Beinn a' Choin, 29th August 2026

My friend Al was once again submitting himself to the misery of the Highland Fling race. I have no desire to do this again (for now), so myself and some colleagues headed out to see Al at the checkpoints at Balmaha and again at Inversnaid. I arrived first at Balmaha, so I chatted to a few folks, including Emily In The Outdoors and Scott Brown, who ran a double West Highland Way FKT in 2025.

We watched Al come through (covered in midges), gave him lots of encouragement, then we all trooped along to Aberfoyle to sit in the sun, watch a load of vintage tractors pass through the village, check out the gift shops and enjoy some coffee and cake.

Around lunchtime, we headed along to Inversnaid to catch Al at the next checkpoint. It was an incredibly warm day but he was doing well, as were most of the other runners, all mentally preparing for the long section to Beinglas. This brought back a lot of memories for me, and they weren't all positive!

After Al had passed through, we had the rest of the day to ourselves, so another colleague and I headed for the Corbett of Beinn a' Choin, while the others went for a wander around the RSPB reserve and to see some geese.

We set off from the car park across the bridge at 1330, and followed the road for a wee bit before heading north at the old garrison, which is now a part of the RSPB reserve. There was a decent track, but it just started getting wetter and wetter, and eventually just disappeared. We were left in a pathless landscape with vegetation and beasties at their summer peak. The heather was looking lovely however.

Pathless, boggy and lots of vegetation

The ground was just full of hidden holes and bogs, and it wasn't until we cleared some of the rocks in the picture above that we started getting to anything stable underfoot. We were both in shorts and fell shoes, so the beasties were having their fill of us on a warm day.

After 90 minutes of this we finally hit the summit, at 1505.

Ben Lomond from Beinn a' Choin

Summit Cairn

The day was roasting even up high, and with no wind, there were a lot of flies around. On the summit was another rock about cruelty to cats. I have since done some detective work and now I know exactly who has been placing these on the Corbett summits!

We stuck around for a couple of minutes for pics, but it was time to head off down. The plan was to head for the Bealach a' Mheim, but we found the burn before that and headed down via possibly the Allt Trosdain. We found a gate this time, and pressed on downhill until we eventually reached the path we had come in on, but not before I'd fallen into a Ross-sized enormous hole.

Falling into a Ross-sized hole

We met with our other colleagues at 1610 and headed down to Inversnaid where we managed to get a dip in Loch Lomond, which was very welcome to wash off all that mud.

Run Distance 10.0km

Run Time: 2h 40m

Ascent: 677m

Corbetts Completed: 19