- Beginning of walk through wood
you'll see good views of Loch Awe (hopefully) as you climb steadily up.
- Loch Awe
After 1/2 hour the track comes to a stile. Cross over, and the wooded section can be left behind. The track continues climbing, following the river.
- Track towards reservoir
We saw a makeshift bridge with some iron girders, presumably if you wanted to go up Meall Cuanail you would cross this?
- Precarious Bridge?
It looked like it would take our weight, but this wasnt our route today, to we left it for another day and continued up the track.
After about 45 mins, we reached the reservoir.
- Cruachan Reservoir
Cross over the stream and head to its western end, where a ladder takes you up to the top.
- Functional ladder
From here follow the track around the western edge of the reservoir till it gets to its most northern point. this is also marked with a small windmill/solar panel.
- Track round reservoir
From here a path climbs NW towards Bealach an Lochain, following a stream.
- Track up to Bealach
We started hitting the snow line around 800m just below the Bealach.
- First touch of snow
We reached teh Bealach after about 1.5 hrs. At this point the steep path up to Ben Cruachan is obvious, and quite stoney.
- Climbing from Bealach an Lochain
- Bealach an Lochain
At around 920m, the path becomes less stoney and there a chance to 'play' a about on the stone bridge.
- Stone bridge (with quite a drop underneath)
After this section, the route becomes more bouldery the further you go up.
- Route to top
- Getting steeper
Eventually we reached the top 2.5hrs after starting off.
- Top of Ben Cruachan
At this point it was snowing and cold, so we quickly recharged with some sandwiches, and set off down the ridge. We got climpses of our intended route every now and then.
- Cruachan Ridge off summit
Just under the summit, we were faced with a tricky scrambly bit. What made it tricky was the ice and snow on the rocks, and we hadnt put our crampons on, so care was needed.
- Scrambly section
- Looking back at scrambly section
Along the ridge line we occassionally got views to the hills to the west.
- Views to the west
- Following the ridge
- Snow!
Again, we could see the route occassionally, and how impressive the horseshoe was.
- Ridge
- Looking towards Stob Diamh
An important point to note after having descended the ridge from cruachan in bad visibility (like us), is to watch out for the cairn on the ridge. This cairn marks the point where the ridge continues down east, and not to follow the route north to Drochaid Ghlas. you would naturally want to follow the ridge up, but instead head down eastwards from this point (unless you want to head into another glen
)- Cairn on ridge
- Route east to Stob Diamh
Again the cloud lifted, and we got views of the reservoir and our route. This final section becomes easier. follow the ridge round climbing Stob Diamh, and onto Stob Garbh. from Stob garbh you can easily descend down to the reservoir from a SW direction, and follow the route back to throught the wood to finish off. We managed to get back just as the sun was setting for a most enjoyable day and a well deserved pint!
Well Done!
couldn't see a thing in the mist when I was up late last year 
good point about drochaid ghlas....I think I'd started out to climb it after mistaking my bearings in the mist before realising and turning back 
