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- Ben Vorlich from the road to Loch Sloy
At 10:01, me and Gabriele disembarked from the Citylink at Inveruglas, set for ascending Ben Vorlich. While much of the day was forecast to have light, high clouds and high temperatures on Met Office, there was a signs of rain and lightning suggested to come by mid afternoon by other weather places like BBC and the Scottish Mountain weather service, so it was ideal for us to take on the munro with relative haste if we wanted to avoid any horrendous weather. The wind levels were also supposed to be 15-20 mph, which sounded like a good equilibrium against how warm it was.
- The turnoff for Ben Vorlich
- The ascent up the side of the munro
We made our way down to the road under the railway and towards Loch Sloy until we got to the turn off at 10:44. As warned, the ascent was steep, made worse for us by the hot, sunny weather. As we got further up, though, we began to get blessed with the day's winds, which helped a lot as I especially was sweating a lot. The path began to get flatter for us around 11:38, where we were now bearing towards the summit. A sheep and lamb were chilling on the side of the path on that part.
- Loch Sloy below
- Sheep and Loch Lomond
Gabriele and I got to the Ben Vorlich summit at 11:53, where the wind levels were at a nice cooling level. The summit marked my completion of the four Arrochar munros and the munros named Ben Vorlich. This was also the first time I could see all of the Arrochar Alps, as I had climbed the other munros and the Cobbler in clouds. In other directions, I could see Beinn Bhuidhe and the Cruachan range past it, the Crianlarich hills and Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin, and up past Ben Lui towards the Glen Coe munros. Loch Lomond southbound was aligned almost towards the summit, but the day was not clear enough for me to see to the very end of it.
- Us at the summit
- The Arrochar Alps
The two of us had lunch and relaxed until roughly 12:20, where we began our descent down. We picked up a faster pace going down, passing some goats along the way. Gabriele and I reached the road again at 13:05, and continued swiftly back for Inveruglas. Pockets of rain began falling, enough for us to put water proof coats and bag shells on for a short while, but nevertheless we made it back to the start point at 13:45, 3:45 hours after we began. Although our bus back to Glasgow was booked for just after 16:00, the one an hour before let us on. By that point, no further rain had fallen and the lightning had thankfully not made an appearance.