Tolmount and Tom Buidhe from Glen Doll

 A great double-bag for newbies! 

Tolmount and Tom Buidhe are typically climbed from the other side (via Loch Callater), but since we were camped at Glen Doll, we decided to go the slightly longer way! We found a walkhighlands report that gave us a route and we were set! 

After finishing work on the Friday we headed to Glen Doll car park (charge of 2gbp for the stay) and found a spot to wild camp nearby.

In the morning we packed up and set off in pretty grey and cloudy weather! 

The start of the walk takes you through Glendoll Forest. You walk for about 3.5kms amongst the trees before you pop out into the valley. From what we could see, it looked quite beautiful but visibility was limited! 

The path takes you up the right hand side of the valley with a pretty gradual incline. It reminded me of the first part of the climb to Stob Cr Sgreamach from the Lost Valley!

Once you reach the top of the valley you walk past the emergency shelter (more on this later!) before the landscape opens up into the mountain tops. From this point onwards it was waterproofs and extra layers on - the cloud was pretty wet and so our jackets were soaked fairly quickly.

As always, navigating with the help of Maps.me, we found the left turn that took us towards munro number 1 - Tolmount. Aside from the summit marker, you wouldn't have known you were at the top of a 3000ft+ mountain - it honestly felt like the top of a hill the incline was so gentle. Perhaps in better conditions the view would have given more perspective! 

After stopping for our obligatory munro dogs photo, we headed off to munro number 2. 

The path from Tolmount to Tom Buidhe isnt very defined and in some points we were in long grass/jumping to avoid boggy bits but thankfully our feet stayed dry. There is a mild hill-like incline after the final horsehoe bend to take you to the summit but nothing too strenuous! 

Walkhighlands describes the mountain as "featureless dome-like upswelling on the vast Mounth plateau, looking nothing like a mountain from any direction" - Savage but accurate! Cue munro dogs summit photo...

Now here's when we made our mistake... 

We should have doubled back on ourselves to get back to the main path, but instead we thought we'd split the difference and walk directly from Tom Buidhe summit back to the main path. This was the left side of the balloon on the image right. Its safe to say that when we finally reached the main path again, both of us soaked up to our shins from bog, that we regretted our choice! 

If you do this walk, spare your boots and stick to the path!! 

Once we were back on the main path again the cloud had lifted slightly, giving us some nice views of the valley, although the rain remained. By this point we had been walking for 4.5 hours and were getting hungry, so we stopped next to the emergency shelter to make coffees and have a pasty. Now that we weren't moving, we started to feel the cold so after the coffees were made, we sat inside the shelter to drink them. 

After that, it was back onto the path, into the forest and then back to camp! 

Overall i'd say this walk felt more like a ramble in the hills than climbing 2 mountains - we've had tougher incline ascents in the Pentlands! But a munro is a munro... 

If you're looking to start bagging I'd recommend these as a good way to get some miles into your legs without needing to worry about much incline. 

Walk Stats:

Time - 5hr15m 

Distance - 20.22km 

Elevation - 904m