A very long day. Involving a wonderful breakfast with coffee and feet in the Uisge Labhair, in preparation for taking the immense Ben Alder from behind. Straight up it. It was all a bit much for Nick who sadly vommed on a multitude of occasions as we struggled up the stream that came out of Ben Alder’s gaping rear. 

We won’t mention the other Munro Pongo was due to take as she had no bloody idea where it was. First it was ‘that hill’ (and having been on Ben Alder before, on a vile cold wet day, I can’t remember there being a Munro where Pongo pointed, but being dim witted and of shoddy memory I just had a vague thought of I’m sure that’s not the second Munro and failed to communicate this. And it wasn’t. Indeed it measures 903 metres so isn’t too far off, other than approximately 4.5 miles. 
So we parted and Nick and I slowed to fight the nausea and Pongo shot off to bag her hills. Which she did (the right ones too).
And so the day was long. From the summit we traversed round to the col and descended on (eventually) good paths, past the easily pronounced Loch ã Bhealaich Bheithe and down past the apparently ‘closed due to asbestos’ Culra bothy (I say apparently as it was rammed the night before), and onwards to Loch Ericht and eventually into Dalwhinnie, where the bunkhouse people took great care of us – like washing and drying our clothes free of charge and letting us camp outside.
And so shagged out (might as well maintain the theme) we were to bed. It wasn’t the best night as it was noisy but it was fine to have a shower and a lot of chips and beer, and clean clothes after a sweaty day in lovely weather. And Ben Alders rear is very sexy.