Cruach Ardrain and Beinn Tulaichean were the 9th and 10th Munros that we’ve ticked off together on our adventures.

We started our day at 5:30 am and got ourselves ready to go and the dogs into the car. Once we’d grabbed a quick bite to eat, we started the 1hr 50-minute car journey from Glasgow up to the car park taking the route past Stirling.

On our way there, we were treated to some epic views of the Wallace Monument peeking through the low clouds against the orangy/red light of the morning.

We found the car park and donned our gear before following the road along past the farm and up to a gate with a stile which we and the dogs could climb.

Once over the stile, we followed the river and the small path until we reached a road.

Following the road up for a bit, you should see a Cairn which you should head towards up the grassly slopes. The hike from this point is definitely a bit more of a long-hard slog at this point and having no real path to follow definitely makes this a little bit harder going than some of the previous Munros.

Heading up the slopes, you should start to get some excellent views back down the valley to Loch Doine and Loch Voil.

At around 500-550m you should encounter a fence that sweeps around the mountain. If you follow this right, you should eventually encounter a rusted metal gate that is slightly easier to clamber over.

If you’ve got dogs, you may have to resort to lifting them over the fence which is always great fun if the dogs are wet and mucky 👌

Once past the gate, we veered to the left of the summit and found a more well-defined path that led us up to the summit of Beinn Tulaichean.

At around 700-800m elevation there is a very welcome break in the ascent which gives your legs a little bit of a rest.

The path is fairly easy to follow at this point and leads you directly up to the summit.

Looking back down into the valley, you should be able to more clearly see both of the lochs at this point as well as some of the further mountain tops.

The final climb is fairly short and sharp and a little bit more technical in places, but fairly manageable.

At the top, you can be rewarded with some fairly exceptional views depending on cloud coverage.

From the top of Beinn Tulaichean, it’s a fairly straightforward walk down off the peak and back up the path to the top of Cruach Ardrain.

At the summit, you’ll be able to see across to Stob Binnein and Ben More depending on visibility, as well as the second Munro for the day which is Beinn Tulaichean!

At this point, we noticed some fairly formidable-looking rain clouds drawing closer. The clouds, coupled with the high winds that quickly stole all warmth from us, cut down the time we spent at this top and we quickly descended to the more sheltered parts of the mountain.

Coming off the mountains, there is a path down to the left of Beinn Tulaichean coming from the summit of Cruach Ardrain which is denoted by a small cairn.

The path at times disappears into nothing, but overall the hike down was fairly uneventful. You eventually come to a well-maintained farmer’s access road which gives a pretty decent and rewarding walk back to the car.

This hike was fantastic overall. The weather was perfect and there were many really enjoyable sections of the hike which provided fantastic views.

There was a lot of sheep all over the mountain, however, which meant that we had to keep our two dogs on the leads at all times which was a bit of a pain, but still manageable.