Ben Vorlich, Loch Lomond - 21st September 2010

Pronunciation/Translation: Ben Vorlich - byn voarlick (hill of the bay)

A very late start for this one. With time against us, we decided to head to Ardlui at the top of Loch Lomond rather than climb Ben Vorlich from the south.
We parked near the train station and made the short walk south on the A82 to a nearby underpass.
I wanted to veer northwest up the track towards a path I could see leading to the bealach between Stob an Fhithch and Stob nan Coinnich Bhacain. The proprietors of the cottages at Garristuck it seemed had other ideas and had secured the gate with a hefty combination lock. Well, we can leap over a gate as good as the next man, but when you have a dog with you and it's right beside someones house, it feels a bit clandestine.
We headed south instead towards a stile which saw a path lead over a shallow stream.
After crossing here, the path more or less diminished. Between us and the ridge to the west was a steady sloping field of bracken and bog, not great terrain to begin a walk.
Fighting our way through this stuff took much longer than we expected, and was extremely energy sapping. Just when we thought we were through the worst of the wild bracken we happened upon an electric fence. Great!
A bit further along, the fence came to a junction where a wooden strut would allow us to carefully climb over. After Shona had thrown Alfie across to me, we were greeted with more fierce ferns to combat.
Eventually we made it onto clearer ground and could see the saddle ahead. We were soon over the bealach and heading southwest towards the undulating ridges that would take us upwards to Ben Vorlich.
Although squelchy underfoot, it was a relief to be done with wrestling  bracken which had taken some toll on Shona's knee injury. On the approach ridge to the summit, the views were awesome. To the west we could see the forests and hills separating us from Glen Fyne. To the east a dark and eerie looking Coire Creagach silhouetted by the jagged "Little Hills".



The fine views were short lived as we were soon up among the clouds and visibility became quite difficult. Checking the altimeter I knew we were almost at the summit. The wind was also kicking up quite briskly giving us a clue as to how near we were to the top.
We made it to the cairn (943m). Standing upright was a real chore with the wind whipping over the summit. We decided to find cover as quickly as possible, so a visit to the slightly lower trig point (941m) was aborted.

Once off the summit the wind calmed considerably and we made good pace to get below the cloud cover. Stepping back into the light we were only just able to pick out the indistinct path which led down along the ridge to the north.

Making sure we had clearance of the crags to the east, we veered northeast and picked our way carefully down into the Coire Creagach. Light was fading fast but it wasn't too long before we were down at the well trodden, boggy path leading along the stream towards Railway Cottage.
As darkness fell we made it to the rail underpass and had a short walk along the road back to the car. Gaiters off and dog hastily cleaned up we made tracks for the Drovers Inn to refuel.