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The following report should maybe seen as a way not to climb mountains, but if you are bored with too much planning and nice weather hillwalking this is maybe for you. With one of my friend coming up from down south the agenda of the day was set...drive up north-climb a hill. Sitting at home on Friday evening I guess my living room must have looked familiar to fellow hillwalkers...3 maps spread out on the living room floor, table full of Munro books
and 2 websites open with weather forecasts on my laptop. As it was Friday a few pints helped me to do the job (?)
With the weather forecast looking something like ....10% chance of cloud free mountains, gales and rain it wasn't my typical preferred day of walking, but somehow one needs to earn their 'Rufty Tufty' Hillwalkers badge
Trying to find the least wettest area...I was between Ben Chonzie, Ben Vorlich together with Stuc a'Chroin or a few hills I picked up in Fort William...getting rather tired looking at the weather forecast and trying to decide....or maybe the fact that after 3 pints of beer I felt rather sleepy, I decided to head to bed and just decide on the day which one to climb.
The next day I picked up my friend and together we drove up north, when I reaching Crianlarich, I decided that I should start make my mind up which mountain we were going to climb. so I presented my Munro book to my friend, who choose Ben Vorlich together with Stuc a'Chroin, which meant that we were only 20 min away and ready to head up the hills soon. After we stopped at the little Londis store in Crianlarich, to buy some food, we stopped at the car park about 20 min later ready to climb.
Checking the book and the map for the last time, we left it in the car and set off...The first 1.40h until we reached the top of Ben Vorlich was very wet!!! Low cloud and rain made it impossible to see any peak and the humidity added to the fact that inside my jacket it felt like a sauna...The top of Ben Vorlich was easy to reach, as there was an easy to follow path up the hill. On top of Ben Vorlich the visibility was maybe 20m
...Being bettered by gales and rain we took some photos and afterwards the big question was ...how do we get to Stuc a'Chroin as it wasnt visible! Walking around the top for 5 min not really sure which way to head, we saw a group of 4 appearing from the mist. They just told us that they followed 2 other hillwalkers and realized half an hour later that they followed them the wrong way down the hill!
Lol I was slightly relieved that we weren't the only ones lost! Checking their map we finally found the past down and managed to reach the lower grounds between Ben Vorlich and Stuc a'Chroin.
The wind really picked up at that point and made me loose balance a few times (great fun)...As it stopped raining at that point we found a shelter and had lunch. By that time we first 2 guys who lead the others in the wrong direction appeared , telling us that they just spend a good hour walking the wrong path, before they realized their mistake and had to return . When we told them that the group of 4 also followed them and got lost we had a laugh...sheep following each other come to mind!
After lunch walking up the steepest route to the top of Stuc a'Chroin was great fun and luckily out of the wind. We reached Stuc a'Chroin and from there the problems started. Somehow we seemed to remember that we had to walk a
circle and we ended up following a path down the grassy slopes...from there the guessing game started and I have to say I completely and utterly lost my bearings...the first hour was spend like...'lets walk to this hill and see from the top
if we can see the path...' and 'I think it is this way' I have to say getting lost while having a friend with me, was far better than getting lost myself! We were in a slight advantage as my friend has a GPS, but he was missing the map...so we could only see we when we headed in the complete different direction.
Personally I think getting lost is great! It teaches you more than you could ever learn on a easy walk. Looking at the landscape and deciding which was to go, realizing which kind of grass means waterlogged ground, how to cross
rivers and so on. After following the GPS and trying to complete the circle the book wrote about (obviously making up a new path in return) we spend 2h walking over endless field of purple heather (actually really nice to walk on)
and by that time my boots felt like as if someone poured a pint of water in them. When we finally realized we were back to the right area and after 7h managed to hit the path again...I was ready to kneel down to kiss it
Although I would not suggest to anyone not to take any kind of map with them while walking up Munros in bad weather conditions, it certainly adds a lot of fun to a walk and it teaches you more than you can learn in a book.
I also thought it was interesting that everyone was lost even with maps! Lol even though I guess eventually they found the path they were supposed to walk back down.
I guess that was the route we took....