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Ben Lomond
Map The day dawned bright enough and Andrew thought Ben Lui and its companion would be a good pair for us to do. We drove across to them by which time, however, it was cloudy and raining. We waited a while. It stopped raining but Andrew didn't want to go up in cloud again and see nothing. We waited a bit more but the tops remained obdurately cloudy. In the end we decided to try further East so we drove down to Loch Lomond intending to either climb the Ben or just walk a bit of the West Highland Way. When we got there it was still drizzling and cloudy but we got ready and decided to walk through the forest part of the Ben Lomond ascent (about a mile) and see how it looked. Fortunately it cleared and the cloud lifted off the tops. There is a well defined path there, nothing difficult at all just a straightforward hike up the mountain. We didn't start till 3.00 and got to the top about 5.10. We must have been the last walkers up there, although on the way down we met 2 hill runners running up! There we were with our rucksacks, multiple layers of clothing, food, drink... and there they were, in their trainers, vests and shorts. It was pretty cold up at the top too. I expected them to overtake us before we got back to the carpark but they didn't. I thought we'd beaten them but then we saw one of them standing by a car and having a drink - must've come down a different way! There were some great views from the top of Ben Lomond. It's possible to see all the way from one end of the loch to the other - around 22 miles - and beyond to Glasgow and the central Glasgow-Edinburgh plain. We tried to stay in Drymen but that was full up so we stayed in Balluch instead, at the bottom end of Loch Lomond (£20). Another nice breakfast - potato cake, light scrambled egg, baked beans and mushrooms. |
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