I was done and dusted by 10am and sorely wished I had done my homework and gone for Ben Klibreck as well. Here's a shot from the roadside of a really good walk and a cracker from the most Northerly Munro!
