An Caisteal, The Trossachs National Park

Today me and Debbie went up to Crianlarich for a days hill walking. Fun times! The plan was to walk up the ridge over Sron Garbh and Twistin Hill followed by summiting the munros An Caisteal and Beinn a' Chroin.

I initially parked one parking layby too early, but soon realised and jumped back in the car along to the next one. The start of the walk was through a boggy farmers field to gain the track into the hills. I slipped and ended up knee deep in sloppy mud/bog! Thankfully it was only on my softshells and didnt go down my boots - It seems it would have been a good day for gaiters but I didnt take any - oops.

Post mud!

We then plodded on up the damp turfy ground to the summit of Sron Garbh at 709m where we stopped for some sandwiches. nom nom. The views were nice and pretty until the cloud started coming in.

 

top of Sron Garbh

wooooo, I <3 walking!

We then continued to plod along Twistin Hill where there was patches of snow cover and the path was pretty icy. Upon reaching the ascent to An Caisteal it had become quite snowy, and as everything looked pretty green from the road I hadnt packed any crampons or an axe. So after a lot of kicking steps in the hard neve we finally reached the summit at 995m. The vis had become quite crap at this point, the cloud level must have been about 850-900m and we were just above that. After having a look at the very wintery looking stuff infront of us I opted to turn back instead of continuing to the summit of Beinn a' Chroin.

view onwards from An Caisteal

We then returned via the same route as we came, getting back to the car 5hours and 55minutes after we set off. My knee is pretty sore from the descent but that is always the case :(

Nice day out though, I need a weekly hill/mountain day to get me through the week at uni it seems. Maths really isn't fun, especially since I have yet another exam on tuesday!

Here are a few more photos from the day:

more views

Debbie as 'Keith Scott'

Janey