During summer 2020 I’d somehow convinced my parents to let me borrow their midlife crisis car to do a tour of the NC500. Whilst I was here I decided that as well as enjoying the spectacular roads I would have to do as much walking as possible to experience as much of the beautiful countryside as I could. As I’m an inexperienced walker and not in best of shape I’d been hesitant to choose any walks that climbed too high or were too long, though when I looked at this walk I thought although it’s over 900m tall what’s the worst that can happen with only a 4km ascent?

The weather on the day was amazing. Foggy/drizzly conditions from the day before cleared up and I was able to ascend in just a t-shirt, sweat pants and my trusty walking boots. When I set off at around 1pm I wasn’t sure if I’d make it to the top but I was happy to just challenge myself and appreciate whatever views I saw from wherever I got to.

The first rocky climb section was a double edged sword. It was a brutal start to the climb and drained me, but once I got past it there was a part of my brain which knew that from this point on no matter how far up I got it wasn’t going to make the descent any harder. Once the ascent became a bit smoother, I got a bit more into a rhythm on the assent and although I never found it easy I didn’t feel at risk of giving up any time soon.

Then I reached the false summit at the top of the section with lots of cairns and I realised that I didn’t know how far I really was from the summit. Fortunately once I’d picked myself back up again there was a friendly walker on the way down who told me that was nearly there and the summit was only 140m up. Spurred on with this news I raced (plodded a little less slowly) to the top. I had made it!!! Over 900m! It was an incredible feeling to have conquered a hill so high.

Once I started my descent I quickly discovered what was the worst part about the ascent being less than 4km, it meant the the descent was also very steep all the way down. It was slow work as I wanted to make sure I was careful and all the way down the bottom section of the climb was in the back of my mind. But despite all that taking a nice steady pace I got down the mountain in one piece somehow with the sore knees to prove it.

It was an amazing experience and I’m glad that I pushed myself to do the climb as it was so rewarding to do the top and although my legs are still a bit sore I’m already planning my next Munro!