Highlight: Garbh-bheinn on Skye, my 100th Corbett, followed two days later by Beinn Dorain, my last Munro. Garbh-bheinn is a superb hill, and I climbed it via Druim Eadar Da Choire and the north ridge - straightforward until the summit, where there is a little exposure to reach the cairn. Then off down the steep north-east ridge to traverse over to Belig and Glas Bheinn Mhor - a great circuit, in clear weather. The views over to Clach Glas and Bla Bheinn were particularly fine.
Another good weather day for Beinn Dorain, but this time in the company of several other walkers at a very leisurely pace. Highland Park at the summit, mixed emotions on reaching the top - 27 years after I climbed my first Munro - I think I will just have to climb them again. Absolute height does matter after all (heresy).
Easiest hill: Beacon Batch took only 16 minutes in total from the car, on the one foray south of the border in 2012. Rather boggy for my liking really, but maybe the weather in the south in 2012 has taken its toll.
Toughest hill: Ruadh-stac Beag, a satellite of Beinn Eighe. This one takes no prisoners, and even the walking route is rough, scrambly and loose underfoot. It also has a feeling of isolation to it, surrounded as it is by higher peaks and feeling rather cut off from civilisation. I loved it - you feel like you have achieved something when you have climbed it.
High point: Ben Nevis again. No surprises there, then.
Low point: Carn Ban on Mull, only 248m high, but what a view. I can understand why Hamish Brown saved this one for his 1000th Marilyn. And it provides an insight into island life pre-clearances, with ruined villages on its lower slopes.
I did also attempt a relative hill in Pakistan - the high point of the Karoonjhar Hills at 305m, with a prominence of about P300. I failed, in temperatures exceeding 40C, due to the inability of my escort to go any further, having reached a height of about 200m. I have never felt so tired at the end of a walk.
Clach Glas and Bla Bheinn (photo: Jonathan Appleby)
