Ben Venue with Weasel Minor

[weaselmaster]

A rare opportunity to get up a hill with my boy today. Every time we go out the weather is awful - today carried the worst forecast of this weekend as luck would have it. But anyway, he seemed keen to come along. We'd chosen Ben Venue as a relatively straightforward hill, given Ally's lack of recent hill-time. Forecast was for rain, to get heaviest in the middle of the day. Great It was dry when I picked him up in Glasgow at 8.30 (ooh early for the young one on a Sunday and the roads seemed particularly quiet as we drove up to Aberfoyle. It began to rain, lightly as we parked and got out kit on.

I'd done Venue by this route before, including the Simms on the west side of Venue. We wouldn't be visiting them today however. Just a muddy walk up from Ledard Farm. We could see the clag was down higher up Ledard Glen, and as we left the shelter of the trees the rain became heavier, the wind stronger. The boy seemed to be coping alright, however. We stopped for an early lunch, under my orange canopy, soon after crossing the burn on iron bars. we'd passed a group of three experienced walkers,who told us they'd turned back at the bealach due to the weather. As we were having lunch a couple of ?Spanish walkers came past and asked us if we were carrying on up - it sounded like they too had bailed. We smiled and said, "-Yes" "To the top??" -"of course".

P2170275 by Al, on Flickr

Glen Ledard
P2170276 by Al, on Flickr

P2170277 by Al, on Flickr

Lunch in the "orange"
P2170278 by Al, on Flickr


In fact it dried up a bit as we resumed our walk uphill - the wind was strong from behind us at the bealach, but we were relatively sheltered as we turned the corner and headed for Venue. The summits were still clag shrouded and we missed the turn off for the true summit, ending up going to the eastern top first. There were several other folk milling about who had presumably come up the Achfary route. We back-tracked to the true summit then traced our steps back down, me managing to slip on the wet slabs and give my elbow a good crack .

P2170279 by Al, on Flickr

P2170280 by Al, on Flickr

P2170281 by Al, on Flickr

P2170282 by Al, on Flickr

With typical good timing, as we headed off the crags the sky brightened, the sun came out and views were to be had. Not much snow left of the bigger hills to the north. Quite a pleasant walk back down to the car.

Timing is everything
P2170283 by Al, on Flickr

P2170285 by Al, on Flickr

Venue, no longer shrouded
P2170287 by Al, on Flickr

P2170288 by Al, on Flickr

[dav2930]

Nice to see the younger generation out enjoying the hills in all weathers!

[Graeme D]

A rare sighting indeed!

[PeteR]

Lunch in the "orange" is a belter of a photo Another to add to the weaslemaster library of classic hill walking moments