



Anyway onto the new path which took us by an old (resurrected) Lint Mill. It was a nice setting to start the walk.
There are green and orange marker poles along this way which takes you back onto the path through the forest onto the main Carn Gorm hill path. It`s a short walk through the trees but good none the less. I like a forest walk on the way to the hills, you never know what`s lurking in them ...woooo. As soon as we came out of it , it hit us, the Sun ! For the first time this year ! Aw yes, trousers and sleeves were rolled up and summer was here at last ! By the time we got to the rickety old bridge i was sweating buckets and had a good old wash in the cold burn.
Jim waited on the other side till i approached the bridge, then bounced up on down on it causing it to nearly throw me into the raging torrent below ! So childish , Jim

We trotted on, funny guy leading the way. We took the path up to the left towards the ridge of Creag Ghlas past some old shielings. I`ve read on other people`s reports that they`ve took a more direct route up towards An Sgorr, which looks like a great little hump but by the time you cross it from Carn Gorm it`s pretty flat.

We stopped and looked back over at the hills we did not so long ago, which were then covered in snow and the steepness of An Stuc and laughed again at how we got down from it. The tarmachan ridge was also in view and for the first time we could look at a range of mountains and say we`ve done all them


We stopped at the summit for a bite to eat and to take in the views and were joined by more walkers, some stopped themselves others just kept walking. It was here we first met fellow wh member louise993 who kindly offered to take our photo before heading off herself.
We could see the other 3 munros from here, so i decided to put the map away as it was quite windy and it was spinning round and round nearly choking me,

Jim has been recording all our walks on everytrail with his garmin watch but has never actually downloaded a gpx file onto it to follow, until today. I asked him at the start of the walk to set the route and follow it, but he was scared to press any buttons in case he wiped out his vital stats, anorak ! He let me in to his secret anal retentive obsession, by telling me that he once took one of his junior runners around millport for a run but after 2km into it he realised he hadn`t switched his watch on, and dragged the poor boy back to the ferry to start again ! I should also note that he left me half way up ben nevis to run down it because is battery was going flat !!!


The walk round towards Meall Garbh was a fairly pleasant stroll and we talked some on the way round. But as we were out of the wind again it was jackets off again as it was still really warm.
After a quick climb uphill, the iconic view of the Meall Garbh summit cairn appeared in front of us a vision of ...beauty ?
We had reached Munro no. 50, a small milestone for us, and it was good to make it together....aaawww

Although going by that picture it looks like my 5th and Jim`s 35th !


We left her alone and headed down again to the 3rd Munro. We now had fine close up views of Shiehallion and i spotted a Ptarmigan in the rocks. I crept around behind it to get some good pics, all the while it just stood there pretending to be a rock.
We walked on from here up to the ridge on which was marked with a cairn with a wee man sitting on it.
It was getting windy again up here as we walked along the ridge and we got talking about all the iron fenceposts on these hills. Why were they hear ? Were they marking borders ? Who carried them up here ? Did one farmer put them there to keep the others farmer`s sheep from his ? (there`s a thing, never saw a sheep up there) Just why ?
We climbed up off the path onto the stone strewn rubble along the top of the ridge to see loads of large quartzite rocks among them.
From here we carried on up to the summit, i did go explore the tor where a couple of older guys were haning out, one of them came up to me holding a leaflet

We descended south from this summit and it was quite rocky, we should probably have taken the gentler path south east, but it was ok, after all we are men ! An easy dry walk again across to the last one, although we did cross a large patch of snow near the summit, but on reaching our fourth munro of the day, it didn`t really feel like it. A quick round of 4 indeed.
On the way down i started to get a bit of a sore ankle as my left boot seemed to be pushing it over to one side so i took both off and walked down the dry grass just in my socks which felt much better. I put them on agin when lower down as the path was getting more rocky and boggy. This allowed Jim to dissapear ahead of me and i just took my time to get back down to the forest again. Walking through the trees, i saw something move. It was a red squirrel.The first live one i`d ever seen. It was like a showdown at midday in the ok corral. Me , slowly reaching for my camera, slipping it out of it`s holster, the squirrel eyeing up the tree in front of it. I whipped it out and shot rapidly, as it darted up the tree. I missed it, so i tiptoed into the thicket and just sat watching it scurry about above me.
So as i said an easy four munros but do them on a nice day, the views are awsome.
And as for the drive back, well i better not say anything else , because you might think Jim is a maniac,(he`s not really) or that i`m just a big fearty in the passenger seat (more like the truth).
