I had a new walking buddy for this pair of hills – Ian – who I’d found on the WalkHighlands forum. And I was so fired up for another walk after such a good day on An Caisteal, that I even agreed to an 8.30am kick off. People who know me well, know that this hurt.
Fortunately it was a nice morning. Looking at An Caisteal and Beinn a’Chròin from the other side in morning light I could barely believe I’d been up there two days previously.
This hike up the grassy slope was pretty damn steep, which the route description had decided not to mention. Brutal start to the day. Still, at least it was sunny, even if we were melting under our winter clothes.
We made it to the first summit. I was starving (even though it was only about 11am) and chose a spot to sit for a sandwich, which I confidently declared was sheltered. This “sheltered” spot was possibly the coldest, windiest spot on the hill. Amazingly, Ian went along with this, without complaint. He must’ve been hungry too.
We headed on into the wind to tackle Cruach Àrdrain. We descended down to the bealach between the two hills, into the significantly-more-sheltered place where we *should* have eaten our sandwiches.
The second hill of the day was significantly icier – ah so we are in winter after all. We both had a series of bambi-on-ice moments on patches of solid sheet ice, and dancing over iced up boulders. It was a busy day on the hill – the good weather had pulled a lot of people out – and the ice was a great leveller with most of us as helpless on it as each other. (There was also a few folk who trotted around gracefully on the ice like it was nothing, but I don’t want to talk about them).
The second summit beat the first. Some light clouds had started rolling around, which only accentuated the crisp winter light. Maybe it’s just me, but I always feel light clouds make for a more dramatic sky than a boring expanse of blue.
Picking our way back down this hill over the ice was trickier than the way up. Ian had predicted early on in the day that at least one of us would go down before the end of the walk. To his delight, it was me. I did a spectacular slowmotion slide-fall in soft snow. Followed by the long pause where I can’t get up for laughing so hard. To my frustration, Ian did about 4 or 5 almost-falls, where he somehow managed to catch himself into a complex breakdance freeze, usually with his bum about 2 inches off the wet/snowy/boggy ground. He tried (unsuccessfully) to take me down with him on at least 3 occassions. Still, he couldn’t save his hat from the bog so he didn’t come out completely unscathed. 😂
Only Young Twice 