KYQ4: Ben Vane (Loch Lomond)

Ben Vane from track to the Sloy Dam

Friday, 29 April 2022

Ascent:      950 metres
Distance:   14 kilometres
Time:         4 hours 16 minutes

m Ben Vane 916m 2hrs 18mins

It was time to climb a Munro, I had been waiting to climb my last Corbett but finding a weather window when others who had asked to come along was proving difficult. In the meantime, I needed to test out my hill fitness. Spending 45 minutes walking up the track to a 300-metre hill and then running down does not prepare you for long days on steep slopes and rough rocky ground. My memories of Ben Vane were of an easy Munro that I had run up a few times on summer evenings after work. Walkhighland said it was a 4.5 to 6.5-hour walk. I left home at 7:45am saying I would be back at lunchtime, I thought 3.5 hours would suffice with an hour's journey in each direction. Oh, what an optimist was I?

It had been a dry week with cool easterly winds and this was the last dry day with less wind and good visibility, I only decided to go on waking up. Normally I would just climb the local hill but it was becoming too much of a routine. The journey took longer than anticipated in the morning traffic, stopping for diesel and spending 15 minutes getting a parking place at the Inveruglas car park that only took coins, something that I have not used for the last two years. I eventually dumped the car in the short term car park kidding myself that I would be back in 3 hours. It is a kilometre walk to the start of the track to the Sloy Dam, you used to be able to park at the entrance to this road but that is strictly prohibited nowadays. I kept a reasonable pace up the track. past the new transmission station and onto the track that heads along Allt Coiregrogain. I had caught a couple of women and a lone man in his fifties and exchanged pleasantries by the time I left the track. I followed the old path that cuts under a rock face and brought me onto a broad plateau from where the path had been improved by the path builders.

The climb steepens from here with well-positioned steps to ensure quick progress but at about 400 metres the path became an overused trench with loose stones that meandered through the rock faces. I began to flag, removing my jacket and having a drink, pausing to look back, stopping to talk to a couple of walkers who were on the descent and just taking a few breaks. I went off route at one place climbing the wrong chimney and ended up on a ledge below another rock face. I had to retreat and find the main route. The day was almost perfect with blue skies, good views and a slight breeze to avoid overheating. The final couple of hundred metres of the climb told me that I wasn't hill fit,

Ben Vane is still a fine hill and the views of the other Arrochar Alps - Beinn Narnain, Beinn Ime and the Cobbler made me wish that I had considered a longer walk. I spent 10 minutes at the summit enjoying the vistas and some refreshments before beginning the descent. I found the easy routes down the rock face near the summit and had the views over Loch Lomond to entice me down. At about 500 metres I met the two women, who had had to give up, the steep path had proved too daunting. They had driven up from the Scottish Borders and must have left at 6am but they were quite at peace with the outing. One of them was a sheep farmer and she explained the problems that had arisen post-Brexit and during Covid, a litany of mistakes that had made sheep farming even harder. She was so pleased to be having a day off after the spring lambing.

The heat of the day made the descent slower than it should have been so it took almost 2 hours before I was back at the car park. I had managed to get away with the short term parking but it was 1:30pm before I was down with an hour's drive to get home, a very late lunchtime. I was surprised how long it had taken and dug out my logbooks of earlier visits to Ben Vane. I had run it up and down in 1 hour 51 minutes in 1993 and 2 hours 44 minutes in 2003, albeit that these runs had been 2 kilometres shorter because you could park at the start of the track.