Weather/Conditions: Stunning summer weather - the hills all green the the air warm. Got a bit 'full-on' with the heat once I was descending. Great conditions.
Distance/Ascent/Time: 6km / 700m / 2h 30m
Accompanying: Alone

The weather on this day was pretty stunning. I spent the morning bouldering below the hill, getting eaten alive by midges in the still summer air. It was a nice morning, but it also drove me a bit mad, trying to climb with swarms of them everywhere. So I headed back to the car (not far away) and decided on a change of plan. I hadn't yet been up Stob Coire Creagach, and as thus it made an ideal and short walk.

I actually turned back from doing this hill a few months before. With my head completely not on the hills at all (but occupied by rock climbing instead) I'd got perhaps half way up, to realise that I'd rather be spending the time on rock - so I turned down and headed off to climb. But in another way, it felt like a kick in the balls. I didn't enjoy the lack of drive.

But today was pretty glorious, and I headed off uphill at a good pace, too quick to be caught out by midges. It's a fairly fast ascent up Stob Coire Creagach and I was standing on it's cairned summit in just over an hour. The weather was fantastic; it was a reminder if I ever needed any, that still summer days like this were for going on long walks - not trying to climb when the midges are ripping you to shreds in the bottom of the glens.

I continued onto Binnein an Fhidhleir, the other prominent summit of this high ridge, to a trig. Then quickly down the long, hot slopes to the glen. It was a nice day out, but also very short. These aren't long hills, but they are pretty steep.

Afterward I was back to Dumbarton, for more climbing in the sun.

360° Panoramas

Stob Coire Creagach


Binnein an Fhidhleir