Wednesday 5 September 2018
Instead of whizzing passed…
A Perfect Opportunity
In October 2015, TTS and I nipped up West Lomond, which was a jolly nice walk, but we were restricted to just doing the one hill by time constraints. Last weekend we had the perfect opportunity to go back and nip up East Lomond when we were invited to a surprise 40th birthday party for my dear friend Emma, so we did!
After a good breakfast (well, as good as it gets at Holiday Inn Express) we set off for the hills, leaving the car in the parking area between the two hills. West Lomond had its head in the clouds, but East was still clear. We had a minor faff before setting off to follow the good path uphill. Not surprisingly it was easy going and very enjoyable, the views are really rather good. The last section is a tad steep, but was a breeze for us now with our new found fitness and we were soon joining a few other folk at the toposcope. No sooner were we up there than we were engulfed in cloud and the views disappeared. We still needed to reach the trig, which unusually is not at the highest point, we needed to leave the summit and find it, in the murk. We took the path heading roughly SE off the hill and just as we stopped to get the map and compass out to try to locate the trig I got a brief glimpse of it ahead of us, just off the path, so we headed straight for it. It had a small memorial at the base.
We then just regained the path and headed straight down to the other car park. We tarried a while, taking photographs and reading the information boards, then we headed off again on the path around the base of the hill before re-joining the original path and heading back to the car park. Not surprisingly perhaps, the cloud lifted before we got back to the car. A nice little stroll!
Roughly a total of 5.68km and 164 m ascent.
Wednesday 29 August 2018
Popping up a Munro, just for fun!
Well, now that I am super fit, I really want to make the most of it, and occasionally I just want to see exactly how fit I am, so as it was a Bank Holiday weekend (not in Scotland, but David got one anyway) we decided to pop up a Munro. It was in fact one that I tried to bag nearly six years ago, but after reaching the bothy last time I’d decided I couldn’t be bothered to walk up into the clouds and I still had a cold hanging around. This time, the weather was perfect and I was 100% fit, so off we went!
Return to The Argyll Stone…not
Friday 8 June 2018
The Great Outdoors Challenge 2018
Thursday 31 May 2018
The Hill Before
A couple of weekends before the beginning of the Challenge, I wanted to test my fitness a bit and my new rucksack (Osprey Ariel 55 AG), on the spur of the moment, we went off to climb a hill we’ve been looking at from a distance for quite some time. It’s a very prominent, rounded lump, along the west of Loch Ness south of Drumnadrochit, Meall Fuar-mhonaidh. Off we set, having purchased our Meal Deals from Tesco, to drive to Balbeg and then abandon the car neatly just before the pottery.
The lump we were heading for
After leaving the car park, we followed a road for a short while to its end, then a path lead us to a pretty silver birch wood.
The path through the trees eventually gave way to open hillside and the path continued gently upwards.
There were showers around about us, but none came our way all day.
Still heading up.
A stile to cross the deer fence, good practice…
And the views just kept coming
Along the Great Glen towards Inverness and the Moray coast
…glad we weren’t caught in that downpour…
The obligatory…
My first primroses of the year
A bench, or a stile to nowhere?
I make no apologies for the amount of photographs, it was a glorious day and we had a fabulous day out. My pack was beautifully comfortable, although it was only half what I might expect to carry on the Challenge.
Roughly 9.34 km total distance 523m total ascent and 2.4km/h