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After a fairly busy start to my September, house move, failed MOT, extra hours in work, problems with our service providers (Sky, TalkTalk) I was needing a day away from the city.
It was ten past one in the morning and I knew the weather was going to be good but I hadn't checked MWIS yet...90%+ chance of a cloud free Munro, yes please
Now I had to decide what hill, I needed a hill that had a solid dry path as Samantha still hasn't gotten herself a pair of boots yet
I needed a hill that wasn't going to be a huge challenge because I couldn't be bothered and I needed a hill that I hadn't walked yet...Schiehallion sprung to mind.
4 hours sleep, 7am rise, out the house by 8 and at the car park just before 10. The car park was already busy but we managed to find a spot with the hill in full view.
Time to get going and as we did 2 mini busses belonging to a boarding school arrived full of kids so we picked up the pace to get well away from them. We set off at 10:15am.
The walk was easy going, gentle rise on a great path. The progress was being made fast and we allowed ourselves a few wee stops on the way up for water.
We stopped for breakfast on a big flat rock. A roll and a pork pie for me and whatever non meaty thing the girlfriend was having
The path has plenty of resting places, it feels like everything is right for this hill to be as popular as it is
We could here the large group of kids singing much further down the hill. Time to finish breakfast and get a move on
From the start of the walk it wasn't noticeable but there was so much low cloud coming in from the west...more later.
We got to the point on the walk where the really well made path stops dead and the rocky approach starts. I'm not sure if it's the longest rocky approach of any of the Munros but it makes up a good chunk of the walk. We used a bypass path to avoid some of the rocks. I couldn't be arsed with it. We would walk across the entire boulder field on the way down.
We did pick up the main 'path' through the rocks.
The rocks get progressively bigger as the summit nears and there is plenty of rock hopping to do. I rather enjoyed it on the way up but coming down these rocks wasn't as much fun.
Because I was looking at the ground making sure I was placing my feet safely I didn't realise how close we were getting to the top, it's seemed to just creep up on us.
The summit was very busy and people were hanging around the cairn like a bad smell so we nabbed a quick summit snap.
The views west were non existent but I wasn't bothered because the inversion was it's own kind of beautiful
@teaandpies on instagram
(
walked with the girlfriend)
