There was another walker just ahead of me with his two dogs, I would bump into him a few times through the day
The short walk up the road under the rail bridge and I got my first look at the gnarly face of Ben Vane, and decided that would be my aim for the day.
The WH walk description is absolutely spot on as usual, just me that ignored the directions and took the right hand fork at the large substation, when the guy that was a few hundred yards in front of me came back round the corner the penny dropped that we had both taken the wrong fork. Back ontrack and around to the bridge, crossing it and the short walk alongside the small wooded area, keeping it on your left.
After about 400yards and with a small burn running under the track its time to go off road, the path is a bit indistinct upto the low plateau. Once up there a path soon becomes evident and the trek uphill gets a bit more arduous, snaking back and forwards. The WH description states that there is a bit of scrambling with bypass paths available, on the way up in the drizzle they didnt seem to apparent but were easily seen on the way down.
The scrambling is very easy, must be if I can do it lol, with no "exposure" as such and really only using hands for balance.
By now the weather had deteriorated and the vis was pretty limited, the wind had also got up and by the time I reached the summit it was head down and a sharp walk to the cairn and then back down under the rock face for some well earned tea and sandwich.
With all the rain and a deal of low cloud views were in short supply, never saw the top of Vorlich all day. The views down the hill were nice, particularly down to the dam and also back along to Ime and Narnain. A'Chrois looked like a great hill, maybe a future day out.
The walk back down was straight forward enough, for all the rain it was fairly dry underfoot, with only a few bogs to cross.
I had started off late so after an uneventful walk back along the black stuff to the visitor centre,it was alittle disappointing to miss out on a coffee and cake, ah well another time.
On the way down I met a guy on his way up, at about 5 oclock,who had just driven up from Wales, leaving behind lovely dry warm weather for a damp afternoon on Vane
Really enjoyed my day out, but felt it in my legs over the next day or so. Still looking for a wonder "drug" to help with the recuperation, will have to stick with wee Jura for the time being
- Start point from the main road
- Anybody seen the keys
- Gnarly brute, take path to the left
- A'Chrois
- A'Chrois and Ben Lomond
- Loch Sloy dam and Ben Vorlich in the clag
- Looking back to Loch Lomond
- Looking towards Ime and Narnain
- BOGOF on Cairns
- not too bad for Summer of 2012, really.
