On 20 April 2024, a day that will be forever etched on my memory, I had a horrendous ski accident, falling down a cliff, dislocating my hip, fracturing my femur and needing to be helicoptered off the mountain to hospital. Thankfully the doctors had reset my hip within hours and I was recovering well, having built my fitness and strength back up to doing some of my favourite walks in the Lake District, but this was my first venture back into Munro-bagging and my first proper test of my fitness.

Prior to my accident, I had signed up to do the CMD arrete on Ben Nevis, with the Hillbillies walking group, on a weekend towards the beginning of September. I had decided after the accident, not to take my name off the event, but to use the early part of the summer to try to build up my fitness and confidence to be able to manage the challenge. So this weekend was intended to get a better idea as to whether or not I would be ready, just over a month later, for the CMD arrete.

I chose Beinn Narnain and Beinn Ime because I’d read that they’re relatively easy, with a bit of scrambling on Beinn Narnain. They’re also among some of the most southerly Munros, so it wasn’t too far to drive – straight up to Tarbet on Friday night after work and then a very short drive to the car park in Arrochar on Saturday morning.

I booked to stay at the Tarbet hotel both Friday and Saturday night, giving me the option to do another Munro on Sunday if I felt up to it.

I really enjoyed the scramble up Beinn Narnain – I don’t recall any technical difficulties, apart from maybe one move that required some careful foot and hand placement. Similarly the descent to the bealach was straightforward enough – but I do remember the long gradual ascent of Beinn Ime nearly finished me off!

On the summit of Beinn Ime I sat down for a while to rest, and got chatting to another walker called Kennedy, who it turned out is also a member of the Munros Facebook group. I told him I didn’t think I had the energy to do the Cobbler on the way back to the car – not being a Munro, it wasn’t on my wish-list for the day and it just looked like too much effort from my current vantage point.

But Kennedy confidently asserted that once I reached the point on the bealach where the path branches off to the top of the Cobbler (with the route back to the car taking me straight past it) it would only be a short 20 minute walk up from there, and he insisted that I really should try to “thread the needle” given the good conditions and visibility. Another chap I’d stopped to chat to earlier on Beinn Narnain had also raved about the “Eye of the Needle” and explained that it was a gap in the rocks that one can crawl through (hence “threading the needle”). So it was becoming clear to me that if I didn’t at least head up and have a look at the famous “Eye” I would only end up feeling I’d missed out, and obligated to return another day.

And so I did – and was very glad I did! I found the Cobbler far more interesting than either of the Munros, and ended up spending a fair bit of time at the top, “threading the needle”, taking lots of pictures and visiting both summits before eventually heading back down to the car, utterly exhausted but very happy to have achieved not just the two Munros I’d set out to do, but also the famous Cobbler that I’d heard so much about.

Incredibly, after a good long stretch out in the evening and again in the morning, my legs felt strong enough to head out on Sunday to bag Ben Vorlich.

My main memory of this was that it was relentlessly steep both up and down; it absolutely finished off my quads on the way down and I was hobbling for days afterwards.

There are two main viewpoints on the summit – the trig is reached first but the official summit is a bit further on, with a cairn and a large rock next to it. I arrived at the cairn shortly after a young man who very kindly took my picture for me – and then took another picture for me at the trig on the way down. He declined my offer to take a photo for him – he had a selfie stick and stayed at the top taking lots of pictures of his own as I headed down.

I remember being disappointed at the time, that the view over Loch Lomond was so cloudy, as the day had started out so gloriously sunny – but looking back at the pictures now I can see I still got some pretty good views!