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 taking on all 4 munros in an utterly bonkers single day I decided on the slightly saner strategy of splitting them over two days with a wild camp at the mid-point.
As with my trip to Ben Cruachan in July, on paper this doesn't seem like a enormous route, it's only 24km with 2700m of ascent, which when spread over two days shouldn't be too bad. The biggest factor that this doesn't take into account is the incredible steepness of the ups and the downs, there are no gentle slopes in Arrochar. The other issue which made this more of a challenge than it could have been was my choice of transport to get there. This year I've been discovering quite a bit of Scotland by train, this route begins at Ardlui railway station and ends at Arrochar & Tarbet station. There weren't that many suitable trains which meant an arrival time on the Saturday of 12:14 and a departure time of 14:09 (the first of the day on a Sunday) which gave me just less than 26 hours to get it all done. That splits down into approximately 6 to 7 hours of walking time each day, a tough but achievable schedule.
Starting from Ardlui there is a short section of walking along a busy 'A' road with no verges, thankfully all the drivers were considerate and moved over but it was little intimidating. A very boggy gap under the railway, labelled "85", marks the start of the walk. This is the second bridge you encounter, the first has a helpful sign pointing along to the next bridge for Ben Vorlich so there's little chance of confusion.
Once on the hill it quickly became apparent that this is definitely not a trade route. As I went up I encountered just one group of 3 walkers descending. For such a popular hill this side is notable for a lack of tracks, occasionally a small track would appear but they would all quickly vanish. In parts this was quite boggy so the lack of walkers can only be a good thing, otherwise it would have been churned up into a horrible quagmire. In general the landscape I crossed was rough and I was mightily glad of my gaiters throughout the two days with a near constant battle against bog or long wet tussocky grass. For the whole of the route I had a strong sense of being in a remote and wild landscape, that's impressive for an area so close to such a large city as Glasgow.
Although the photos imply the weather was nice in fact it actually rained for nearly the entire ascent of Ben Vorlich. Thankfully the cloud base stayed high at about 1100m for the whole day so I never had to worry too much about navigation and I had great views from the summit ridge. Whilst on the summit I had a lovely chat to a family with two children a little older than mine, I shall definitely have to take my pair up it sometime soon.
The main memory from my two previous visits to Ben Vorlich (probably 20 years ago) is one of severe steepness. Both times before I had taken the main route and it was that route which I had to descend down to the Loch Sloy dam. It was just as steep as I had remembered but also quite interesting with excellent views across the area and some short but fun scrambly sections. This path was a total contrast to my earlier ascent through a very wild area, it was almost a shock to suddenly encounter so many walkers.
The next part of the route was without a doubt the toughest of the entire walk. Dan Bailey suggests a direct ascent of Ben Vane from the Loch Sloy dam. I have to confess to not having read his text too closely beforehand, he describes it as a "challenging pathless leg". I now know that when he says "challenging" he is rather understating the situation. This ascent was very much of the "what does not kill us makes us stronger" type. There was a great deal of swearing at the sky and questioning of Dan Bailey's sanity. This ascent is brutally steep and not for the faint hearted, I doubt I'll be going this way again anytime soon.
The day ended with wild camping in Lag Uaine. I found a nice, flat, reasonably sheltered spot next to a stream. The only challenge was getting the pegs into the very stony ground. I made it down from Ben Vane at about 6:30pm with just enough daylight remaining to get the tent pitched, collect water and make dinner. After that it was time to lie back in my lovely, cosy new winter sleeping bag and relax with a book by the light of my head torch.
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 taking on all 4 munros in an utterly bonkers single day I decided on the slightly saner strategy of splitting them over two days with a wild camp at the mid-point.
As with my trip to Ben Cruachan in July, on paper this doesn't seem like a enormous route, it's only 24km with 2700m of ascent, which when spread over two days shouldn't be too bad. The biggest factor that this doesn't take into account is the incredible steepness of the ups and the downs, there are no gentle slopes in Arrochar. The other issue which made this more of a challenge than it could have been was my choice of transport to get there. This year I've been discovering quite a bit of Scotland by train, this route begins at Ardlui railway station and ends at Arrochar & Tarbet station. There weren't that many suitable trains which meant an arrival time on the Saturday of 12:14 and a departure time of 14:09 (the first of the day on a Sunday) which gave me just less than 26 hours to get it all done. That splits down into approximately 6 to 7 hours of walking time each day, a tough but achievable schedule.
The next part of the route was without a doubt the toughest of the entire walk. Dan Bailey suggests a direct ascent of Ben Vane from the Loch Sloy dam. I have to confess to not having read his text too closely beforehand, he describes it as a "challenging pathless leg". I now know that when he says "challenging" he is rather understating the situation. This ascent was very much of the "what does not kill us makes us stronger" type. There was a great deal of swearing at the sky and questioning of Dan Bailey's sanity. This ascent is brutally steep and not for the faint hearted, I doubt I'll be going this way again anytime soon.
The day ended with wild camping in Lag Uaine. I found a nice, flat, reasonably sheltered spot next to a stream. The only challenge was getting the pegs into the very stony ground. I made it down from Ben Vane at about 6:30pm with just enough daylight remaining to get the tent pitched, collect water and make dinner. After that it was time to lie back in my lovely, cosy new winter sleeping bag and relax with a book by the light of my head torch.
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