Creag Mhor and Beinn Heasgarnich

It had been 4 months since I was last in the Scottish hills, so when I saw the chance to get two new Munros with Richard and fellow EYW's this weekend I jumped at the chance. We left Edinburgh at 8am in the pouring rain, but by the time we arrived at the start point, just past Killin, the rain had stopped and the skies were clearing.

We had a fairly long walk in (about 4-5 miles) along a track and then we cut off to the right and straight up the ascent of Munro number one, Creag Mhor, standing at 1049m. It was a tough ascent, and I could feel my legs working hard. One most of the climbing was done, there was a flat section followed by a last push to the top. The views all the way up were fantastic, we could see for miles around. And when the sun came out it was perfect. We reached the summit after 3hr20min of hiking, and had a well deserved lunch while enjoying the views.

It was then a fairly big descent, back down to around 650m off the back of the mountain and then a steep climb to our second Munro of the day. Again the climb was quite relentless, but then we hit a flat section with a gradual climb of around 100m in altitude before reaching the top of Beinn Heasgarnich. All around we could see rain on the tops of the other hills, but our hill seemed to have a ray of sunshine on its summit. We reached the top (1078m) just before the cloud cover came in. It was quite cold at the top, so we didn't stay too long. We dropped off the side in search of the path we came in on. The descent was long, but not as severe as some previous hills I've done. As we reached the path, the sun was shining and was the warmest it had been all day. The walk back out along the track felt longer than it had on the way in (it always does) and my legs were feeling it by the end.

We covered just over 16 miles in total, and had a fantastic day in the hills. We then had time for a drink in the pub in Killin before the drive home. A great day!