Arrochar Alps: Day 1
Arrochar has a special significance for me, it was my first taste of the Scottish hills waaay back in 1996 when on a weekend away with the Durham University Hillwalking Society (DUYHA as it was then). If memory serves, my first hill on that trip was Ben Vane and from that moment on I have been a confirmed munro bagger! That was also my first taste of winter mountaineering, I recall a massive amount of snow and being equipped with an ancient ice axe with a wooden shaft! I believe that over the years I have climbed all the larger hills in this area at some point, I've certainly been up both The Cobbler and Ben Narnain a fair few times and twice suffered on the steep ascent to Ben Vorlich. All of these trips targetted the hills in ones or twos so what I had never done was to link up all the munros in a single walk. Yet again my inspiration for this walk came from Dan Bailey's excellent book " Great Mountain Days in Scotland " (published by Cicerone). Rather than taki