Decided to tackle these 2 from Crainlarich. I wasn’t even going to write a detailed report but it’s always good to recognise what you think is a “bad” day as well as the good.

No lies here, I hated them. I know I’ll never win any awards for being the fittest or the quickest but I had to work for every single meter. No idea if I was just having an off day having read posts from folk who favoured them from this side. But not to be down for too long cause it was actually still a good day with the weather, views and folk spoken too.

Parked in the lay-by on the A82 a mile south of Crainlarich and followed the track that you would for an Castiel before cutting down left and crossed the bridge


Followed the fence up by the forest


Just keep trudging on up onto Grey Height then over Meall Dhamh before ascending up to a Bealach leading to Cruach Ardrain. From here it’s a short walk to the summit.

Head down to Bealach then it’s a short ascent up to Beinn Tulaichean

From here I did consider descending into the coire but hadn’t really looked into it enough to be confident so retraced my steps back into the Bealach then up to around 900m. Decided here to skirt around the side before then picking up the descent path and plod on down.

The great views all around made up for how much I felt I had to work today. And what you feel to be a bad day on the hills is always better than no day on the hill

Couple of points to consider…. Follow the fence right up to the 2nd stile before cutting across, don’t go early like me. There is actually a bit of a path for the majority of the ascent so long as you find it.

Pretty wet underfoot at times but nothing that couldn’t be passed by
Care required if poor weather coming off Grey Height, I lost anything that resembled a path here and skirted round the north side before realising the forest I could see didn’t quite look like the one I wanted. Quick check of the map and back on track.

The last 250m of ascent after Meall Dhamh are STEEP.

Just cause it’s only the 20th April doesn’t mean you won’t need suncream!

Where I skirted round at 900m probably wasn’t worth it. Probably aswell just adding in the extra 50m of ascent if your legs will alllow it

6hr 55 moving/short breaks
About an hour sitting about on the ascent wondering why I’m doing this
Then about an hour chilling at both summits grateful that I carried on and taking in the views.

Next time I’m going to go from Inverlochlarig and decide what I prefer

Anyway, 52&53 done for me.