Day 66 - Gulvain

6 July

It was a surprise to wake up and see the sun beaming in the tent. Liam and I were camped below the Quoich dam, at the flat areas by the private road. The plan for the day was Gulvain, a lone Munro by Fort William. Gairich was prominent above the campsite, bright and green in the sun. It was so easy just to relax and feel on holiday for once.

We packed up camp and headed south in the direction of Gulvain. I stopped by Spean Bridge to get hot rolls out of the Spar. By the time I was on the way to Fort William, the skies were going grey and it was obvious that bad weather was on it's way. By the time Liam and I were at the start of the route and ready to go, it was warm, humid and fine drizzle was spitting down.

The craic with Liam was great, but the weather was pretty horrible. That warm, damp stuff with low clinging mist to go. I hadn't been on Gulvain before, so it was a novelty to get a totally new Munro. You know you're close to completing them all when new terrain is a novelty!

The approach up the glen was long and then we got started on the hill. Wind picked up, we went into mist, and then the rain fell heavier and heavier. We got high up at the weather got worse. It's a drag of a hill with a (probably) great view. So get it on a good day. For me, it was all about ticking one more off the list. The weather was incessantly wet, but not of the piss-take variety, at first.

Then the skies tipped with water the way up to the summit cairn and back, and we headed down the way we came, every path now a stream, every hillside streaming water. On the way down, we frightened some deer; they charged off and I saw (for the first time) one jump a clear twenty (or more?) feet across a burn. Utterly spectacular.

The rain continued to fall on the way back out. The glen track was a long trudge, for the future; it's best tackled with a bike (if you're me), or a quad bike (if you're Liam). we were completely soaked and my thighs were chaffing again as they had done in the first wet days of the Round. My gear was as soaked as it's been in a long time, and I headed back to Fort William to stay with James, driving down roads in the grey desolation of mist and drizzle pushed all the way down to sea level.

All in all; a good day to get a single one climbed. Thank god I didn't go for the Mamores!