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I had originally earmarked the Sunday 18th October for a walk, and I had high hopes as the forecast was looking promising... However, I also sing in a choir, and a Sunday rehearsal got called at short notice due to a degree of 'unpreparedness' for a concert the next weekend
. Drat, Drat and double Drat. Anyway, rather than abandon any idea of a walk on such a lovely October morning, I decided to make a quick dawn raid on Cruach Tairbeirt, a handy Sub2K Marilyn that I'd heard has great views of Loch Lomond.
I got up to Tarbert nice and early, and parked in the handy big car park at the restaurant in the converted church, currently called 'Slainj'. The menu looked nice, but no time today, sadly! I walked up to Arrochar & Tarbert Station, where a handy underpass under the West Highland Line is actually signed 'Cruach Tairbeirt' - definitely useful to have confirmation that I was going the right way
...
The initial route is very straightforward on forestry tracks, following red waymarkers. The sun was shining attractively through the trees, and it was a great morning to be out and about
.
A bit higher up, the track levels after a fairly steep section, crosses a burn, and starts to go downhill slightly for a hundred metres or so. At this point, a rough path cuts up left, to eventually reach the top of the forestry.
This next section provided a bit of fun by way of an informal Obstacle Course: a whole lot of fallen trees lie across the start of the path, and you have to decide whether to go over, under or around them. I think I did something along the lines of: over a big one; around another big one; over about five wee ones in close succession; under a big one; then over the last and biggest one. After this things got much more straightforward: just your basic uphill trudge through the Christmas trees, really.
I unfortunately lost the intermittent path near the top of the trees, and came out a bit right (east) of where I should have, which meant that I missed what would have been a much clearer ongoing path from the corner of the forestry all the way to the summit, as I discovered on descent
... ah well, I suppose it made for a wee bit of a circular route.
Anyway, it was easy enough just to pick a route uphill on grassy rakes, avoiding the wee craggy bits... and those promised views were starting to appear, right enough. It was actually Loch Long, rather than Loch Lomond, that came into view first:
A wee bit higher up, the autumn colours were just looking glorious.
Almost at the top now, and the Bonny Banks had come into view too: a very pleasing vista down Loch Lomond South, with all its islands.
Ben Vane and Ben Vorlich were showing off their attractively craggy profiles in the sunshine.
The summit trig point did indeed prove to be a fantastic viewpoint for such a relatively lowly eminence. Another view of the craggy and conical Ben Vane: one of the very smallest Munros, but also one of the finest in the Southern Highlands, for my money.
A nice view down to Arrochar and Loch Long:
The Loch Sloy dam:
Another view down Loch Lomond:
And I think these hills are Ben Donich and The Brack, a couple of good craggy Corbetts that I've yet to tackle.
Frustratingly, the Cobbler still had its head just-and-no-more in the Clag at this point
.
I sat and waited for ten minutes or so in the hope that the cloud would move off... and eventually it just about did
.
Needless to say, as soon as I set off on the descent (this time on a clear path), the Clag cleared off completely
.
Another good view of the Bonny Banks, although I had to squint a bit into the sun:
A last look down on Arrochar:
And now it was time to tackle the forestry path again, and the Adventure Playground lower down.
A grand wee hill right enough, and I made it back to Glasgow in plenty time for my rehearsal - not an entirely lost day after all!
