Author:  Bodil

Weeks are flying by now, and the girls are past the halfway point and also have no more Munro’s to tick off in the South of Scotland! Libby wrote:

The start of this week (7th August) was a day of celebrations. It was Lisa’s birthday which she celebrated by eating an entire coffee and walnut cake on the summit of Bynack Mor (timelapse evidence coming soon!) and on the summit of our 2nd Munro of the day, Cairngorm, we reached the halfway point – 141 of 282 munros done!

Lisa eating a whole cake on her birthday

We celebrated that with tea/hot chocolate and cake in the mountain top Ptarmigan cafe. Our teeth aren’t going to thank us! We finished early on Monday and carried on the celebrations at an All-you-can-eat Italian in Aviemore. This was very welcome after our 3 day Cairngorms trip the weekend before.

On Tuesday we had a rest day and spent it in Aviemore replacing various bits of broken kit and putting our feet up. On Wednesday we bagged 3 munros north of Newtonmore (Carn Dearg, Carn Sgulain & A’Chailleach) then cycled on to Laggan where we climbed (the first of many) Geal Charn and then cycled on to Dalwhinnie. We switched from road bikes to mountain bikes to walking and back again many times during the day and are very grateful to Duncan for having all the bikes in the right place at the right time even if his pride did take a knock when he fell off into a cowpat covered field whilst trying to cycle one mountain bike and push another at the same time!

Top of Benn Behoil

We slept in Dalwhinnie on Wednesday night and resisted the lure of the distillery. On Thursday we had a big day scooping up the 4 munros on the east of Loch Ericht (Sgiarneach Mhor, Beinn Udlamain, A’Mharconaich & Geal-Charn) and 3 munros to the east of the A9 (A’Bhuidheanach Bheag, Carn na Caim & Meall Chuaich).

Week 5 (where we smashed previous weekly totals by bagging 38 munros) was catching up with us and both of us had protesting legs at various points throughout the day. We took it a bit easier on Friday and started the day with a fry-up at the Dalwhinnie Snack Shack before cycling west towards Spean Bridge and climbing Stob Choire Easain and Stob a’ Choire Mheadhoin in strong winds that made keeping a straight line across the tops difficult. We got a little off track on the way back down to the road and had to bash through bracken taller than us to get back!

Tiredness is catching up with the girls!

On Saturday Libby’s friend Ailsa joined us for the munros north of the A86 (Beinn Teallach, Beinn a’Chaorainn, Creag Meagaidh, Stob Poite Coire Ardair & Carn Liath) mostly in lovely sunshine. It was lovely to have Ailsa’s company. We finished the week with another big day on Sunday picking up Creag Pitridh, Mullach Coire an lubhair, Beinn a’Chlachair, Carn Dearg, (yet another) Geal-Charn, Aonach Beag, Beinn Eibhinn, Ben Alder & Beinn Bheoil as we meandered from the A86 to Ben Alder bothy. We arrived at the bothy an hour or so before sunset. The sky was bright red and looked amazing reflected in Loch Ericht. It was a truly stunning place to end the week

With Ailsa on top of Carin Liath