Jaxter out on her own again…

Date: 20^th October 2013

Munros: Ben Vorlich (Loch Lomond)

Route: Ben Vorlich from Ardlui

After the “success” of my previous solo venture, I found a free day and decided to take advantage of it! The forecast was awful; it was the tail end of a storm, but it was my only free day and I was determined. So off I went on the train to Ardlui.

To begin with, the weather wasn’t actually that awful. As I found my way under the railway bridge (fortunately signposted) and headed uphill there was even a bit of sun and some views!

 

 

 

Due to my lack of car, I was climbing Ben Vorlich from the “wrong” side, a path less travelled than the usual route past Sloy dam. But I figured I was equal to a challenge and was by no means new to hillwalking!

 

About 40 minutes in I required waterproofs. Not unexpected so it didn’t dampen my enjoyment.

The sun was really trying…

 

…but Scottish weather was fighting back…hard…

 

 

Continuing up, the weather got steadily worse and before long I was enjoying the inside of a cloud. The views were not impressive.

 

 

Mostly it was a case of going up, but towards the top I found myself somewhat confused due to the double summit…I must have gone slightly off course, or pointed myself in the wrong direction. But after a bit of trial and error, I found a summit cairn!!

 

 

I had carried myself up a flask of tea so tried to ‘enjoy’ it, fortunately the lid was on when it blew off the cairn! Mingin weather meant that I didn’t hang around too long.

 

A route suggestion had been to come down a slightly different way – hurray I hate out-and-backs – and come over Little Hills before heading back towards Ardlui. I enjoyed some water features on the way

 

However….

Something didn’t go right. When I came out of the gloom I could tell that I wasn’t quite heading in the right direction!

 

 

 

Deciding that my best course of action was just to head for the road, I bashed my way through forest, bog, fences and all manner of other things and reached a railway bridge which allowed me to pinpoint my location – about 4 miles south of Ardlui.

I decided that jumping onto the train from the bridge probably wasn’t wise…

 

…so set off along the road at a brisk pace so I would make the train home.

 

Making my way through the roadworks, I stopped to chat to a lovely Irish road worker who promptly offered me a lift through the roadworks and then insisted on driving me all the way to Ardlui, saving me around an hours walk! My faith in humanity restored, I had a cup of tea in the bar before catching the train back to civilisation.