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At last my 1st munro aged 44 yrs and i was as excited as any youngster would have been on the same event. We had planned to go on Sunday 25 / 4 , but Saturday suited better. So off we went nice & early at 5.10 am me picking up my mates Steven & Davie en route. We arrived at Ardvorlich at 630 am , trainers off boots on, hat on ,back pack on and away we went. A lovely smokey smell from the overnight fishermens fire filled the air - but no smell of burning sausages though , i was using my newly bought sticks which i think are great. It wasnt` cold at all and we were hopefull that the mist would burn off as the weather was to brighten up .Wrong. Anyway on we went stopping occasionally for a breather and to try and admire the view behind and below us. We saw 2 white hares - separately - which i thought was a great thing to see.Towards the top the mist/clouds kept rolling in and then clearing away with the odd blue sky clear spot. The last 20 feet were a wee bit dodgy due to the snow,but Steven had his ice axe - just incase - so he kicked out some foot holds and we carefully made our way to the summit. I circled around the cairn/triangulation point with my hand on top of it , proud of my achievement - i`m sure as you read this you can recall your 1st munro too ! I felt great.
Now it was time for the best cup of coffee i`ve ever had and a wee sandwich & some fotos. We had hoped/planned to do Stuc a` Chroin as well - which we could partially see - but the quickly changing clouds below us put paid to that.So its for another , hopefully a fairer day. We could see Ben More & Stobinian off to our L/H side but nothing else at all due to the low cloud base all around. As we left to come down 2 huge black crows appeared to see if we`d left any goodies behind but they were onto plums ! On the way down we passed 40 + folk along the trail heading up , most said hi & were pleasant , coming down & looking back up the mist/clouds didn`t clear - so i don`t think anyone would have enjoyed great views. We were back at the car at 1120 - 2hrs 40 mins to go up & 1 hr 40 mins to come down. I wasn`t dissapointed as we hadn`t done Stuc a` Chroin , I was looking forward to the views at the top - unfortunately not this time. Better luck next time eh ! ........well not really I went up Dumyat on Sun 25/4 with my brother & our dogs , nice and early again at 7am , but at the top it rained all the way home and although much lower no views of Stirling ,too bad.
Unfortunately the rain & lack of views did nothing to impress Oskar my schnauzer on Dumyat - he peed on the cairn
Thats 3 hills in a row with cloud / sleet / rain / mist hopefully i`ll be somewhere nice in Scotland when our summer hits.