Three More Munros

Had another fine mountain day yesterday meaning no rain at all. That came with no view as well, but then again, no rain :)

Our guide steered the bus to Crianlarich where a nice round trip to An Caisteal and Beinn a'Chroin started from a lay by. Felt my knees again that morning but a Voltarol had shut them up for the time being.
An easy path gave way to a steep bit over grassy ground and we plunged into the low hanging grey clouds for the last ascent to the top.

Had our picnic up there as there was little to no wind and headed down to a saddle before we tackled the complex ascent up Beinn a'Chroin. With boulders, rock and grass I had a great time walking, scrambling and climbing and found a kindred soul in another girl in the group. We were both grinning excitedly like children in a sweetshop enjoying every bit.

Another munro top conquered

 So it happened that we came to a bit of a tricky scramble for inexperienced walkers and before any doubts in said walkers in our group could arise I suggested just giving it a try. Together with our guide the two of us helped the rest over the obstacle. Took quite a while but everyone was willing to at least have a go at it and trusted in us helping. Fantastic team spirit!

We didn't linger long at the top as the grey blanket of clouds was still hanging low. Down into the coire we went and back to our bus on another very long very wet and boggy track.

Group making their way down

Our way back. Perfectly formed coire, unfortunately very boggy

My friends had come over from Crieff in the afternoon so we had a nice chat and it was really nice seeing them again. Stayed out rather long until midnight after dinner just talking and sipping whisky.


Today was planned as an off-day for the group just doing an easy walk in Aberfeldy and then everyone would be free to wander around the village. I had done both a few years back and wasn't really in the mood for literally doing nothing since the pace on our walks had been moderate at most so far and I still had a lot of energy.

If it wasn't for my complaining knees I would've chosen a 2-3 munro loop somewhere. Instead I decided to have my kind of off-day and walk up Schiehallion thus ticking another one off my munro list.
One of the guys in the group had a similar idea, so I gave him a lift to Killin and then headed over to the Schiehallion car park which was an hour's drive.
Arrived at 11am and started immediately. The weather was a bit better than yesterday with a few sunny patches in all that grey up in the sky.
The first two thirds of the walk are almost too easy with a broad well prepared path. Still the purple heather, green, yellow and brown ferns covering most of the underground were beautiful to behold, the latter ones being the first messengers of approaching autumn.

The very rocky last third made up for the undemanding path before. Enjoyed jumping from boulder to boulder and had to think of my traverse of the Glyders earlier this year. Good fun!
The view from the top was indeed nice since this fine hill is a free standing one, but the haze blurred everything further away.

View from Schiehallion

So I just took a few pictures, had a wee dram form my hip flask as this was the first munro I climbed on my own and then went back down again.

Autumn is coming

Devoured my lunch package at the car park and then drove over to Kinloch Rannoch. Had intended to cycle around it but it was way too late now and I really wasn't in the mood to just cycle a few minutes and then go back the same way. So instead I walked around for a bit, had a cappuccino and drove back to our house.

Loch Rannoch