Where a bus or train can be used to link the two ends of a linear route, or to facilitate going up one route and coming down another, I've noted this at the routes concerned. Other public transport information is in Appendix C.
In old numbers, 600ft was a vertical distance, while 200yds was horizontal. I've used a similar convention, so that 600m is an altitude or height gain, while 600 metres (with ‘etres’) is along the ground. When going up or downhill diagonally, ‘slant up left' means in a direction to left of straight up. So if straight up the slope is north, ‘slant up right' would be northeast. I use ‘track’ (rather than ‘path’) for a way wide enough for a tractor or Landrover.
Finally, the ‘standard route' up a hill is the convenient and well-trodden one featured in guidebooks like Steve Kew's Walking the Munros. It's usually the shortest, and because it's so well used, also the easiest. Sometimes it is also the best and most interesting. But to avoid 90 per cent of other hill-goers, simply stay off the standard route.
Ben Narnain sunset (Routes 52 & 53)
THE EAST
PART ONE TROSSACHS
Ben Venue and Trossachs woodland (Routes 1–2) seen from Ben A'an (Route 3)
The mountains of this book arrange themselves in a great three-quarter circle whose centre is blocked by Loch Lomond. The book could have started at Ben Lomond and gone clockwise, but the opposite direction makes sense, historically at least. For the Trossachs are where it all begins. The twisty oak trees and small but incomparably rugged hills around them, along with the eight lochs, meant that those who had already learned to like the Lake District were going to just love this side of Loch Lomond. Sir Walter Scott was the first landscape guide. The Wordsworths visited the Trossachs twice on their Scottish expedition of 1803. Behind them came the crowds.
And the crowds are still here, ferried up and down Loch Katrine, and treading the busy peaks of Ben A'an and Ben Ledi. They are quite right to come. The hills look out over the misted Lowlands. With spruce plantations gradually being removed, the flourishing oakwoods at the ‘true Trossachs’, the patch at the foot of Loch Katrine, are gradually recolonising the wider area between Lomond and Loch Lubnaig. And the fairies still lurk in the green darkness below the branches of Aberfoyle.
ROUTE 1
Ben Venue (shorter)
| Start/Finish | Ben Venue car park, Loch Achray NN 505 067 |
| Distance | 11.5km/7 miles |
| Total Ascent | 700m/2300ft |
| Time | 4½hr |
| Terrain | Smooth paths to forest top, then pathless hill and rough path |
| Max Altitude | Ben Venue 729m |
| Maps | LR 57; Expl 365; Harvey Ben Venue |
Ben Venue is from Gaelic A' Bheinn Mheanbh, meaning 'tiny mountain'.(Meanbh is also Gaelic for midge, as 'very tiny fly' meanbh-chuileag.) The name fits. Venue is small but surprisingly rocky, and is the second most popular hillwalk in this area (personally I prefer it to Ben Lomond, the area's Number One). The straightforward up and down by Gleann Riabhach is good in itself. The upper glen is spectacular, so that if you use the South Ridge ascent, and the Gleann Riabhach path just for the descent, you do miss out a little.
However, Ben Venue does call for a detailed exploration, so an unfrequented ridgeline is here offered for the ascent. Route 2 gives the wider Ben Venue some more of the attention it deserves.
The former start for Ben Venue was along the road to Loch Achray Hotel and up forest tracks behind it. But the Forestry Commission has created a tarmac-free and much nicer route. The twists and turns of this are complicated, but are marked with big wooden signposts.
From the back of the car park, start by the left-hand path for 400 metres to a junction where you turn left. Or else follow the right-hand path and then turn right.
The path, with a blue/green marker, heads downhill towards Ben Venue and crosses duckboard to a road junction. Take the lane to the left (‘Private Road’) for 600 metres, when a path on the left leads across a charming footbridge and up to a forest track. Turn right (signposted for Ben Venue) and after 200 metres turn left up a wide path.
The path rises between tall trees, to the top end of a forest track. Turn up right here, on a well-built path, running up to join another forest road. Turn left, and in 300 metres, as the track bends left towards a bridge, turn up right, again on good path. It emerges to a clear-felled area and a final forest road.
Cross the forest road and continue ahead on the good path, through second growth woodland of self-sown spruce and birch. After 500 metres the path passes into a recently clear felled area; it crosses a small track, which could be taken down left to join the 'final forest road' not far below – a last chance to switch into Route 2.
A tall fence now runs above the well-made path. As the path rounds the spur and turns north into the upper corrie, the fence turns away uphill. Continue by the main path (and eventual descent route) ahead, or else by the untrodden ridge up on your right.
Crianlarich hills and Loch Katrine, from the summit ridge of Ben Venue
Gleann Riabhach path
The path, handsomely reconstructed in 2017, runs up the corrie ahead to a sprawling cairn in a col at 580m. Here turn right on a path that's initially steep and loose but then gets nicer. Just as the path dips into a small col, look out for a side-path turning left, for only this takes you to the actual summit. It winds up among the rocks of the crest to the summit cairn at 729m (NN 474 062). In the next col, the bypass path rejoins, and climbs steeply with a crag above it to the trig point at 727m (NN 477 061). The trig point is in ruins, probably struck by lightning – however it's an even better viewpoint than the true summit.
South ridge
Having emerged from the woodland and clear fell, once past the constraining fence turn back up right onto the ridgeline above. Thus you bypass the very bottom of the ridge, which is a vertical outcrop. Head up the ridgeline: a short rise on steep grass and then hummocky. There's a path for the final rise to the ruined trig point at 727m.
Descent by Gleann Riabhach path
From Ben Venue's ruined trig point (727m), take the worn path that runs down below a crag to the first col. Now keep up right for the true summit (729m) or take the bypass path contouring round to the left. Follow the rejoined path down into a col (580m) with a sprawling cairn. The path continuing
