On the 19th April, 5 expedition members took on the enormous task of summiting nine of Glenshee’s Munros in a single day to try and raise money for the expedition. The hike took a lot of planning to ensure that it was both achievable and safe. We took a lot of time researching the route online and preparing a risk assessment, which was based on previous hikes of the route which were documented online. We also carefully deliberated when we should attempt the challenge because if we left it too late then it would be too close to our exams, but if we went to early there could be a chance of snow. It turns out that our chosen date was perfect, leaving us plenty of time before exams and ensuring that there was no chance of a whiteout. Each team member also put in a lot of individual training in order to get their fitness levels high enough for such a feat.

 

To get the hike done before sunset, we needed to set off at 7am. This meant leaving Glasgow at a ridiculously early hour. Myself and Cameron didn’t like the sound of that very much, so we went up to Glenshee the night before and camped out for the night near the ski centre. Jack, Eadie and Joanna joined us in the morning and, after getting organised, we set off at 7.40am with clear and sunny skies above.

 

The first ascent is one of the hardest parts of the climb with a steep climb up through the heather, followed by a scree slope to negotiate. However, we set off in good spirits and took the first ascent very light-heartedly, stopping for pictures in a small snow cave and admiring Cameron’s nicely executed fall into a river within the first hundred meters of the hike. Eventually, we reached the top of the first Munro, Creag Leacach. We spent far too long there taking pictures, eating and recharging after the initial ascent before we set off again. However, once we started walking we realised that we hadn’t even reached our first peak yet! We pushed on and reached our first actual summit after about an hour and a half of walking. It was a fantastic moment, with it being the first Munro summited every by myself, Jack and Cameron.

 

The walk to the next peak, Glas Maol, was difficult. The cloud had rolled in and visibility was massively reduced. There was lots of snow and the walk consisted of constant up and downs. It took us over an hour to get to the top of Glas Maol and the clouds and the cold had certainly dampened our spirits. However, we pushed on and tackled the next stretch on a bearing because of the low visibility. This walk was similar to the one we had just done except with more snow! It took us a while to find our way to the third summit, Cairn of Claise, since it was difficult to locate ourselves on the map. However, we eventually got there and evaluated our progress at the top. We were way behind schedule and our spirits were dampened by the weather. However, we had reached the highest peak and the next two were very close to each other, so with a new sense of purpose we pressed ahead on our new bearing towards our fourth peak.

Initially, the bearing we were on seemed to be heading in the complete wrong direction and, given that we had only a few meters of visibility, we felt a bit disconcerted. But we stuck with it and once we descended back below the cloud, we saw that we were still on the right path. This stretch of land was actually quite flat, but it was extremely boggy and still a tough walk! We soon reached our fourth summit, Tom Buidhe, as the weather picked up. We were feeling confident so we only stopped quickly for a photo and powered on to the fifth summit, Tolmount, which we could see just across the valley. We got there really quickly and gave ourselves a well-earned rest at the top, where we ate lunch and took some questionable photos.

 

The walk to the sixth summit was another long, tricky one. We had to walk all the way back to the ski resort through swampy land and snow. We also had to contour around a spectacular corrie, which left us breathless (both literally and metaphorically). Eventually we reached the sixth peak, Carn an Tuirc, where we found the best surprise ever! Eadie’s parents had left us a little care package on the cairn with essential supplies such as flapjacks and Mars Bars. Overjoyed by this little pick-me-up, we decided to ditch the path down to the road and head straight down the scree slope. It was difficult, but it turned out to be a very worthwhile exercise because it was exactly the sort of terrain and steepness we would be dealing with in Tanzania. Eventually we rejoined the path, where we bumped into Joanna’s mum and her dogs. We walked down to the little car park at the bottom where we took a long break with Joanna’s mum and Eadie’s parents. We used this time to stock up on supplies (including sun cream!) and to eat more food. We also ticked off our good deed for the day by helping push a car that wouldn’t start and getting them on their way.

 

On to the hardest part of the challenge! The ascent up to Carn Aosda is an incredibly steep scramble up through the heather. We needed lots of breaks and encouragement from one another to get us up to the top. I guess the good thing about it being so steep was that we had very little walking to do once we got to the top to reach the cairn. Once we reached the top, we knew that the hardest part of our hike was done and so we celebrated by filming some footage for the website. We felt confident and pushed on at some pace towards our eighth summit!

 

The walk was longer than it looked but we set ourselves a target of 25 minutes to reach the cairn on Carn nan Sac. It took us every second of those 25 minutes but we reached the cairn within our target time (even if Joanna took a tumble from rushing too much!) and took a photo with the team making a T (for Tanzania) hand gesture! Eadie checked the sunset times and we saw that we had another 25 minutes to reach the summit of the Cairnwell by sunset. We knew we could achieve this and we kept up the fantastic pace we had set. The final few meters of the ascent had everybody’s legs burning, but we made it to the top of Cairnwell bang on sunset. And what a view from the top! We shared out some celebratory Jelly Babies as we watched the sky turn orange and rested up our legs for the descent.

 

The descent was much longer and strenuous than we anticipated and felt like coming out of the frying pan into the fire! Eventually, after squelching our way down through the bog, we reached the road and walked the final few hundred meters to the cars. We decided that our achievements merited a massive dinner, so we got straight in the cars and drove to Wetherspoons in Blairgowrie. We reflected on the day over our unnecessarily large meals and did our best to recover the aching muscles and joints. However, we knew that the best remedy for us would be a good night’s sleep (or in my case, three good night’s sleep)! 

 

Early indications suggest we will have raised over £600 for our troubles, which smashes our £500 target. It's still not too late to sponsor us for this event on the donate page. Just leave us a little note mentioning that you are sponsoring a team member for the 9 Munro Challenge!

 

By Andrew Steiner