Ben Vorlich and Stuc a’ Chroin

// October 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Scottish Hills

This was my first adventure out on the hills since the hair-raising trip to An Teallach in April last year. The long delay has not been through fear however. Circumstances have just conspired against me with the weather thwarting me several times and family responsibilities playing their own familiar role. It’s taken me a little while to get around to posting anything about this trip, which actually took place on the 12th and 13th of September.
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Please, I don’t want to die! (An Teallach)

// April 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Scottish Hills

Last Saturday I hired a car and travelled north with the plan of going for a nice walk in Assynt during Sunday’s weather window. The original plan was to walk up to the summit of Canisp and then go across to Suilven. However, while driving up the A9 the thought struck me that, since I seem to be exorcising the ghosts of past failures on the hills this year, I should stop south of Ullapool and tackle An Teallach (The Forge).
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Lochnagar

// April 18th, 2008 // No Comments » // Scottish Hills

On the evening of the 16th February I drove up the Braemar road from Perth on the way to the car park at the end of the public road in remote Glen Muick. The journey was to enable a hike up the majestic Deeside munro Lochnagar the next day. I bedded down for a cold night in the car, waking the following morning to frosted windows and a cloudless sky. The car park now has a £2 charge for parking but I hadn’t thought to bring any cash with me and the thought of driving a 16 mile round trip to Ballater to use a cash machine before finding somewhere open at 7am on a Sunday morning to give me some change was unappealing to say the least. I chose not to pay and to begin the walk regardless. A small transgression perhaps, not one I’m proud of but given the state of much of the world in which we live, not one I’m going to lose too much sleep over.
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Ben Ledi

// April 11th, 2008 // No Comments » // Scottish Hills

On the 20th of January I managed to summon the enthusiasm to drive north and tackle Ben Ledi in Stirlingshire. Having attempted this climb before, back in 1999, I knew it was a steep and unremitting ascent.

I’m not at all sure why I bailed out of the climb back then. A youthful lack of fortitude perhaps. I do remember it being a good deal warmer when I tried before, it was June or July for a start. That was the first real foray I’d had into the Scottish Hills and I intended to excise that particular ghost of failure from my memory and push to the top this time around.
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