Beinn Tulaichean and Cruach Ardrain

Thursday 13 August

I slept so soundly that I didn’t even hear a vehicle arrive into the car park sometime soon after dawn. The owner returned just as we were setting out, toting paragliding gear. It turned out that in his world it was an evening outing - he’d finished his nightshift, looked at the weather forecast and couldn’t resist going to jump off a hill before heading to bed. It was a fine day for it too, with just some high level cloud in an otherwise blue sky.

Our route planning today was easy. With both of our objectives being Munros, we simply did what our Munro book suggested, at least on the ascent, as we headed up grassy slopes to go over Beinn Tulaichean…

Atop Beinn Tulaichean

…down to the dip of the ridge and up to Cruach Ardrain (which is a Marilyn as well as a Munro; the first top was only a Munro).

We hadn’t seen any sign of another person out and about until this point, but looking back to our first top, a couple of chaps were seen standing on the summit. We passed them as we made our way back down to the col, by which time another person was silhouetted by the summit cairn. Another two followed suit whilst we lunched on the ridge.

Our Munro book would have had us climb back up Beinn Tulaichean (which admittedly was only 80m of extra upness) and retrace our steps back to our start point, but it seemed far more sensible to us to drop off the side of the ridge, to pick up the track which runs down the Inverlochlarig Glen.

Yomping through deep, lush grass seemed a bit alien to us in such a location, probably because it’s so rare that we visit Scotland in the months when grass grows. I’m sure all the sheep were enjoying it immensely … and there were a lot of sheep.

A bit of thicker cloud had come in by the time we got back to Colin (thwarting for a second night any chance of seeing the meteor shower – well, that and the fact that we were asleep by the time it was fully dark!) but it had been a tremendous, clear day for this outing. 8.2 miles had been covered, with 3300’ of ascent.