Ben Lomond with little legs

This time last week we were walking up Ben Lomond.  It is a beautiful hill on the edge of Loch Lomond and is a Munro* - a Scottish hill over 3000ft high (914 metres).

We've been thinking for a while that Islay might be big enough to make it up a 'proper' hill.   It's something that John and I love, and have only really managed to do separately since we've had the children, and we were pretty certain the boys would be fine.

Islay was quite daunted at first as there's no gentle warm up, you start heading uphill fairly steeply right from the loch shore.  And it is a made path (it is such an accessible hill it gets loads of walkers and the best way to reduce erosion is for a man-made path - many, possibly most, munros have little or no path for most of the route which is one of the wonderful things for people like me who like a bit of wilderness and solitude - possibly also known as antisocial!) which makes it harder for little legs like Islay's.  Just look at the stone step she's about to negotiate in the picture above - she had to climb over it and that's what much of the way up is like.

Looking south down Loch Lomond

 But after the first hour or so she said her legs were feeling better and she did really well after that.  The boys were bounding off ahead and had no problems at all.  I had a huge supply of jelly babies and maltesers which kept us all happy!

Looking inland to the east

The views were brilliant.  It wasn't the clearest of days but we could still see good distances and the cloud kept it quite cool which was perfect for walking.

We didn't ever stop for long as there was a fair few midges who clustered in for a free meal whenever we weren't moving.  They really aren't a lot of fun.

We all made it!

 It briefly clouded over on the top so we didn't linger and set off one of along the, very appropriately named, Ptarmigan ridge to make a circular route back to the bottom.

 And here's a ptarmigan spotted on the ridge!  It is a fairly scarce mountain bird related to the red grouse.  They go white in the winter and keep a white tummy all year.  This one was a male and had his jaunty red comb in full view, when I eventually managed to catch him standing still!

I haven't done anything to these photos, that's just the way he looked.  I guess the sun may have been shining off his comb to make it so bright.

By the last hour or so Islay was getting very tired, the boys were too but had a bit more stamina and strength, but she didn't ask for a carry and made it all the way under her own steam.  We were so proud of them all for making it, and Katie was happy in the back pack too - it is so good to feel we can share our love of hillwalking with them.  I did worry that we needed to be careful not to put any of them off but they all loved it.  Which hill next?!

*Currently there are 283 hills meeting the munro criteria.....it gets all very technical about what is and isn't one.  And there's even a society for those who have climbed all of them - compleated - The Munro Society (my dad finished walking them all in 2006 and his last munro was Finn's first, Angus also went up it but he was mostly carried (and Islay did too, in my tummy!) so he doesn't get to tick it off as climbed!).