One last push to the peak

K and I settled into our digs quite nicely yesterday. I took the opportunity to use the hotel facilities (the pool and sauna) followed later on by a romantic dinner and a few drinks in the hotel dining room. 
After a hearty breakfast and an early start we headed to the spa for a massage, thoroughly enjoyable but probably something we should have indulged in AFTER we climbed this hill! And what a hill it was...located at the end of Loch Tay behind Killin, a 400 m vertical no let up,icy, strenuous torture. Well worth it for the views though and I certainly felt like we achieved something. At a certain point I wasn't sure if I would make it to the top and there were some parts that were fairly treacherous. The path in places was so icy from other climbers tramping down the snow that we had to find an alternate path and as we got close to the top we often couldn't distinguish where the path was! I was more worried about getting back down as we had to scramble in some places, the thought of how steep it was was putting me off going any further. I'm glad K convinced me to keep going as once we got to the top we had 360 degree view of the hills all around. The weather couldn't have been better, clear, cold but not too cold and not a breath of wind. In the end it wasn't too bad getting back down either. 
After our epic hike which took most of the afternoon we headed back to the hotel to relax and then spent the evening in the Schiehallion, an Inn and pub in Aberfeldy. I can tell you I slept very well after our busy day!