Ben Chonzie

The original plan was to get up fairly early, dive over to Crianlarich adn climb An Caisteal and Beinn a' Chroin. Unfortunately a mate's birthday a Judas Priest tribute band and several pints put that plan to bed, literally. Getting up late meant that we had to adjust our plans. We were having a look for a closer and shorter walk, the Forth Road Bridge was close to one lane so it had to be west rather than north. Looking at an online map of Munros we noticed Ben Chonzie sitting a little north-east of Loch Earn; a short walk in and not that high at 931m meant it matched our criteria.

The sun was shining and after a quick stop for petrol and some food we were on our way just after mid day. The sun continued to shine and we got a glorious, if not a bit hot at times, day out in the hills. When we had quickly read up about Ben Chonzie it was suggested that it's probably the dullest Munro, they were probably right, it's not a lot to look at. The hill itself is a pretty big featureless lump with a huge flat ridge leading up (just) to the summit, the walk in is pretty straight forward following land rover track for about half before turning off and up the hill. We didn't mind, the sun was out and it was a nice walk. We hadn't done much walking for a while so it was a good one to get us back into it. It might be a nice walk to do again in the winter sometime. It's pretty straight forward and apparently hold snow quite well, there were still a few small patches clinging on despite the high temperatures.

Day One, as it were...

Headed out after work down to Hollyrood Park with the kite - a 3.5m Peter Lynn Pepper. There wasn't a whole lot of wind so I feel bad about counting it as doing some exercise, on a windy day kitting can be pretty knackering. We've not had the kite out for a while so it was quite good to get it up on a fairly light day and practice controlling it without having to worry about staying on your feet, or on the ground.

Hello

Hello, and welcome to a my new blog. A couple of weeks ago I was invited to head out to Chamonix with some of my girlfriend's family for a holiday and some walking. I've been out to Chamonix and done some walking before, I also generally do a small amount of hill walking here in Scotland (maybe 3 or 4 Munro's and a few other walks per year). What makes this holiday different is that I've been offered the chance to climb Mont Blanc: (western) Europe's highest mountain.

I'm not really what you'd call a fitness freak, but don't get me wrong I'm not a fat oaf either. Physically I'm probably not in too bad shape and the small amount of exercise that I do helps: cycling a couple of miles to work each day, going for the odd walk at weekends, some power kitting and generally walking about. The biggest problem probably is that I tend to eat a lot, and drink a fair amount of beer...

Mont Blanc's not too technical a mountain and the hill walking experience I have means that I have no problems with navigation, preparation for unexpected problems and combined with my experience working as a lifeguard while at school/university means I reckon that I cope well when problems do arise. I'm also a fairly keen skier with quite a bit of experience in the Alps and at altitude as well as in Scotland and in bad weather.

If I'm going to stand a chance of making it to the top of Mont Blanc then I'm going to have to get of my arse and get a bit fitter. Strength wise I'm okay but I really need to put some work in to build up stamina and improve my aerobic fitness. The purpose of this blog is as a kind of training diary for myself so that I can monitor how well I'm doing and help me plan out what I need to do.