Beinn Sgulaird.

[quagga64]

Up at 5.30 and left the house at 6.40, had to scrape ice off windscreen and it was 0 degrees but sunny. Weather forecast was for a fine dry sunny day with tempratures rising to 10 degrees and so it proved. Drove up M9 to Stirling then up through Callander, Crianlarich and Tyndrum where I cut off and headed West on the Oban road, over the Connel bridge and about 10 miles North to the Loch Creran. Started the walk at 9.20, it began up a bulldozed track which zig zagged up to the lower slopes then I cut off on a path up the hillside, a woman and her dog came up behind me jogging, she was going up to the first small summit and back, we met again when she was coming down. It was hard going and i took frequent rests, this was my first munro since May last year ! The scenery and views were superb looking back over Loch Crenan and Loch Linnhe to Mull. The hill itself has numerous false summits and is known llocally as The Bastard for this reason ! Finally reached the summit at 1.30 after four hours ten minutes of slog. It was calm with very little wind and great views all round, North to Glen Coe and Ben Nevis and East to Glen Etive, to the Soutth was Ben Cruachan and West over Loch Linnhe to Morvern and the Isle of Mull. Sent Tommy in Australia a video and some pics to Zoe Chris and Gary, stayed at the summit for about 45 minutes then made the long walk back down the way I,d came up. met a man and woman with their young daughter about three quarters of the way down who were just heading up, very late in the day for it I thought and these were the only people I saw all day, surprising as its the school Easter holidays. managed to get a few blurry photos of a Golden Plover on the way up and also got some of Oyster Catchers feeding in the Loch, was back at the car at 5.20, so a toal walk time of 8 hours and drove home the same way stopping at McDonalds in Stirling for something to eat, got back to the house about 8.45.