Ben Donich North to South

[Boris_the_Bold]

I was staying in Lochgoilhead for a couple of nights while walking the Cowal Way (north to south). I got my nearest & dearest to drop me off at the car park at the top of the B828.

Great views of the 1-way convoy system operating on the old military road (due to the recent land-slip) and the Cobbler and Beinn an Lochain drifting in and out of the mist.

A83 Landslip

Cobbler in the mist

Beinn an Lochain in the mist

Good clear path all the way to the summit, with one small/straightforward down-climb at one point and some interesting cracks/fissures and a cave under a big boulder.

Good clear path all the way up

One of the big cracks in the rocks

Trig point on the summit

Reached the large white trig point on the summit after 1hr 50 of very enjoyable ascent, followed by a descent due south down fairly-steep but straightforward grassy slopes to reach the edge of the forest.

The path showing running east-west along the north edge of the forest no longer exists, though there are still some white poles showing where it might have once been. Instead I tramped west through some very wet long grass & rushes for about 300m to reach a fence and gate (beside a massive erratic boulder) and another 200m westwards to reach a stile (also marked with a white pole).

I carried on west for a while searching in vain for the path through the forest which is shown on the 1:25,000 OS map (NN 215 024) before giving up and returning to the stile and floundering across the 350 metres of ankle-jarring clear-felled area of tree stumps, slippy branches, hidden holes, moss-covered rocks etc to reach the forest road at NN 216 021 where a good stony path continued on downhill towards the river, joining up with a delightful way-marked path and steps down to two footbridges beside a partially-hidden waterfall to join the Cowal Way (16:10, so 3hrs 20mins plus 15mins looking for the missing path).

I then followed the Cowal Way all the way down to Lochgoilhead and round the beach to the footbridge and on to the Drimsynie House Hotel by 16:54, for a well-earned pint in the bar (4hr 20 in total).

Ben_Donich_North_to_South.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts

I’d recommend this route if, like me, you are staying in Lochgoilhead without a car but can arrange/ hitch a lift to the top of the road and fancy a route that gets you back to your base without needing to organise a 2nd rendezvous with your lift-provider.

In my case this was a most-excellent way to spend a ‘rest day’ while walking the Cowal Way.

[jmarkb]

Good to know about the (lack of) path through the forestry. I guess it would be better to head SW for the gap in the trees N of Inveronich?

[Boris_the_Bold]

I guess it would be better to head SW for the gap in the trees N of Inveronich?

I wasn't sure how big a nuisance the fence connecting the two bits of forest would be and the last 400m of that alternative looked pretty steep (albeit from my hotel's breakfast table across the bay, so maybe deceptive).

It would be interesting to hear from others whether I just hadn't looked hard enough for the path which starts just under the 'K' of Argyll Forest Park on the OS Explorer map, cos the rest of the route through the woods would have been fine if I could have found that missing bit of the puzzle