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After many weekends of rain and other plans anyway, I was finally off to do my first Munro of the year! And making up for lost time, it was going to be four. It also happened to be the last weekend before lockdown so I’m glad we made it out. I was going with my brother and he picked these out, and assured me that there wasn’t much ascending and descending between them so it wasn’t as daunting as it sounds – I had only ever done two in a day before. I had been regularly practising hot yoga since my last Munro and I’ve felt it’s really improved my fitness, so I was looking forward to seeing what impact it had on my climbing.
We parked at the side of the road and followed the sign for ‘to the hill’. We went along a path and had a few very high stiles to cross, then got to a Hydro path. We headed to the left of this which brought us to properly climb. There was soon snow covering what would have been stretches of grass, however it was powdery and easy to climb up, and there was a couple ahead who had marked out footprints.
After a while, it became a bit trippy staring at the white! A great view was beginning to open up over Glen Lyon. It wasn’t too long or difficult at all until we had reached our first summit Carn Gorm.
I love the white against green hereAfter the pictures here we carried on to descend. My brother slid down the snow on his bum however I wasn’t wearing waterproof trousers and didn’t want to get wet. However a bit later he said to go down on my front so I did, and it was so much fun!! I should really try skiing again.
'Skiing' downIt was then an easy enough climb up to Meall Garbh, however I had to make sure I had a good grip on the snow and didn’t slide down – it would have been a nightmare to get back up. We could now see over to Schiehallion - I like seeing big stand alone mountains.
Lovely snow covered mountains with Carn Gorm behind meBit of a different cairnThe next part was not so fun – instead of powdery snow it was ice and difficult to get a grip on. I just kept stabbing my boot in, hoping I didn’t slip back down again before I pulled myself up, and was quite proud of the progress I managed to make. I was rewarded by a false summit – what I thought was the top of number 3 was actually the 1004m Meall A’ Bhar, however I didn’t actually know this at the time, and headed towards what I thought was number 4. It was very cold and very windy by this point, and when we got to the summit my brother said, “Right, picture here”. “Too. Cold.” I replied, and kept striding onwards. As we headed towards Carn Mairg, I was getting really miserable with the wind as it kept shoving me sidewards, making the climb upwards more difficult than it would have been. I was really thinking STUFF. THIS. But also knew there was a long way to go and was no point stopping – every step forward is a step closer to the end! I also realised I hadn’t eaten yet and managed to shove a sandwich in my mouth – that helped.
After the summit of Carn Mairg, there was opportunity for another ‘ski’ and this lifted my spirits further – how bad a mood was I in earlier?! Haha. “Right is that the four done?” “No, another one to go”. Oh. But in the back of my mind I kind of thought that was too easy so wasn’t too bothered there was another. Plus, this wasn’t too bad at all. I was back in the mood for a picture on this one.
Heading upSummit selfieLooking at the map, there was then a huge stretch back to the car, but I didn’t feel it was too bad at all, and there wasn’t much snow on the way down so it was back to my more familiar path of stone. A helicopter appeared, and we thought it was headed for Schiehallion, but it hovered over Creag Mhor for as long as we could see it - hope it wasn't looking for us
The same couple who has been ahead of us previously remained ahead of us the whole time, and they were great at leading the way. I said "I bet they stop for a cup of tea at the end and we pass them like we did at the start." And they did indeed.
Looking back up to Creag Mhor - spot the Bothy On the way downSome easy bits and some struggles, but they were a good challenge and I loved the idea of having bagged four in one day! Despite difficulty with the ice, cold and wind, I didn't feel overly exhausted at any point - hot yoga is working
