Munro Bagging with a Little Trekker

Bagging a summit is always an incredible feeling, but bagging a summit with a child on your back just hits different. It’s empowering and motivating!

I have done a fair few Munros by myself, and only a handful with my daughter with the help of my partner, but this was the first Munro we did where it was just me carrying her from start to finish. Normally when we hike my partner carries her, after all he has the better stamina out of us two and is used to carrying weight from his job, so it works for better for us this way and gets us up the hill. This time it was just my daughter and I, with my friend and her daughter. We can do this, right? We’ll give it a go for sure.

We decided on Meall Buidhe in Glen Lyon. A lovely looking hill sitting at 932m, with only 500mish to climb as you start 430m above sea level. Can’t complain at that! After a long drive through a windy single-track road, the parking is at the end of the estate road next to a nearby dam, quiet and remote. A great place to let my daughter stretch her legs after a 2.5 hour drive before putting her in the carrier. She ran around freely exploring the dirt and rocks the estate had to offer while I got our things sorted for the climb.

Eventually we were ready to set off, admiring the views of the dam and nearby hills already. We had a beautiful day for hiking, a warm light breeze and sun peeking out the clouds every so often. Lots of sheep and their lambs roaming around as pointed out by little voices saying ‘seep’

It took a bit of time for the legs to warm up to walking through the heather with a child on my back, so we took our time as to not overdo it. A few water and snack breaks here and there, admiring how well we were doing so far. Noticed a hill that looked like a face, which started a fun conversation about giants and plausible myths. Anything to keep the mind of the peat bogs we were approaching!

Once we were finished navigating through the peat bogs and surprisingly managing to avoid falling in, we reached the top plateau near the summit after about 2 hours. Both kids were doing incredible, no complaints or signs of wanting out, just many requests for snacks. Took this snack break as an excuse to stop for some more photos!

Snacked up and ready to go again. A short walk over the plateau had the summit cairn in view, and our speed picked up a little to reach it quicker. We had done it! Our first Munro summit completed with no help from others. It felt amazing to touch the cairn and realise how well we had achieved this.

Both kids had done so well and had been so patient with us, so we took our time at the summit to let them roam around. They loved how many lose rocks were about, picking up and examining their favourites. After about 30 minutes of playing, we decided it was time to head back down, the wind had picked up a little and was now making us a bit chilled.

Kiddies back in the carriers with no complaints and down we headed, trying to retrace our footsteps on a pathless hill. We decided to pick our pace up a little on the way down as the feet were starting to ache now, and the thought of a nice seat by the car was too appealing.

An incredible 6 mile walk on a beautiful day. The hillwalking bug is back now and the next hill is already in planning!