As a last minute idea we planned on trying to get another Munro ticked off. Lockdowns/travel restrictions have meant we are further from where we thought we would be in terms of how many Munro’s we would have bagged by now if we had been free to roam….so the catch-up is on!

We chose Sgairneach Mhòr as it was relatively close by. In addition we felt it should be a pretty fast Munro to undertake as there was no real long walk in to get to it, and it had a straight forward walk to the summit.

We set off along an estate track for some time before turning left to begin our ascent up the mountain. Straight away it was boggy and wet which continued all the way up to the first bealach.

There were a couple of routes up this Munro, the one we had taken which was pretty much just a straight up hike or you could have taken another route which meandered upwards…on reflection, meandering upwards sounded like it might have been the easier option!!

As soon as we started on the steep incline we got snow….end of May and snow!!! I refused to believe it as Andy started quickly getting into his full winter waterproofs so I continued stubbornly ahead completely refusing to put any waterproofs on whatsoever.

The snow went off, and when I say snow I mean a full proper snow storm, then it came on again and this continued until we summitted.

It very much was four seasons in one day, with mostly summer and winter!!

We hit the summit and thankfully got full views all around.

If we hadn’t I think I would have been seriously disappointed as at this stage in time what with the forecast saying a high percentage of visibility on the mountains here and it being the end of May and still getting this kind of weather…well need I say anymore.

I do actually love winter, I love the mountains in winter and I love snow, but there comes a time when all you want is a bit of leeway…a little bit of heat, a little bit less galeforce winds..a slightly lighter bag as we continue to carry a rucksack full of gear for all kinds of scottish weather.

This is what makes Scottish mountains different to most. It’s not necessary the height of the mountains but the elements your fighting against… continuosly…or mostly.

It was pretty cold on the summit so we decided to head of and try find a spot further down to eat lunch which we did. All around us clouds were building up and you could clearly see snow was falling but not on us…it was pretty cool to watch.

Before we headed fully down I succumbed to full waterproof gear as potentially we were walking in to a storm and it was slightly cold.

The storm never came. By the time we were almost down we were burning up with so much gear on so we decided at the estate track to take it all of before heading back to the car.

We literally walked 30 minutes and 10 minutes before the car, yip you guessed, we got hit with a down pour. At this stage I was happy to be rained on but I must admit, we did start running back to the car!