Did my first 2 munros of the year at the weekend, but decided to do 2 smaller hills today - the forecast was for munros to be in cloud, and the west coast wetter than east, so I decided to head north up the A9 and do a couple of hills not far from it .... though when I set off, still wasn't sure which ones I'd be doing. I'd had a quick read last night of some walk reports for sub-2k hills in that area so had a handful in mind, and a couple of OS maps in my bag to cover all the possibilities, but I continued past some of them and ended up stopping in Golspie.

Beinn Lunndaidh via Ben Bhraggie
8.5km, 500m ascent, 2.9hrs.

Parked in the Fountain Road car park (free to park) and followed the waymarked signs for the Beinn Bhraggie footpath. At weekends and in summer it's probably really busy with walkers and mountain bikers, but I didn't see anyone up the hill today other than a trail runner when I was heading back to the car at the end of the walk. The track/path up to the monument is nice and clear, occasionally crossed by MTB tracks, but signs warn walkers off these for safety. Took me 45 mins from the car to the monument on Ben Bhraggie, nice viewpoint down to Golspie and along the coast.

Didn't stay there long, but continued along the track, and when it curved downwards and to the right, I left it to continue in more-or-less a straight line to Beinn Lunndaidh. As soon as I left the track, I decided this was probably a good hill to do in a dry summer or a frozen winter. I'd just put an old pair of boots which were no longer waterproof, but on the good side, I was ankle deep in bog from the first few steps, so once I was already wet, stomping through 1 mile of non-stop swamp was easy with no need to try and tussock-hop or stay on the occasional dry (or less wet) square inch of ground.

It was a pretty overcast day with light showers on and off, but fairly mild for the time of year, and the clouds were staying above the hills in the area, so visibility was good enough for me to clearly see where I was aiming for. Arriving at the trig point, Ben Horn across the glen looked good, so I decided that would be my next hill of the day. If I'd had an earlier start, or it was a longer summer's day, I'd have considered continuing on to it from this point and doing a big circular walk, but it was already early afternoon so not enough daylight left at this time of year. The forecast seemed to have got it right for today as all hills west looked to be in cloud, so the Golspie area had been a good destination even if I didn't get particularly extensive views from the summit given the weather.



I headed back to the track at a point nearer the Loch, again just crashing through bog all the way (glad that it was relatively mild and my feet were merely soaked rather than frozen and numb), then followed the track and marked paths back to the car. Didn't bother getting changed into dry stuff as I suspected the next hill could bring more of the same...


Ben Horn
4.5km, 320m ascent, 1.2hrs

Drove a bit further through Golspie along the A9, then turned off to head down the single track road to the good parking spot at Bridge of Horn. The first stretch of the walk just follows the good track all the way up to the reservoir; there's a locked gate in the deer fence at one point, but there's a big stile for walkers a few metres away.

At the end of the track, I just headed off over the boggy heather and moss up towards Ben Horn. The clouds from the west were moving increasingly east, but I'd had the odd glimpse of the hill as I left the track, so just headed in that direction. There may be some faint ATV tracks to follow, but I only came across them near the summit; anyway, I quite enjoyed the soft terrain I took - good exercise for the legs, and doing a couple of marshy sub 2k hills made me feel like it added up to the same effort as 1 straightforward munro . It's also nice doing hills sometimes without a well-trodden path to follow, I like the route-1 option of just seeing where the summit is and heading for it.

By the time I got to the cairn, the cloud was right down and I had no views at all, couldn't even see across to Beinn Lunndaidh or down to Loch Horn. I waited for a few minutes, convinced the cloud was transient, but it didn't improve, so I headed back down the same way.


So no great surprise when I headed down and the cloud lifted for a good while - not only that, but Ben Horn even basked in some setting sunshine for a few seconds! Nice as it would have been to go back up and get the views I'd missed, I decided to keep going in the same direction, and got back to the car for a change into dry socks and trainers.



It's nice to have days like this where it reminds me I don't need to go and do munros and corbetts all the time (just as well - I did 72 munros in 2018 and I can't imagine I'll match that this year!). There are plenty smaller hills which are within easy travelling distance and can add up to a really good day's walking!