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- Ben Ledi
At 11am, we decided to simply walk the Stank Glen route, but the idea of climbing Ben Ledi was always at the back of our minds.
- The start
We made pretty good time to the halfway point of the Stank Glen circuit, and MacT Og (our nursery-school mountaineer) was in such fine form ("I want to climb higher", was his constant refrain) that we decided we would try the ascent to Ben Ledi from the top of Stank Glen. (or Skank Glen, as I comically called it to some baffled walkers on the other side of Ben Ledi).
- The climb
The Stank Glen walk was nice and the waterfall on the way up was pretty
- Warefall
The ascent here was fairly straightforward until we crossed the stile after the 'no waymarkings' sign.
- No Waymarkings
Once over the stile, there is a quite steep climb for 20 minutes, at the end of which is a fairly boggy area.
- Stile
This boggy area more or less disrupts any clearly discernible path. For us this made going doubly difficult because the more we climbed, the poorer the visibility became (cloud). By the time we reached the bog, it was down to around 10ft. MacT Og and Mummy MacT had a wee sandwich while I got the map and compass out and went in search of the path. It was duly found and we started up the climb again. I would love to give everyone a detailed description of the walk form here, but the only thing we could see was the path in front of us and the edge of the hill to each side. Eventually, after another steep ascent of 10 minutes or so, we came upon the old fence posts which mark the way along the ridge of the mountain.
- fence posts to the rescue
At this point we found a Royal Standard (Lion Rampant) lying in the mud by one of the fence posts. We picked it up and determined to hoist it up on the cairn when we reached it. On reaching the ridge, we thought that it was a good thing for MacT Og to climb on my shoulders (he was not really aware of how high we were and how steep the drop was because of the cloud cover obscuring each side of the ridge).
- On shoulders
This gave me a good opportunity to work off some of the Apple Strudel slices I had eaten in Tobermory the previous week. Eventually (after the usual false summits - the frustration exacerbated by poor visibility) we reached the summit. We all sat down on the cairn top and had a wee drink. Mummy MacT, MacT Og and myself were all happy to have climbed our first really big hill together. At this point two figures appeared suddenly out of the mist: it was two young guys who had climbed Ben Ledi the usual way and had tried to descend the way we had come up (through Stank Glen). They had given up after losing the path on the way down and ended up knee-deep in water, so they returned back to summit. They had also lost a Lion Rampant on the way down! We gladly returned the lost standard to its true owners (even though they kindly offered to give it to MacT Og).
- Hooray!
We then passed the Cross to the fallen Hill Ranger and started the descent, warning the few people we met on the way down (who were on their way up) not to try the descent via Stank Glen because of the indistinct path and poor visibility.
- MacT Og and Mummy at the Cross
It was pretty tough going on the way down because of the slippery rock and verge, but after much calf strain we reached the stile into the forest and found our way back to the car park by the bridge.
- MacT Og triumphant
After a 5 hour trek we thought that Mact Og desrved a wee treat, so we took him to Callander for some mussels and a dessert in the excellent Mhor Fish.
- yum yum
Great walk/climb and great food to end the day.