The last time I was up, Champo and I bagged Ben Vane on the other side of Loch Sloy from Ben Vorlich and the weather was really foul. The top of Ben Vorlich was hidden by the clag with only the super steep slopes showing beneath a heavy cloud base.
If Cameron McNeish's book is to be believed, 'there are no discernable paths on Ben Vorlich', and the walker should just pick a route and go for it.
I woke up to a fantastic sunny day and decided to get moving as quickly as possible - the hills were bound to be getting some traffic. I arrived in the Inveruglas car park at 8:15am and was on my way by 8:30am.
I opted to head towards the Loch Sloy dam and see if any particular route jumped out at me. It's a good walk in and there were opportunities aplenty to get the climb started - they were all bloody steep so no advantage really in delaying OR starting early. There was one stand point at the power station where Ben Vane and Ben Ime were in panorama so managed to get a good snap of this, with the power station in shot too....bugger.
About 200m from the dam I decided to head on up the hillside, heading for a space between two crags. As height was gained, the views were exceptional over to Ben Vane and memories of Champo and I flogging our way up through the heather to gain the summit came flooding back.
After about an hour of continuous flogging, I thought I heard voices over to my right and sure enough, about 300m away, there were some people taking a different route to the summit.
They looked to be making better progress and I put this down to the fact that I had had to circumnavigate some large craggy areas en route.
Ten minutes later, I rounded some boulders to find....A PATH...
McNeish you lying ba*sta*d.
The other party had been cruising up a reasonably well formed path as I had been on the steepest part of the hill (or so it felt). This path was an alpine superhighway (well not really) that led from the road in the valley floor right to the summit.
I don't like to see human effort unrewarded so, in a recognition of services rendered, I had no option but to use this path to gain the summit. 3 and a half hours after leaving the car, I was stood on the top, looking over to Ben Lomond, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. There were plenty of distant Munros to be seen with many still snow capped.
After a few minutes, I headed back via the superhighway and got myself back to the car in just under 6 hours. Even with the rudiments of a path, the descent was hellishly steep and it was worth while taking a bit of extra time to get down safely.All in all a nice raid to one of my favourite places in Scotland.
Not long to my next trip...so keep watching your emails...
Davie
