My second walk report!
Me, the fella and the 18 month old deerhound (Rune) drove down from Aviemore and set off about 2pm.

I feel like a bit of background on this one is relevant, but I'll try to keep it short. I climbed Ben Lomond once before. I was about 17, not exactly in peak physical fitness, had never climbed so much as a big hill since my childhood scouting days, a 20 a day smoker and completely unprepared for that climb! When me an my ex decided climbing a mountain was a nice idea, his parents (avid walkers) waxed lyrical about how fabulous the Ptarmigan trail was. We set off too late, on a bad weather day and had a rather traumatic experience! We were on the last scramble to the summit in driving freezing rain and wind and I though I was going to die, then sprained one ankle just as we reached the summit, THEN THE OTHER as we headed down! We got back in pitch darkness after it took about 5 hours to descend! So needless to say I wanted to bag this fella again now I'm older, wiser and considerably fitter (kicked the habit a few years ago!) and hopefully have a better memory of this climb for the future!

Anyway, from memory I did remember the Ptarmigan Trail being a bit of a challenge, and we had just climbed Cairn Gorm the day before so we were a bit stiff too. That said, we thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this one! The path is steep in parts, but has just enough flat and gentler bits for you to get a breather before the next steep bit. The views back over the Loch the whole way are stunning. I remembered the frustration of seeing false summits over and over, but because I was expecting them I quite enjoyed them as a nice marker of another section done. As we came over the crest of Ptarmigan and saw the ridge up to the summit looking so far off, I was a bit overwhelmed to be honest. I've seen others say it never seems to get any closer, but it rushed upon us far too fast for my liking! As the bad memories flooded back I was looking up it feeling really very intimidated! As we reached the bottom of the ridge, the wind was picking up and the weather was turning (Just like last time!!) I said half joking to the other half "Oh, I actually really don't want to go up there!"
We had to don all the waterproofs as it got colder and windier, and as we headed up the scrambly bit, the wind was insane and some big dark clouds were headed towards us! A couple of times it blew me so hard I was knocked over and almost lost my nerve. This wasn't helped by having to walk one in front and one behind of the 33kg dog who needed bum boosting up some of the steeper bits haha! I described this bit as just like "the secret stairs" that Frodo, Sam and Gollum ascend to reach Shelob's lair. It definitely is an all fours jobby at times, with some scary drops quite close by. The bit from the bottom to the top of the ridge was in three pretty distinct sections that you can see from the bottom and tick off as you go up. As you climb over the second hump, you really can't see over the top and it looks like you must be there. I saw the hope in my partner's eyes as we neared it, and crushed it when I shouted through the wind "You see that!?.... Yeah that's not it!" with an evil cackle and cracked back on.
Anyway the advantage of it being so steep is it really doesn't take as long as you think it will (or you lose all track of time, I'm not sure which!), and we were actually quite surprised when we rounded the last ridge and saw the summit ahead of us. And on reflection, apart from the scary wind, I did really enjoy the ridge bit after all! It was exciting, and interesting and gave us a nice little adrenaline boost. As we reached the summit, the cloud had epically descended, it was raining a little and it was a complete whiteout so the views were non existent. As we snapped a photo and headed towards the tourist track to go down, I was explaining to Ben how amazing the views are along the tourist track from here when it's clear. I was gutted as I really wanted a photo. Anyway he looked up at the sun becoming more clear and shouted to me to wait. And as if by magic, a last few massive gusts of wind started carrying the mist away. As if the universe heard me, over a few minutes the cloud all blew away and we were treated to incredible views down Loch Lomond, and along the toruist track and the ridge ahead of us. It was a real treat and I got all the photos I wanted.

We started to descend down the tourist track (which I barely remembered at all from last time, probably due to the pain and the dark!), and we were feeling really glad that we opted for the Ptarmigan Route up. It's SOOO very long! But again, we bounded down in no time and enjoyed nibbling blackberries down the lower slopes.
So glad we did this one again, and as it was my partners first time it takes us to an even three munroes each!
We've definitely got the bug, and definitely plan to do lots of training, practising, learning and research over the next few years, as I'd really like to bag as many munroes as possible! Can't wait for my next trip up north!

Rune the Hounds Review
I don't like working too hard, so this was not nice. After my protests on Cairn Gorm got me nowhere, I figured I'd just humour the humans on this one! Lot's of walking up hill which sucked, but lots of people petted me which was awesome. Some faster humans overtook my humans, and I wanted to go with them because they were nice so I pulled really hard to catch up with them for a while but my slow people didn't budge any faster. We got to a cold, windy scary bit and I didn't really want to go, but one of my tricksty humans went in front and I didn't want to lose him so I went anyway. Some of the bits were too big for my legs, but the humans gave me a leg up which was cool. The best bit was the cuddles when we got to the top. Not sure why but they went all snuggly and gooey for a bit and fed me some crisps which made it all worth it. I like the bit where we run back down, and I did like the sheep near the top! Got back to the van and slept a lot, but I did get up for dinner. The humans even cooked me some human food!. About 2 hours later, the buggers woke me up and said I had to "wee before bed" which I REALLY did not appreciate so I refused to move and they literally dragged me out of bed the heathens. So I slept on top of them all night to get back at them. See how they like that! I do hope this moutain walking thing doesn't become a habit!