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A trip up to Scotland this weekend to Dumbarton with the idea of doing a few of the Arrochar Alps over the two days.
Awful weather forecasts stopped us from adding Ben Vane to this group as we decided to keep it simple owing to the weather and stick to the network of paths around The Cobbler, Ime and Narnain.
We took the initial branch off from the main Cobbler path and headed up the path/waterfall up the forest towards the upper slopes of Narnain.
From here there were a few pleasing minor scrambles mixed in with some boggier bits before we eventually hit the broad summit complete with Trig Point.
The wind was ridiculously strong and the mist was down all over so we took very few photographs, settling for just an odd summit shot.
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- Beinn Narnain Summit
From here it was steeply down Narnain and across the fence before tackling the boggy path up to Ime. This was easy enough and soon enough we hit the summit shelter and remains of the old Trig Point.
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- Beinn Ime Summit
We'd been quite lucky with the rain - only getting one shower on the lower slopes of Narnain - and we would stay relatively dry for the remainder of the day. The wind however was outrageous and we'd both pretty much given up any hope of threading the needle on The Cobbler at this point.
Nevertheless we returned to the bealach (where we found the map we had dropped earlier - lucky) and took the stepped path up The Cobbler visiting the impressive top of the North Peak on route where we noticed a slight lull in the wind. Was the threading perhaps back on??
Soon enough we were looking straight at the needle and I promptly ditched my bag and went to investigate - not really thinking I'd go for it.
I went through the hole and saw that the ledge was wider than I expected and while damp the holds beyond looked big and plentiful. Without really thinking I just went for it, using my knee to haul myself up the final awkward rocks to the top.
Here the wind really caught me and I got a quick summit shot before coming down (much easier) and back through the needle. All in all, I thought it was a lot easier than I expected it to be but would suggest it certainly isn't for anybody who suffers from exposure as the drops are substantial.
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- Needle threaded!
I then waited while my mate did similar and took a few photos for him.
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- Threading again
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- More success!
Everything had gone perfectly to plan at this point and we decided to at least wander over to the South Peak and take the path down from there.
Unfortunately we lost the path (still don't know how really) and found ourselves descending to the rest be thankful spot on the road - miles away from where we should be.
Aware of our mistake we began traversing and decided to make our way down to the edge of the forest we could see and hopefully back to the road from there (this would mean a longish road walk but at least we'd be down).
Unfortunately it wasn't as straight forward as this and we had to cross several large streams, work around (and in one case go straight down) several small cliffs, and barge through much shoulder high bracken until we eventually hit the edge of the forest.
No obvious way back to the road from here, so we entered the forest in a fire break which was steep but doable at first before petering out near a stream which was very full. After another awkward crossing we continued down through the trees until eventually we hit a forest road.
Relief. We now knew exactly where we were and that we could follow this track (even though it went back uphill) back to the main Cobbler path above Succoth.
This worked perfectly and soon enough we were having a beer in Arrochar talking about how we had made the walk so much harder than it had to be. You live and learn I guess.
The weather had been awful but nowhere near as bad as the soaking wet day we would be greeted by the day after on Ben Vane!
