I'll Tak' The High Road

Okay, so it's May Day Bank Holiday in the West of Scotland, and the weather forecast's brilliant, so what else is there to do but disappear out into the countryside for the day???

I mentioned at the beginning of the year that I had four fitness objectives to obtain this year.  I wanted to add three Wainwrights onto my list of summits, and I also wanted to add Ben Lomond to my palmares.

Ben Lomond is an iconic hill which dominates the Clyde estuary.  It is also, at 3196 ft, fitting comfortably into the Munro category of summits.  Now, I've never tackled a Munro before.  And any Scottish summit needs to be treated with immense respect, as the weather can be damned treacherous, and the tops are virtually always associated with a frigid blast of wind that can send the unsuspecting walker sailing off a vertical drop if they're particularly unlucky.

But today seemed like an auspicious day so we thought we'd go for it.

Things didn't start too well.  And it was no fault of the mountain's, either.  I dropped into a car park in the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park and found, well, how can I put this?  You'll be well aware that I'm becoming quite an authority in toilets!  This was, quite frankly, the worst toilet I've seen all year, and that's including the derelict 1930s toilets that I encounter on a daily basis at work.  The toilets were filled to the brim with unmentionable stuff and the plaster had been ripped off the walls so it looked abandoned. 

Luckily, there was a new visitor centre across the road.  I voiced my complaints, and they looked strangely chipper.  "Oh, that's Stirlingshire Council's problem," they said.  "We can give you a phone number, if you want to complain."  "No," I replied, "I'll just blog about it instead." Which seemed to make them even more elated.

I don't blame Stirlingshire Council.  I blame the stupid oiks that left the loos in that state to begin with.  Plaster doesn't rip itself off from the walls, does it?  Like I said previously, I dwell amongst a nation of barbarians.  This is one of the jewels in the crown as far as the tourist trail goes, and all we can offer the visitor is something truly awful.  It made me ashamed to be Scottish...

Anyway, Ben Lomond ('Hill of the Beacon') more than made up for this horror.  It was extremely busy, because it's the place EVERYONE goes walking on the bank holiday when the weather's good.

Here's a view of the summit - I think it's the big bruiser of a peak to the right of the picture, though it was hard to tell from this angle:-

 

From a distance, Ben Lomond is a familiar landmark as it looks just like the neck and shoulders of an enormous giant whose head has been lopped off.  We had to scale one of the shoulders, then confront the 'neck', which loomed up like Devil's Tower, Wyoming in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (only bigger, MUCH bigger!!):-

 

And the views from the summit?  Incredible.  Absolutely incredible.  Here's a view of the Arrochar Alps, with Ben Arthur ('The Cobbler') to the left and Loch Lomond spreading out below:-

 

It looks idyllic in the photographs, but there was a blistering wind blowing on the summit....

And on the eastern side, some amazingly majestic crags dropping down into oblivion.  Needless to say, I didn't go too close to the edge:-

 

Even when we'd got back to ground level, the scenery was stunning.  Here's the afternoon sunlight glinting on Loch Lomond:-

And okay, after a day spent drinking in this scenery, which is just an hour or so's drive from home, I must concede that there's no place like home.  I love Scotland to bits, and I wouldn't swap living here for anything.

Despite the empty-headed morons that do their level best to ruin it for everyone else...

So that's it.  I've now got a Munro under my belt. Next on the list?  The Cobbler.  It may just be a Corbett, but it's a very lovely Corbett and I think it's well worth a visit some time.

I'll Tak' The High Road

Okay, so it's May Day Bank Holiday in the West of Scotland, and the weather forecast's brilliant, so what else is there to do but disappear out into the countryside for the day???

I mentioned at the beginning of the year that I had four fitness objectives to obtain this year.  I wanted to add three Wainwrights onto my list of summits, and I also wanted to add Ben Lomond to my palmares.

Ben Lomond is an iconic hill which dominates the Clyde estuary.  It is also, at 3196 ft, fitting comfortably into the Munro category of summits.  Now, I've never tackled a Munro before.  And any Scottish summit needs to be treated with immense respect, as the weather can be damned treacherous, and the tops are virtually always associated with a frigid blast of wind that can send the unsuspecting walker sailing off a vertical drop if they're particularly unlucky.

But today seemed like an auspicious day so we thought we'd go for it.

Things didn't start too well.  And it was no fault of the mountain's, either.  I dropped into a car park in the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park and found, well, how can I put this?  You'll be well aware that I'm becoming quite an authority in toilets!  This was, quite frankly, the worst toilet I've seen all year, and that's including the derelict 1930s toilets that I encounter on a daily basis at work.  The toilets were filled to the brim with unmentionable stuff and the plaster had been ripped off the walls so it looked abandoned. 

Luckily, there was a new visitor centre across the road.  I voiced my complaints, and they looked strangely chipper.  "Oh, that's Stirlingshire Council's problem," they said.  "We can give you a phone number, if you want to complain."  "No," I replied, "I'll just blog about it instead." Which seemed to make them even more elated.

I don't blame Stirlingshire Council.  I blame the stupid oiks that left the loos in that state to begin with.  Plaster doesn't rip itself off from the walls, does it?  Like I said previously, I dwell amongst a nation of barbarians.  This is one of the jewels in the crown as far as the tourist trail goes, and all we can offer the visitor is something truly awful.  It made me ashamed to be Scottish...

Anyway, Ben Lomond ('Hill of the Beacon') more than made up for this horror.  It was extremely busy, because it's the place EVERYONE goes walking on the bank holiday when the weather's good.

Here's a view of the summit - I think it's the big bruiser of a peak to the right of the picture, though it was hard to tell from this angle:-

 

From a distance, Ben Lomond is a familiar landmark as it looks just like the neck and shoulders of an enormous giant whose head has been lopped off.  We had to scale one of the shoulders, then confront the 'neck', which loomed up like Devil's Tower, Wyoming in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (only bigger, MUCH bigger!!):-

 

And the views from the summit?  Incredible.  Absolutely incredible.  Here's a view of the Arrochar Alps, with Ben Arthur ('The Cobbler') to the left and Loch Lomond spreading out below:-

 

It looks idyllic in the photographs, but there was a blistering wind blowing on the summit....

And on the eastern side, some amazingly majestic crags dropping down into oblivion.  Needless to say, I didn't go too close to the edge:-

 

Even when we'd got back to ground level, the scenery was stunning.  Here's the afternoon sunlight glinting on Loch Lomond:-

And okay, after a day spent drinking in this scenery, which is just an hour or so's drive from home, I must concede that there's no place like home.  I love Scotland to bits, and I wouldn't swap living here for anything.

Despite the empty-headed morons that do their level best to ruin it for everyone else...

So that's it.  I've now got a Munro under my belt. Next on the list?  The Cobbler.  It may just be a Corbett, but it's a very lovely Corbett and I think it's well worth a visit some time.