Up before six; heated up the sweet potato, chilli and lime soup; made the cheese and pickle sandwich and looked out some suitable footwear; packed it all up and headed off to Magdalene Towers to drag Barry and the mutt (Herbie) around some hills in Lochaber. 

We drove through heavy rain up the M90; stopped at Perth for a pit stop; turned off the A9 at Dulwhinnie (sic) and onwards to Spean Bridge; autumn colours around Loch Laggan even on this damp dreich day were luminous and electric. 
To Kilfinnan where we parked up, donned boots and were greeted by an OK day; clouds scudding over the highest summits but no rain and whilst grey, it was acceptably OK and off we went. First following the Great Glen Way; through sitka spruce forest for about 3 miles before turning sharp right and up in the gapping slash that separates Meall na Teanga from Sron a Choire Ghairbh. Initially horribly steep, but once of of the trees it levels and opens out into a pleasant walk up to the bealach between the two mountains. 


Sheltered from the wind and still no rain, we plodded up making steady progress; duly arriving at the gap. We chose Meall Na Teanga for Herbie's first Munro; steeply up we went around the side of Meall Dubh and across onto the last little bit of the Meall Na Teanga; where we met th only person we saw all day before the cloud that had temporarily lifted off the summit roll back in. 

So it was we ploughed along the final half km to the summit in clag before Herbie grabbed his first summit. 
A touch and turn sort of a summit, we descended most of the way back to the bealach and had lunch pretty much where the blip was taken from (that was on the ascent) before plunging downwards before the inevitable grind back up the other side; helped immeasurably by a switchbacking stalker's path which popped us out nicely on the summit plateau for another blind uphill wander to the summit (there is a steep cliff on the right hand side which guides you nicely to the summit in poor impossibly rubbish visibility. 

Again we touched and turned and descended and in a rare moment of good navigation I popped us out the cloud straight onto the path again; I don't normally do this without a period of fumbling about before picking up the path.

And job done, we slowly picked our way back down, and out, an unremarkable descent and exit; still grey, still (mostly) dry and 2 closer to the finish line (95 left for me; Barry still has 135 left to go).

We drove back, subdued by his Dundee losing and now bottom of the league; me slightly more up after a home point to Berwick Rangers; the long drive back the way we came made in tired silence, mainly. 

And finally I made it home after 2130, having (very) briefly seen her lad out working on his first night in the new job for Deliveroo; thankfully a decent night after what sounds like it was a soggy day. 

Bath, dinner, beer zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz in fairly quick order. 

Yeah. I love a day in the hills. 

I'll post a link to the other photos later; once I've sifted through them


Photos here