It has become somewhat of a tradition now to head up the hills after Christmas, and this year was no exception. We left Giffnock at 08:00 and arrived at a fairly busy Ben More car park. We followed the steep staircase up, which was covered in ice but still climbable from the grass on the side. It was a cloudy, cold day, but we had our fingers crossed for what that might mean. After around an hour of climbing, we reached the cloud level at 700 meters and very quickly ascended above it to an incredible inversion! It was one of those rare times when the summit was warmer than the car park. We took lots of photos before continuing along the path back into the clouds to climb Stob Binnein. We had lunch on the top of Stob Binnein and then retraced our steps instead of going down the steep, boggy path.
We got home at around 16:00. We dropped off Britton, then Lewis and I had turkey curry and completed our run of the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings with The Return of the King.
Stob Binnein poking it’s head out of the clouds.
Me standing beside the cairn at the summit of Ben More.
Lewis approaching the summit with a broken spectre in the background.
Mega Inversion, very cool!
Getting old.
Young bucks - We last did this hill five years ago!
Approaching the summit.
Looking like outdoor instructors.
0.5x zoom doing the trig point and second summit justice.
Lewis looking relieved to make ths summit.
In total, we walked just under eight miles and climbed over 5000 ft. Let’s see which hill we end up on next year!