I heard it on the jade vine

Ever since I first read Dan Bailey's inspirational book " Great Mountain Days in Scotland " (published by Cicerone) a few years ago one challenge I've really wanted to have a go at is that of walking the 4 munros of Ben Cruachan, Stob Daimh, Beinn a'Chocuill and Beinn Eunaich in a single day. The route offers a bit of everything - big mountains, high level ridge walking, easy scrambling on good rock and spectacular views. (This continues on from A night out on Ben Cruachan ). On paper this might not look like a really big route, it's only 20km with about 2100m of ascent but that really doesn't account for the scale of what is involved. The ups are big, the downs are big and there's plenty of scrambling in between. Applying the traditional Naismith rule gives a walking time of 7hr 30mins but I took 9 hours (although with a 10kg pack), Bailey recommends allowing 11hour for the full loop. I'm an early riser, especially when camping, but e

Ever since I first read Dan Bailey's inspirational book " Great Mountain Days in Scotland " (published by Cicerone) a few years ago one challenge I've really wanted to have a go at is that of walking the 4 munros of Ben Cruachan, Stob Daimh, Beinn a'Chocuill and Beinn Eunaich in a single day. The route offers a bit of everything - big mountains, high level ridge walking, easy scrambling on good rock and spectacular views. The main reason I've not got around to doing this sooner is that it is quite a long way to travel from Edinburgh, certainly it's too far for me to drive there and back in a day. Also family life means I can't be out for entire weekends for camping trips that frequently. On a recent trip to the Ben Alder area I took the train to Corrour station as it's not easily accessible any other way. As I was sat on the train in Crianlarich station waiting for it to split in two, with the first part going on to Oban, it dawned on me that Be

Distance 11km Height Ascended 850m Time Taken 9 hours Munros Stob Coire Sgreamhach (1072m) The weather has been truly appalling for the last 6 weeks, I can handle a certain amount of rain or snow and the cold doesn't tend to bother me but the whole of December was a write-off due to the incredible gales. The idea of trying to cling to the side of a mountain in the teeth of a hurricane just doesn't appeal. This means that I've not been out in the hills since November when I managed to do the grade II Sron na Creise ridge. I've been watching the weather forecast over the whole Christmas and New Year period hoping that there would be at least a couple of calm days and finally a short window (just one day!) appeared between the storms. I've had my eye on Sron na Lairig for a while now. I first caught sight of this ridge when I climbed Buachaille Etive Beag on a fine winter day last year. It's the sort of ridge which just looks so good it demands to

Distance: 29km Height Ascended: 1450m Time Taken: 7 hours 30 minutes Munros: Glas Tulaichean (1051m), Carn an Righ (1029m) and Beinn Iutharn Mhor (1045m) This is my third trip to the Glen Shee area this year. The previous two were in the winter and, for ease of access, those trips were focussed on the munros nearest to the ski centre. Now that summer is here and we're actually getting some good dry weather I felt the time had come to take on some of the longer walks required to cover the more distant munros. This trip is probably the longest single day route (in terms of distance) I've ever done in the mountains. Thankfully the start at Spittal of Glen Shee is fairly high (it's at 350m) and once you get over the first ascent there is not too much reascent between each top. I started this walk at about 8am and, according to the car, the temperature was already 15C. For Scotland, even in summer that can often he as high as the temperature reaches at midday. The sk

Distance: 11km Height ascended: 660m Time taken: 3 hours Munros: Carn Aosda (917m), Carn a'Gheoidh (975m) and The Cairnwell (933m) I have driven through Glen Shee many times now and never stopped to even take in the view never mind doing any hillwalking. This weekend I thought it was about time I rectified the situation and actually ventured out. These hills are a good choice for a hillwalking trip in January, the start is high (660m) and the distances are not great so a walk can easily be fitted into a short day. There is also the possibility of a good snow covering, they didn't put a ski centre in Glen Shee without good reason... In fact, the winter is the one time of the year when this area has any chance of looking reasonably nice since there is a vast amount of clutter strewn everywhere across the hills nearest the road which is all associated with the ski runs. The view from the car park is very off-putting, there are ski tows, chair lifts, large amounts of woo

Distance: 16Km Height ascended: 1100m Time taken: 6 hours Munros: Ben Macdui (1309m) and Cairngorm (1245m). The second day of my trip around the Cairngorm 4000ers started fairly early. No matter how comfortable my chosen spot, I'm never a great sleeper in a tent, particularly in the middle of summer when the sun rises so early. I've found that using an eye mask (like those people have when travelling by plane) does help enormously, even so by 6am I was wide awake and ready to get moving. I guess these days, with an energetic toddler who likes to wake early, my body is fairly accustomed to it anyway. The bonus of getting out of the tent early was seeing the sun rise above Ben Macdui and start to reach into the Lairig Ghru. The sky was clear and blue and the sun slowly illuminated the steep sides of Devil's Point and Cairn Toul in front of me as I ate my breakfast, a truly stunning view. By 7am I was fed, packed and ready to be moving. Given that the day was to start