Beinn Dothaidh/Beinn Dorain/An Teallach and Ben Ledi July 2011

Since the Dunfermline Half Marathon i've done more climbing and hill walking than running. Call it cross training. Even the limited running i've done has been up in the hills, with extended training sessions up in the Kilpatricks and the Glennifer Braes.

The first of my recent Munro's were last week. Beinn Dothaidh, which I hadn't previously climbed, and Beinn Dorain (5th time). I purposefully climbed Dothaidh first, just in case the weather closed in and I might have to call it a day.

 Luckily today the weather held for me to do both. Beinn Dorain has been a mountain i've returned to time and time again. However, today was the first time I have been able to see the view from the summit cairn as every other time i've been up here its been in low cloud and on one occasion during a blizzard.

On Saturday I was up and away at 4am, heading up for what I had hoped would be 3 days of climbing in Torridon. I tried this last year and had been defeated by very poor weather. And once again during the night and early morning the weather hadn't been great up here. As a result I knew some of the hills i had planned to do would be far too boggy to enjoy. So plan B was to just do one mountain and then retreat on Sunday to Fort William to do Nevis with Jim. I had hoped to do Liathach, An Teallach, Beinn Alligan and Beinn Eighe over three days but had to choose one. An Teallach it was.

A spectacular mountain and as soon as I had made it onto the ridge the cloud came down and covered the whole range. Bugger!!

 

It was a great climb, despite not seeing much and i met a few other brave souls on the traverse. It's one i'll have to come back and do again, just to see the view. The next day Jim couldn't make it so I called it quits for the weekend.
Yesterday the weather looked more promising, so I headed over to Ben Ledi, which I have never done either. A great little mountain and I had planned on heading over the bealach to do Ben Vane. But on the decent between them the cloud closed in and the heavens opened in style. Within a few minutes visibility was only around 10 metres, the ground became extremely boggy and I was pretty well wet through to my underwear!!!

So with 4 days to go before the Clyde Stride 40 Mile Ultra I plan on taking it easy for the rest of the week. I'm hoping to finish the Stride in around 7 hours.

Bring it on!!