The whole country was having a cracking weekend so we decided it would be nice to summit a Munro in a bit if heat, potentially hitting 13° on the summit…for us that’s roasty toasty!!!

We chose Beinn Dearg for a few reasons. Firstly it was pretty close to home, near the Blair Atholl area, secondly it was a long walk in and out just to even get to the base of this Munro let alone climb it and with longer daylight hours this was an ideal option and thirdly conditions weatherwise were brilliant for this long days walk through the glens and onto the mountains as potentially in winter time this could be quite exposed.

Beinn Dearg could be done as a bike and a hike, which most people do and having undertaken it by foot I can now see why. However we did do it by foot simply because we wanted to.

We headed off early and by the time we hit the carpark it was already almost full which was a surprise, lucky for us we got the last space.

As we set off we walked through a bit of woodland which then took us onto a landrover track which was pretty straightforward, so this made for fast walking.

It meandered through moorland before it gently stared to climb upwards.

This track was very beautiful and after around 2 hours of smart walking we came upon the Allt Sheicheachan bothy which was hidden from view up until the point we were almost at it and what scenic surroundings it was situated in.

We crossed a small burn to the left of the bothy, following a slightly rougher track for about 30 minutes.

This took us to a steepish upwards zig-zag path which gained height pretty quickly with more views coming into play.

We then crossed a small bit of boggy land before we were on the broad ridge heading to the summit of Beinn Dearg.

Once on the summit I couldn’t actually quite believe we had summited as other than the long walk in it hadn’t actually felt like we had climbed that far…what a pleasant surprise. If only I felt that way summitting all the Munro’s.

Views were beautiful as expected. We decided to have our picnic at the top of this one and take advantage of the fine day. There was a large cairn built around the trig point right on the summit whereby we could have sat to have lunch but we chose to eat lunch at a smaller cairn a stone’s throw away just incase other people arrived as we were relaxing.

After lunch it was time to descend and after the easy ascent I was slightly looking forward to this one for a change.

The beauty about this Munro also was that we would go back a different route for the return, which I always prefer, keeps it interesting.

We descended very quickly as expected as there was no real steepness or scree or massive rocky patches and before we knew it we were at the bottom and heading back out.

Our return path out was just as nice as our in path and although the ‘road was long’ it was still very enjoyable simply walking through this vast moorland surrounded by hills in nice warm conditions.

Just before hitting the carpark we came across a farmer’s field full of ‘Movie Makers’ artic lorries surrounding the fenceline with campervans in the middle of them. Some kind of big movie production was taking place so on passing by the gate we spoke to the security guard asking “is this top secret”.

After him hearing Andy’s Irish accent which he obviously liked and then preceeded to talk Irish even although he was from Glasgow and has never lived in Ireland, the secret was out…they were up in the Glen we had been in only a few weeks previous filming the series of Star Wars with Ewan McGregor!

You just never know what you might come across in these Scottish Mountains!