Our first venture out on the hills after a long winter break and what a hard day it proved to be. We hadn't realised how out of condition we were.
An early start at 06:30 to drive up to to start point and by 08:20 we were on our way out of the visitors centre car park and up the path through the NTS plantation.
After the point where the path spilts to head round the side of Ben Ghlas we found out that it quickly became an arduous climb up the rocky paths. The peak of Ben Ghlas soon came into view as we climbed up the steep path.
The cairn just around the 1000m mark was reached and we were given fresh impetus realising we had just over 100m to go.
Soon we reached the peak of Ben Ghlas, our 4th Munro, and we saw the cloud clearing to show us the summit of Ben Lawers in the distance.
As we headed down from Ben Ghlas to Ben lawers we headed down the path and across some large areas of snow before the steep climb up to Ben lawers, a few rest stops were required before we reached the summit, unfortunately cloud cover meant we had no view so we truned around quickly and headed back down towards Ben Ghlas.
The climb down is as difficult as the climb up in places due to the steep descent and steps in the rocks but we eventually made the car park, tired but elated at getting 2 munros in one day and our 5th in total.
We won;t be leaving it as long till our next foray out into the hills
Warning
Please note that hillwalking when there is snow lying requires an ice-axe, crampons and the knowledge, experience and skill to use them correctly. Summer routes may not be viable or appropriate in winter. See winter information on our skills and safety pages for more information.