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Saturday..... Mrs D had, as anticipated, decided to go shopping with her mum. As for me, as fully expected, the lure of a day in the hills was a far more attractive proposition than the alternative of staying in and preparing for the big return to work on Monday. Less sensible perhaps, but also more attractive. What can you do? The question was, where should I go? My wife had settled on McArthur Glen as her destination, but what about me? Is there even such a hill as Ben McArthur? Ben Arthur certainly, but The Cobbler is provisionally pencilled in for October along with Narnain and Ime. Glen Lyon? Meall Ghaordhe by the back-door has been calling my name for some time, but that would necessitate another unpleasant encounter with the Bankfoot roadworks!
I had settled on somewhere around the Loch Earn/Strathyre area and the forecast on the Friday night hadn’t sounded as bad as it had earlier in the week. By mid-morning, conditions on the ground in Perth were looking not bad. So by 12.30 I was heading west out of the Fair City along the A85 towards Crieff. I had settled on Benvane, the Corbett to the north of Ben Ledi. Having notched up 18 Munros during the school summer holidays, I fancied rounding them off with a Corbett. I had kicked off the holidays with an ascent of Ben Vane (which by strange coincidence may soon find itself demoted to the rank of mere Corbett) in the Arrochar Alps on a day when the sky echoed all around with the sound of thunder and a RAF fighter plane crashed into a nearby Corbett! So, it seemed fitting in a kind of symmetrical way to finish off with the Corbett of the same (or similar at least) name. But why is it all the one word?
I had read the report posted on here recently by rogers of the Ben Ledi – Benvane circular route from the Falls of Leny car park. I had done Ledi last winter and although keen to do it again on green ground rather than white, I knew I wouldn’t have time today. So, just Benvane from Strathyre.
I arrived in Strathyre just after 1.30 and parked in the car park opposite the Ben Sheann hotel. Just behind the car park, a spur of the Number 7 National Cycle Route from Callander to Killin leads to the left behind a row of houses.
The path continues over two wooden footbridges (the second of which is extremely bouncy) before turning right at another lot of houses and joining the main cycle path. Here the route turns left and heads along a track into forestry, with views of Loch Lubnaig soon opening up off to the left.
After a couple of kilometres of good going, the cycle path cuts off the track through a gate on the left and heads down towards the loch. Lucy and I continued straight on here and at a fork in the track just beyond, took the right hand fork and began to climb uphill into deeper forest.
I had realised as I drove through Crieff that in my desire to pack light today, I had forgotten to get my compass out of my Osprey pack and put it into the little Vango daypack! Oh well I thought, I have the OS and it all seems straightforward enough. The naked eye will be fine for this one. Well, at this point, as OS maps have an annoying tendency to do, things began to get a bit vague. In my experience, OS maps and forestry plantations do not always agree with one another! I did go the wrong way but pretty quickly realised that something was amiss and managed to work it out after a bit of head scratching and pacing back and forwards.
The track now passed through a cleared area in the forestry (with views behind towards Beinn Each) before turning right at another fork.
Once again, I was to go wrong a bit further on but I knew I had made a mistake. After more head scratching and pacing, I worked it out – I had somehow missed the not at all obvious path heading left off the track and disappearing into the dense forest.
After a hundred metres or so, a gate is reached with an area of open meadow type ground beyond. I recognised that this was one of the gates mentioned in the report by rogers and a look at the OS told me that it was now pretty much a case of a straight whack up the hillside to my left to reach the summit of Benvane.
I headed off through the reeds and long grass towards the tree on the other side but was soon beating a hasty retreat. I’ve done a few epic bog trots in my time, but this was in a different league. More full scale swamp wading than bog trotting.
A canoe would not have been out of place. I didn’t know what to worry about most – the new Scarpas being completely inundated or being attacked by the creature from the deep! I started getting flashbacks from B-movie horror flicks and David Attenborough documentaries, and recalled one particular dodgy episode of Doctor Who from the Tom Baker years! I soon realised that the best (although still not good by any stretch of the imagination) line of attack was along the fence. Once at the tree line, the noise of water cascading down the hillside in one of several streams shown on the OS could quite clearly be heard. I picked my way across a flat area of river bed that resembled a small delta area I recall from geography lessons at school before heading into the trees and starting to climb.
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It was pretty obvious at this stage that the map (and compass had I actually had one) was next to useless – it was just a case of head down, teeth gritted and slogging upwards. I soon lost track of exactly which two streams I was actually between – I just new I was heading in the right general direction and I was still going up. A good sign. The going was ….how shall I put this….. bloody awful!
On more than one occasion I thought about jacking it in and returning to the car with my tail firmly between my legs. But no – I resolved I would NOT be beaten! On a couple of occasions I emerged into a little clearing and the views back behind me towards Beinn Each and Ben Vorlich beyond started to open up, at times framed with a watery rainbow.
In one such clearing, Lucy emerged just ahead of me to startle the biggest looking stag I had ever seen – arse the size of a Megabus! It legged it into the trees but at the next clearing we saw his missus staring at us in disbelief before legging it herself. I guess they’re not used to tourists in these woods!
Eventually I emerged at the top of the tree line to find my way barred by a deer fence with no sign of a way through visible in either direction.
We headed right and after 5 minutes or so came across a broken down old gate which I managed to heave Lucy over before jumping over myself.
It now looked like a short haul up grassy slopes punctuated by the occasional craggy outcrop to the summit ridge. The deer had now given way to sheep who looked equally surprised at the unexpected human and canine intrusion.
As we approached the ridge, the wind started to get up and by the time we were on the flat approaching the summit cairn, I could barely stand upright. The bare minimum time was spent at the summit – just enough for a few shots of the untidy sprawling cairn and the view over to Ben Ledi.
Then it was back down to the gate in the deer fence. From the top, I could clearly see what looked like a long way round the forest to the left, which would bring me back onto the track below the forest. It was tempting, but looked like a long way. I could also see a fairly substantial and clear firebreak just to the side of my line of ascent through the forest. Again, I guessed this was what rogers had referred to in his report and the way he had descended. I decided to take a chance on this more direct route.
At first the going was fairly straightforward, but soon the firebreak began to close in and the going got distinctly rough. At one point it narrowed to little more than a muddy ledge above the stream which pretty much crumbled and fell away as soon as I put a foot down. There was little option but to clamber down through the ferns and more or less walk along the bed of the steam for twenty metres or so.
The rain was now back on and I was feeling distinctly knackered and hacked off as I emerged once more into Scotland’s answer to the Florida Everglades and headed for the relative safety of the fence.
All that remained now was a brisk yomp back along the forestry track to the car in Strathyre and the drive back to Perth to see if my wife had had a less eventful day in the wilds of McArthur Glen and to find other drier ways of avoiding doing any schoolwork!
