Ben Vrackie

Peaks: Ben Vrackie (841m)
Area: South-East Highlands
This was a perfect way to briefly break the journey home from Torridon: an opportunity to stretch the driving legs. The weather was nice, high cloud base, as we drove past the Cairngorms so I initially made plans to run up the dull hills east of Drumochter. However, this would have been a tedious repeat of last Saturday for the family (and me). Instead, as Ben Vrackie rises directly above the nice town of Pitlochry, which we have enjoyed visiting in the past, it seemed perfect. I took it flat out from the car park in Moulin: unsurprisingly, it was clearly very popular with a perfectly constructed path the whole way up. Very runnable as a result, through nice woodland to gentle inclines rising up the open hillside to Loch a'Choire. From here, the path rises steeply up hundreds of well constructed steps to the well positioned summit: a neatly defined peak. Car to summit in 39 minutes. Lots of people around, very much Pitlochry's 'signature peak': it made a novel change from the wilder peaks of last week and was a nice final taste of the Highlands. The sun came out while I was on top: Beinn a'Ghlo the most notable group, sun dappled, with the Cairngorms beyond. To the west, Ben Lawers, Schiehallion and the like. I pelted back down to meet the family eating lunch in Moulin and we recommenced our journey back to Wales.