Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin, Loch Earn - Sunday 6th Nov 2011

Pronunciation/Translation: Ben Vorlich - byn vorlick (hill of the bay), Stuc a' Chroin - stook a kroin (peak of danger)


While driving up to Crianlarich a few weeks earlier, I had toyed with the idea of doing Ben Vorlich and Stuc a' Chroin again. It would be a good option for a shortish walk while daylight was limited. That day had arrived, we decided to head for a late start Sunday in the hills, Loch Earn would be perfect.

The weather was looking really good. Fairly bright sunshine with a sharp breeze to help keep us cool. We parked up at the side of the road before the lane to Ardvorlich House. The favourable conditions had brought out quite a few other hikers today, judging by the amount of cars parked along the verge. We got kitted up and briskly set off towards the footpath leading to the lower slopes of Ben Vorlich.

From the road we started up the tree-lined private lane to Ardvorlich House. A walkers sign soon directs you away from the private grounds of Ardvorlich and onto the Landrover track up the valley. After a few gates, and stiles the track begins to get steeper and twist and turn a little more. Although the temperature was still quite low in the winter sunshine, we were both feeling the heat now as the path crossed streams and climbed up into more open land.

Our route continued up onto the north slopes of Ben Vorlich and soon began to zig-zag into a staircase type incline before hitting the last rocky push before the long summit ridge. Ben Vorlich's summit (985m) is at the north end of this ridge, but we made our way along to the southern edge of the ridge to take in the views that stretch out as far south as Grangemouth and the Pentlands on a clear day.

After a short break on Vorlich we set off to the north of the ridge again where we descended to the bealach connecting with Stuc a' Chroin. It is a far longer walk than it looks from the Ben Vorlich summit. After a boggy area at the bealach we began to make our way up and round some craggy areas on the approach to the Stuc's northeastern face. There are several ways to the top. A rocky path cuts it's way up the main part of the face and is usually the most popular route, especially in summer. There were a few people up ahead already taking this route, so we decided to veer south into the sunshine and chose to ascend the east gully to the summit.

This route is much quicker, but steeper and for the most part, a good head for heights is required as the gully falls right down into the valley between the two munros. I do however like to see the look on other's faces as we pop up from nowhere as they pass from having come up from the northeast crags.

We made it to the summit (975m) in good time as we had no queues on the gully. Another summit plateau with two cairns... east and west. We tap out on both to avoid any ambiguity, and settle on the southern slopes to have a bite of lunch. Alfie and Bracken share a packet of Shona's potato crisps and some of my banana. It was pretty chilly on the summit so an extra softshell was pulled out my pack and hastily zipped right up to my neck.

Lunch out the way and we began to make our way off the summit and down the northwestern ridge of Stuc a' Chroin. After a little way along a path drops down to the east and leads down towards the base of the northeast crags. To avoid working upwards to the bealach again we cut off north to round the shoulder of the lower slopes of Ben Vorlich. It was rather wet and boggy terrain, and Shona caught a slippery clump of wet reed and rock. She dropped like a stone to her knees and endured a mighty whack on her leg which came up in a massive bruise a few days later... ouch. Salomons are great flexible lightweight boots and i'm very fond of them, however their contragrip sole technology does not work well on wet rock or boggy, Scottish vegetation. I've experienced the cha cha slide in mine on many occasions and have been fortunate not to have done more damage than a pulled muscle.

And so we made the long walk back down the twisty track over the bridges and along the landrover start to the lower farm land near Loch Earn. Shona managed to bravely stride off the hill without alerting me that her leg was bruising up like a map of the world. We were soon back at the car and making our way to buy something for dinner at the utterly brilliant Tesco supermarket in Callander which incidently stays open until 11pm!