Reason #1

I think today is a good example of exactly why I finally got around to learning to drive. I set off this morning for Perth, picked up my Dad and then we headed further north to Glen Shee to climb four Munros. Not much in and of itself, but we’ve done that more in the last few months than we’ve probably managed in the last few years. As we stood enjoying the view at one point it really struck me that that was why I’d done it.

We made an amusing navigational error quite early on in the day. After cresting the first summit we decided that we should definitely take a bearing and walk on it since the cloud had enveloped us. This would have been fine if we’d bothered to stop and do it properly but no, we lined ourselves up once and set off. We wandered through bog and peat until we decided that should probably find out where we were. Out came the GPS which gave us a grid ref but since it didn’t match were we had planned to be we discounted it as faulty. Much checking of the map and airy-fairy “we must be around here” later, we decided the GPS was most likely right, set out South and lo, came to a recognisable point which was a fair bit off where we’d intended. No matter, we just reorganised which order we’d visit the summits in and set off again.

Plus points for the day; taking a stove up the hill is a brilliant idea and one I’ll repeat many times.

Bad points; my new Montane Featherlite is shit. It works well as a windproof but there’s so much fabric involved it flaps and inflates, making a racket in the process. That’s probably going to get ebayed and I’ll pick up a GT instead.