free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Emily's 100th Munro!
Since climbing Munros 98 and 99 in the Monadhliath's in June 2013, the arrival of young Isla in the spring had put the brakes on Em reaching the milestone of a century of Munros.
Despite much flirtation with Beinn na Lap as a candidate for an Isla-laden Munro, the Sunday train timetables prohibited that particular jaunt. The high-altitude of the A82, let alone the tantalising possibility of a chair-lift, made Meall a' Bhuiridh an easy alternative, albeit lacking the romance and adventure of a Corrour station walk.
James and I arrived at Glencoe Ski centre at 2.30pm, having driven down via a spot of lunch at Macdonald's in Perth and a visit to the Green Welly shop in Tyndrum. The weather was set dry and warm, but a haze took the edge off the roadside views of Bens More, Lui, Dorain and Ghabhar, familiar old friends.
Emily had a moan about taking the chair-lift, ludicrously suggesting this mountain wouldn't count as her 100th! I was wondering how I could take James on with the rucksack, but in the end he really enjoyed the short trip, which saved us
almost 1000ft, watching a few cyclists bombing down the descent track.
Memories from previous walks came flooding back when Emily threw a "you mean you don't know there's a path" tantrum. We opted to play safe and follow the obvious path round the rocky knoll north of the ski area, from where para-gliders were taking off, and join the Meall a'Bhuiridh's north-west ridge from there.
Despite the haze, the late-afternoon sun and wind-less air was making the ascent a toil, with even James claiming to be tired despite having been on my back the whole time! "I want a picnic, Daddy" was James' request but i wanted to get to the summit first.
Emily was finding it hard work carrying Isla and Mum was a long way behind, but I managed to persuade Dad - who had charged off ahead as usual - to wait and allow the centurion to reach her milestone summit first, after passing below the traditional trekking pole guard of honour of course. It was a pleasant sunny spot for our picnic, even though the haze restricted views to the nearest ridges.
We left the summit at 17:30 and it soon became apparent we'd be cutting it fine with only 2 hours of daylight left. Mum and Dad were creeping down at a snail's pace, and potentially the trickiest descent of the day awaited us on the steep slope above the car park, that we'd effortlessly chair-lifted over early on. Emily strode off ahead, and I guided her through marshy ground along a short-cut onto the main ski centre track.
Emily tried to feed Isla in the shelter of one of the ski-lift buildings, but I told her to continue to the car whilst we had enough day-light left. The path down to the car-park was a steep, eroded in places, joint-jolting route that constantly had you concerned your next step might be an ankle breaker, a tiring end to the day. James lightened the mood asking "are you ok, Daddy?" everytime i stumbled.
With Emily back at the car, James and I waited in the twilight playing 'I spy...' as the dots of Mum and Dad edged down the murky steep hillside. I brought the car up for them to save them 200m of walking.
We had dinner at the Kingshouse climbers bar, my first time there, before James and I headed home. A 3 hour drive with a stop-off at the Dundee asda saw us home just after midnight.