Despite some fantastic weather, I was otherwise engaged for much of the early summer months due to Sarah and I moving into our new home. Shortly after moving though – and with some great weather coming up – we decided to ditch building furniture and doing chores in favour of a well-deserved walk in the hills. Sarah has really enjoyed our previous trips to the Lawers range north of Loch Tay, so it seemed only right that she was there to finish the final 2 of the 7 Munros that often make one large day walk.

[Jul ’22]

Although we had an early start, it wasn’t overly difficult to get up and ready to go on our first hill walk from our new home. We could hardly contain our excitement and the journey to Perthshire seemed to fly by as we enjoyed a lovely jaunt through the Trossachs and up the wee road past Lochan na Lairige. We arrived at the small parking area around 0800 and carefully parked off the road alongside a couple of other vehicles already there. Just before setting off a ranger arrived in a pickup truck, but thankfully she was happy with our parking and told us to have a nice walk (there had been issues with some inconsiderate parking previously, leading to the single-track road being blocked).

The weather was brilliant. There were fine blue skies and hardly a cloud in sight. It was due to get pretty hot later in the day, but so far the temperature was just about right. If you like the colour green, then any of the hills in Perthshire are worth a visit in the summer. What a perfect morning for a hill walk!

Our route wasn’t a particularly long one and the start point was already more than 500m above sea level, so the ascent to the first top of the day was just about as easy as it’s possible for a Munro to be. We followed the well-walked (and occasionally boggy) grassy path up towards the western ridge of Meall Corranaich, only really having to stop to soak up the wonderful panoramic views on what was a beautiful morning.

Without trying too hard, we reached the summit of Meall Corranaich after just 90 minutes of walking. The summit was quiet and we stood for a while, admiring the scenery and looking across to the other Lawers Munros, thinking of past trips to the area and how we’d been lucky with the weather on every visit.

Before long we were itching to get going though, so we soon set off again, heading north along the long summit plateau and down towards the bealach between us and our second Munro of the day – Meall a’Choire Leith.

As with our first hill of the day, the second provided no difficulties and the slopes were gentle. We made good progress, stopping now and again to look behind us at Ben Lawers and Beinn Ghlas, which looked rather enormous compared to these relatively ‘small’ mountains we were on. The biggest obstacle now was the heat, which had quickly ramped up as the sun moved across the clear blue sky above us. We had plenty of water though and made sure to keep well hydrated.

An hour after leaving our first Munro, we were atop Meall a’Choire Leith, where we stood once again and basked in the sunny weather, admiring the fine views all around. We pointed out the hills all around us from past trips along with ones still to be climbed – of which there are plenty to keep us busy for the next wee while!

The descent from Meall a’Choire Leith was probably the steepest part of our walk and we carefully wound our way downhill, following an obvious grassy path towards the boggy ground that lay between us and the car. Thankfully this wasn’t overly wet due to the recent dry weather, but it was easy to imagine how much more miserable things could have been during wetter weather.

We arrived back at the car exactly 3 and a half hours after setting off. Although a quick and easy day in the hills, with less than 800m of ascent, it had been very rewarding with excellent views, great weather and another 2 Munros under our belts. It was time to get back to reality though – we’re homeowners now and there are chores to be done and jobs to complete…!