Devil's Staircase, an angel of a view

OK, here's day two of last weekend. A wee wander to make the most of the glorious weather on the way home. Whenever anyone does the West Highland Way for the first time its the Devil's Staircase that gets them twitching as its labeled as one of the toughest parts of the route. For any regular hill goer, its just a standard ascent which gives some great views, hence our choice of route. We also added the two wee lumps on either side in order to maximise our experience of the views - well worth it.

Not much else to say except enjoy the photies as we certainly enjoyed being up there taking it in for real :-)

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Salomon Mission GTX Boot

I've had these on a few times now and so far they are just what I've been after to get me through the winter for most of my days out. Salomon describe them as being perfect for "light hiking" - take that whatever way you want ;-) They come in at 1210g for the pair and feel fairly easy on the feet. They've handled saturated grassy stuff without me applying the famous arse plant (so far!!). They even seemed to be OK on rocky stuff too. Where I have been really impressed with them is how they handled the snow on Na Gruagaichan. It was hard enough that we were kicking steps. This was easy enough for Steve in his Scarpa SL's and Iain in his La Sportiva Nepals. Initially I followed their steps then decided to give it a go myself. I occasionally had to kick a couple of times on some of the really hard stuff, probably more down to my poor technique than the boot, but they managed well on the cover we had for the ascent. As my balance is rubbish I decided to apply

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Blethering Blonde

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