Schiehallion

So today I walked Schiehallion, I had company this time and I woke early, buzzing with excitement. We had a reasonably early start and set off up the hill just after 8a.m. The sky was blue with not a breath of wind. The Munro was clear and breathtaking in the distance. The path from the car park was straightforward and easy to follow and Laurie and I set a gentle pace full of enthusiasm for the task ahead. We had the app maps to refer to as we wound our way along. This is only my second Munro and I needed a regular stop to catch my breath, but these stops were short lived, due to a crazy amount of demented blood eating midgies. We had walked for around an hour and a half, the path is stepped in places and really well maintained. We then came off the smoother path as the boulder field came into view. Lauries last words……

“Well if that’s it, I’m a bit disappointed”

What we saw in the first glance was most definitely not it!

The next two kilometres of the climb, was over ever larger ankle turning rocks and boulders. It was tough, it was never ending and it was slow going. 2km and ninety minutes later we carefully approached the flat summit boulder that eventually welcomed us to the top amidst the thick, damp clouds. It was chilly as we sat, but we needed to eat and have a warm drink. Piled on the clothes quickly and Schiehallion summit boulder, decorated with swirling carvings became our lunch table.

Soon enough we had to move, neither of us relishing the boulders on the descent, after a couple of slips over some of the larger smooth boulders we made good progress through the field, although no discernible path could really be seen. Once we got lower more hikers came into view and we found the path again. Progress down was slower than I’d anticipated , I had borrowed some poles this time and they definitely helped me move with a little more confidence. But stepped rocks that helped us on the way up, proved more difficult to negotiate on the way down.  There was a huge amount of large horse flies loving a couple of sweaty faces to feast on and when the breeze got up it brought some welcome relief.

We looked down on the path below drinking in the views and the amazing adventure we had just had…..you never know how far you’ve come until you look back!! Truer words could never be spoken.

At the bottom we both felt elated, I was so excited and looking back at the mountain it was hard to believe that I’d been up there taking each little step forward to make that happen. The first one (Chonzie) I was just glad to get to the bottom, this one has most definitely lit a fire of excitement! Where to next?