ben lomond

[bazer100]

Hi all , first post and thought id share my walk out in Ben Lomond yesterday,
despite bad weather warnings i decided to "get up and go" and at least see how i got on, i stay just outside glasgow so roads getting to Balloch were pretty fine, leaving balloch going towards Rowardennan roads were ok but observe some caution, on the road going towards the hotel is very bad, i managed to get by the first caravan park and i couldnt get up the hill and the car slid back down, so decided to park here and walk along to the ben's carpark, alough at the time i didnt realise it was about 3-4 mile away!! started walking along and after a mile/half managed to hitch a lift from a bt engineer working at the hotel which was a great bit of luck!! so start of the walk through the wooded area seemed ok to begin with but rapidly went downhill, the path to me could only be described as like a river/water fall that had frozen, very dangerous , a few bambi on ice moments!! i had my ice axe with me , but decided to leave the crampons , this was a real hard slog up to the first style, and it really didnt ease up to the 2nd style either, alot of ice underfoot all the way up so best to follow the path but stay off road , the futher you get up the Ben the snows a bit thicker and the ice does ease up, (a bit lol) alot of low cloud down but did a certain times did lift and gave you some nice views, near the top is a bit dodgy, some loose snow and got pretty cold again be saftey sam up there, managed to get to the top at 1pm , no views which was a shame, but after the heavy hike was great to reach the summit, because of the snow and ice the way down you still need to take extra care, just as i left it became a total white out and made the decent even more of a challange , when we got back down to the ice field! thought it was best to totally avoid most of the path and clamber through the shrubbery must safer and easier, at the top i bumped into some good chaps who kindly agreed to give me a lift back along to the car, thats where the real challange began, within the space of 4 miles, 3 cars had landed into ditch's and had to be pushed out, every hill we came across the 4 of us were out and pushing to get people on there way!! the temperature dropped and was very dangerous!! please take that into account if thinking about going there, we were quite lucky as we had a few to push if stuck!!

anyhoo all it was a great day, feel quite sore today, but well worth it, first one of 2010 and hopefully many more to come, hopefully story not too boring, no pictures sorry

baz

[mountain coward]

Glad you enjoyed it - not sure I would have in those conditions without crampons!