Heasgarnich and Creag Mhor from the north - and a crocodile sighting!

A few people have commented on the size of the packs we took into Fisherfield on our honeymoon trip…

Fisherfield in June - honeymoon trip to heaven

…although incidentally my brother, who lives in New Zealand, took a different view to everyone else about the pack. He looked at the report and just commented 'I don't know what the fuss is - it looks pretty standard to me'. An interesting bit of cultural relativism, this. In Wellington, when I used to live there, the milk was delivered not by men in motorised vans but by boys who ran up and down the hilly streets pushing huge trolleys. This helps explain two things: why Kiwi hill walkers think nothing of carting the kitchen sink round with them; and why the All Black front eight find it easier than most to go where it says on the tin - forwards.

Sorry about that digression. Anyway, although you only have my word for it that our packs weren't filled with cotton wool and candy-floss, the truth is that I realised we could get away with less. The real spur for us revising the gear issue was Caroline having a fairly major op in early spring a couple of years ago. When it came to summer, she was keen to get back on the hill, but still below par physically. So - brainwave - instead of planning 'normal' hill days which left her shattered and both of us short of daylight, I reckoned that if I took a full pack with us, it would equalise our paces on the hill, and we could camp out if necessary. But at the same time, I thought if we were going to do that as standard, then we were really going to go light. Tarptent, Therm-a-Rest ProLite mats, Mountain House foods… yes, extreme measures. And NO WHISKY... an extreme absence of measures!

So here is our first hill trip under the new regime. We took two leisurely half-days over it, but it could easily be done in one: Beinn Heasgarnich and Creag Mhor, but done from Loch Lyon to the north. We'd been at a 50th birthday party in Killin the night before, so it was lunchtime before we got away from the dam. We cycled in along the south shore - about four miles - to the Allt Fionn a' Ghlinne. Here we stashed the bikes and set off up the shoulder (Stob Garbh-Leachtir)of Beinn Heasgarnich - on the left of this photo...

An unremarkable but direct way up, avoiding the long out-and-back from Stob an Fhir-Bhogha, which I remember from Glen Lochay approach.

It was only 5pm when we got to the top, but there was an obvious campy spot just down from the summit. Either that, or we would probably have to go on past the top of Creag Mhor - another couple of hours. So we called it a day on the bealach just past the summit. A good spot - with a wash and a good water supply in Coire Ban Mor, only a few metres down from the ridge. No great sunset, but a gorgeous view out to Cruachan and the west. Not that the dog was interested.

The following morning, the real picture was over in the east, towards Lawers. Down in Killin things might still be murky, but up here we were blinking and basking.

And in the other direction Creag Mhor (with Gratuitous Bit of Leg).

Up and away by half seven, along the knolls of the ridge. Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin catching the eye to the south...

We took the direct route up Creag Mhor, arriving at the top around eleven.

Now here's a thing. When we did this walk one of my piano pupils was learning an arrangement of a Joni Mitchell song - Both Sides - the imagery of which is about clouds, and how we see whatever we want to see in them. Well I asked this young lad, Ben, if he got it - whether he saw things in clouds. 'Crocodiles', he said '- I always see crocodiles'. Well blow me, but here we were a week later, and every time I looked at a cloud shadow, guess what I saw? Sadly, by the time I got the lens cap off my crocodiles were already morphing into something else. But perhaps you can still make out the mouth of this Crocodylus niloticus as he munches his way across Meall Tionail.

And here we have Crocodylus acutus slithering over the flanks of Beinn an Dothaidh. By the time I'd got the camera out he'd put on quite a bit of weight, but perhaps you can still see his snout. Who says that wildlife is lacking from my photos?

The ridge running out from Creag Mhor back to Loch Lyon is one of those domey shoulders which on a dull day can be dull, but on a high summer's day like this means you can have your head up all the way. A beauty. There are some crags marked on the map between An Stuc and Loch Lyon, but I can't remember these causing us any grief.

And there we are, back at the bikes - happy campers. When we got back to Killin our friends were sunning themselves in the back garden. One of those days.