Matthew and I were dropped off first, and on our hike in we walked right through a small herd of highland cattle. I tried to get a picture of them, but the light wasn't good enough and we needed to get moving. If you turn your monitor brightness up all the way you can barely see the baby one in this picture.
This is looking back from our walk in to the base of the hill. The farthest right white ridge is my first glimpse of Ben Nevis.
Hill sheep. There were more higher above us but they moved and I couldn't get a picture of them.
The other glen, next to Glencoe. I forget it's name.
Beinn Fhionnlaidh, the hill we were about to climb.
On the way up, another look back at what was behind us. If you look at the photo above, we're right inside that ridge in the foreground, I'm pretty sure, in the picture below looking off to what would be your left in the picture above (figure that one out).
Little bit near the top starting to get a little interesting. I think we just picked the fastest way...up. The next three photos all taken by Matthew and yoinked off of Facebook.
Bit of a near vertical and slightly exposed section. A tad nerve wracking, but...
It was easier at the end, and I got to use an ice axe for the first time.
Almost at the top, looking off toward the Isle of Skye.
9th hill conquered in Scotland.
We spent plenty of time on the summit eating lunch, and then headed down. This a view of the two routes. To the right, the flat plain-like snowy ridge is how we walked down. The steeper craig off to the left is how we got up.
Lochen on the way down (Lochen = small lake/loch; -en is a diminuative in Gaelic).
A freaking herd of deer. Many Scots don't find this interesting or noteworthy at all, since there are more deer than people living in Scotland today. But it's so fun to watch them all run together.
Neat little hovel/farmhouse ruin that I enjoyed pretending was far older than it most likely was.
We came down the hill and hopped over one fence and then crossed a stream and went under another fence to get to the field where that house was. Then we took a road that is probably used mostly by loggers for a pretty long hike back to the point where we would get picked up and taken back to the hut.
Sunday morning we were out significantly later. It had been light for a while, and we were off up another mountain, munro number ten for me. This is everyone on the way up, Wee Stevie, Rob, Aileen, and Charlie. The two people at the bottom weren't in our group.
This is what we were going up.
What lay behind us.
The saddle kind of thing at the top of the steep bit, looking down the ridge. The summit is actually behind me in the picture.
On the summit; tenth munro.
Rob making a snowman. He later added a very "Dumb and Dumber" touch to it.
This is another group of climbers who we could hear laughing from the other top when they found Rob's snowman. They started taking pictures of it, and then began posing with it.
Rock.
After we came down we were still waiting for another group to come down, so we all went to the hotel pub down the street while we waited for the others to call when they were down. Eventually they were picked up, and we started the drive home, but not without the traditional fish n' chips stop on the way. I'm tired and I've got some Gaelic to do, so I'll post last weekend's exploits tomorrow. They're considerably less exciting visually mostly due to my camera's breaking on the trip. I don't know that it's totally screwed, but it's not working anywhere near properly. It's about three years old and it's been through quite a bit, but I would have liked if it would've waited until after I got home to die on me.Tioraidh
Gaelic Word for the Day: taigh-beag (tr. toilet; lit. "little house")
