Geal Charn & Creag Pitridh

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So, on Friday, we had ordered all the gas boiler parts for the Hobbit Cascade, so there was little we could do over the weekend, so on that basis, I decided to accompany the Glenrothes Hillwalking club where a selection of Munros was on offer.
A small group of 6 decided to do 3 Munros whilst myself and the less daft minority would tackle just the 2.

The weather was very pleasant as we set off and had our first wee break at Lochan na Hearba. If you've never been here before, see the pic below.  It's like a sandy beach in the midst of the mountains.

Costa del Alba

Suitably refreshed, we followed the path gaining height, but all the time very aware of the worsening weather approaching from the South West, and just as we reached the plateau which takes you the last 10 minutes to the summit, we were hit by horizontal sleet and the wind picked up to about 35 knots.

This is most certainly not a difficult hill to climb, but the conditions of today made it a heck of an effort just to stay upright.

At the top, we huddled in abject misery and got as much food and hot drinks down as possible, and donned waterproofs over our already sodden clothes. Yep...it hit us that quickly.

We descended again to the path that leads between Charn & Pitridh, and after a wee chat, the group split into 2, the sensible ones re-tracing the path back to the warmth of the bus, leaving the rest of us to tackle Pitridh.

This was actually another easyish walk, but once again, come the summit, it was a case of leaning heavily into the wind to stay upright.  Suffice to say, we didn't hang around and headed off to lose altitude as rapidly as possible.

The walkout from here was through very boggy ground and I think that most of us had sodden boots and socks before long, as nothing could keep out the deluge.

Then....just as we reached the 'walkout' path, the skies cleared and the sun blazed.

The rest of the group were all lazed out on the grass munching sarnies and looking very smug by the time we returned to the bus.  A  'wringing out of socks' ceremony then ensued.

Well, it's now Monday night, and we spent today doing plumbing work in the Wee Hobbit whilst the sparkies wired the Cascade unit.   I'm still hurting from Sundays frivolities, so early to bed.   ZZZZZZZZ!!!!