We had to de-ice the car early on but the sun soon started to warm things up. Having been dropped off at the Benmore House Stable block at 11:30, it was a short walk to the forestry road that lead us on to the open hillside of A' Chruach, the views over the Holy Loch as we pulled up the hill were fabulous. We plodded on via Creachan Beag, Creachan Mor, fine views of Loch Eck, Glasgow, beautiful Greenock.
We lunched on Creachan Mor for half an hour before recommencing our ascent at 14:30 and then realised that it was a further 3km to Beinn Mor. Who hadn't planned the day? We hadn't, still there was no heat haze and you could see for miles and the view just got better and better.
By the time we topped out it was 15:30 but looking round we could see as far as, Arran, the Paps of Jura, Ben More Mull, the Cruachan Hills, Ben Nevis, Ben Lui, the Arrochar Alps, Ben Lomond. Astonishly good views, well worth the pull up.
We had some more comestibles and toddled back down towards Clach Bheinn, aiming to contour to the south and drop down to Loch Eck. Another mistake, coming round the bottom of Clach Bheinn was slow but then we really hit the steep stuff, we had the added benifit of tussocky grass up to my crotch. Oh my, how I enjoyed that. Then we followed a fence down the most annoyingly steep slope, more fun. We didn't reach the Loch till about 18:00 and then a 2km walk to our rendezvous at Benmore Garden's car park.
BTW, the Bod that named Benmore, Benmore, did you consider that you should have called it A' Chruach, as in reality Beinn Mor is a good 4 miles from Benmore Gardens. Nonetheless this was a fine walk, marred only by our incoherent estimation of the distance and ill advised easy off the mountain. I would recommend contouring round the bumps we climbed on the way up. The views were very fine indeed and being local, it gave me a grand perspective of my immediate area. Thoroughly recommended on a good day.