Ben Lomond in the clag

This week I found myself acting as a currier for two of my children, driving up to Glasgow via Manchester to drop of forgotten items or the things they couldn’t carry in the first place. Oh the joys of university!

So after a night sleeping on the floor in Glasgow I headed off to Rowardennan Lodge the Scottish Youth Hostel on the east bank of Loch Lomond. The journey took about two hours, slightly longer than I anticipated. As I had not managed to get an OS map before I left, I had to find a supplier en-route. The best option was Harvey’s Superwalker map for Ben Lomond. This was the first time I had used this type of map, although I have used their Mountain maps produced for the BMC, this was a detailed 1:25,000 scale map. It’s clarity was very good and very easy to use.

Parking up at the hostel I set off to walk up Ben Lomond, setting quite late in the morning. I went up the path which initially follows the loch shore and then heads uphill into the woods and then onto the open hillside. This is a less frequently used path as it is well defined but much narrower than the path directly up from the National Trust for Scotland main car park.

The path up was certainly steep and quite rocky in places, the path down in comparison was more of a gentle slope and it was easy to see why this was the preferred route. Throughout the day the visibility was poor as the cloud base was so low. As I reached Ptarmigan ridge a gap in the clouds provided a brief view of the route ahead. However, the final ascent was in the mist and I collected another photograph of a mist shrouded trig point at the summit.

 

Throughout the day I saw just three people who like me were prepared to take on the challenge of Ben Lomond in such unappealing conditions. The predominant soundtrack of the day was definitely water, from the sound of the rain on your jacket hood to gurgling brooks, and the booming of gushing streams rapidly descending the side of the Ben  and bouncing over rocks and other obstacles.

 

Sitting in the comfort of the Lodge I pick up a leaflet highlighting the top 5 things to do here. The top thing it suggests is to climb the Ben for the “stunning views” but not today! It also highlights the fact that this is the most southerly Munro, so one more down and only another 270 to go! The first Munro was June 2011 though.

The leaflet also talks of cruising the loch, and as I arrived at the hostel the ferry was taking on board passengers. The last time I was here was back in the 1980s when Glasgow was a city of culture with a claim of it being ‘Smiles better’ or something similar. For some reason I arrived at the SYHA Loch Lomond on the other side of the loch by public transport for a short stay. A ferry took me across the loch to where I now sit for a days wandering along the West Highland Way. Although on that occasion I didn’t scale the heights of Ben Lomond.

After a day in the hills I now head south to the Lake District for a navigational challenge day around the Dunnerdale Valley & Seathewaite on Saturday. Typically, the weather was beautifully sunny, clear and warm. Ideal weather to sit in a car on numerous motorways!