Now that the weather has started being a little kinder and winter is on the run, it's time to start getting back out into the hills. The arrangements were made a few weeks in advance and on Saturday at 6:45 I stood outside our new house and waited for Wilco and JJ to come and pick me up.
There was a jovial mood in the car on the way up, and not even JJ's previous late night on the booze showed. Wilco and I both agreed that we would have been a mess in that scenario.
We arrived at the Old Bridge of Tilt car park at 8:30 and spent the next twenty minutes getting ready, drinking tea, trying on ski goggles and checking the route. We set off at 8:50 and Jim had to go back and get some gloves. He returned with a very fetching pair of ladies' leather numbers which were regarded as very pretty by all concerned.
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| Jim checking out his optimism goggles. |
It's a long walk in, with a very gradual ascent before you hit the hill proper, but it's a real pleasure to be in Glen Tilt in spring, even though it was very overcast. We arrived at the farm where we turn up onto the hill at 11:50 and started our ascent. Initially very steep, it levelled out a bit and before we knew it we were on the ridge and could see the hill straight ahead.
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| The view of the summit as we started to ascend the ridge. |
A long trudge ensued, and the wind picked up. The mist moved in about 850m and we had to perform a bit of nifty compass work to get to the summit, but we made it about 1:15. It was cold and windy so we descend a fair bit before we stopped for a spot of lunch and a wee nip from TP's Wedding Favour - a miniature bottle of Jura.
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| The Summit |
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| Toezi's Jura Miniature |
We descended a sharper route back to the Glen Tilt road and rejoined it just before 3:00. Then it was a long walk back to the car, looking out for hippos in the river as we went.
We arrived back at the car just before 5:00, almost 8 hours after we started.
Next step was to head to Dunkeld for a beer or two and then back to Glasgow, sore but satisfied that my 88th Munro was a real pleasure.
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