Glencoe

The good weather continues and we have had a brilliant couple of days almost completely outdoors in the sunshine. Yesterday James and I walked a section of the Fife coastal path between St Andrews and Leuchars. It was very near the main coastal road so not the most idyllic section, but we had nice views across ploughed and newly planted fields towards the sea. Leuchars is now an army base and we saw two Chinook helicopters flying overhead. St Andrews is such an attractive town, full of history and lots of students strolling about. The west beach was busy too, and restaurants were being spruced up; there is definitely an atmosphere of new beginnings as we move towards the next stage of lifting restrictions on Monday. We rounded off the day with pizza in Dundee with Davie, it was great to see him.

Today we were in Glencoe with Ally and Cat. They were keen to traverse the Aonach Eagach which is an extremely challenging ridge walk, and to tick off two new Munros. James walked 20 km to climb Fraochaidh, a Corbett. I parked in Glencoe village after dropping them off and intended to walk up Sgorr na Ciche, also known as the Pap of Glencoe. Despite being furnished with a map that James had printed and OS maps on my phone, I set off in the wrong direction into the forest and walked up a path to a pretty lochan. What I should have done next is to retrace my steps, but I thought that I could save time by climbing up through some trees to reach the open slopes of the hill. I struggled upwards with tree branches whipping at my face and the ground extremely uneven. Finally I emerged onto a forestry commission track and plowtered onwards up through an area of recently felled forest which was even worse going. Then I had to climb over a barbed wire fence, and found myself on open ground but with no path at all. I continued for a while but I was very hot so decided to abandon my ascent and to traverse the hill where I would surely find the elusive path. Not so. When I finally spotted the path it was far away on the other side of a gully. So I made my way across and downwards over very rough ground until I joined the path that I should have ascended in the first place, and headed down. The sun had been beating down on me unrelentingly all of this time, so when I got to the gate at the road I threw myself down in the shade of a large pine tree and lay down until I had cooled off. This self-inflicted ordeal did not put me off, because I actually really enjoyed myself. The views from the hill were absolutely tremendous. I could see so many beautiful mountains, and all down Glencoe and beautiful Loch Leven. 

It was soon time to pick up my fellow travellers, who had also had a great day. Ally and Cat had successfully conquered the Aonach Eagach and were very happy. Back home we had a celebratory curry, watched Spider-Man The Homecoming (which was very good) and then we showed each other our photos of the mountains. It has been an excellent day.