The Brack circuit - a cracker of a hill walk

[findhornloon]

A cracker of a hill to climb, short, steep and interesting. After a 2km forest walk from the Ardgarten Visitor Centre, the route heads up a narrow rocky path through the forest onto the lower slopes of the hill where fine views of the imposing north-east crags are seen. Good views of the back-end of The Cobbler and the Rest and be Thankful can also be seen.

The marker post at start of the narrow trail up through the forest.

The imposing north-east crags of The Brack

A view of the back-end of The Cobbler with its south peak prominent

The Rest and be Thankful sandwiched between Beinn an Lochain and Beinn Luibhean

The climb up is fairly straight forward but even at 600m there were still some patches of solid ice snow fields which required some care on the steeper section heading up to the bealach, the lochan below the back of the summit was also frozen solid.

Frozen lochan to the lee of the summit.

Some interesting ice formations on the grass below the summit route.

Great summit views to Paddy's Milestone in the south, west to the Paps of Jura and north-west to Ben Nevis, plus all the usual suspects north of the Highland Boundary Fault Line.

Looking north east to Ben Ime with Ben Lui in left distance.

Zoomed in view of Ben Nevis to the north east.

Zoomed in view of the Paps of Jura to the west.

Ben Lomond and Loch Lomond with Loch Long and Arrochar in the foreground.

Ben Donich with Loch Awe in the distance.

The route off the summit to the forest tracks on the south return circular route was not too obvious and we headed south west off the summit too soon, taking us down a very steep, craggy and partly iced-up gulley. The correct route should have been sought further west down the main ridge beyond the line of the forest which would have been much easier on the knees. The 6km return route through the forest seemed to take for ever but is an easy walk around the contours of the hill.

Took the difficult route down but found some interesting ice rivers.

Final view of The Brack from the return circular forest track.