summit is, quite simply, one of the scenic spots of Scotland; the view is across to Ben Venue, downward onto oakwoods, and all the way along Loch Katrine.
Many will be content to return down the well-built path. The alternative descent route gives further views along Katrine, but is small, rough and quite steep, followed by a pleasant ramble back alongside the water.
Start across the A821 on an uphill track that quickly becomes a well-built path. It is rugged and ascends steeply, to cross Allt Inneil by a footbridge. Soon above this it levels in a clear felled area where natural regeneration is taking place, and gives an intimidating view of Ben A'an directly ahead.
The path crosses a forest track, then steepens under birch trees. It crosses a patch of level grass with boulders for sitting on. Here it bends right and ascends steeply beside a stream. It splits into vague branches to cross the stream, then runs up and to right of Ben A'an's rocky cone. At the stream top, ignore eroded short-cuts up left. The good path circles round to the col joining Ben A'an with the main slope behind, and turns left to the rocky summit of Ben A'an.
Descent You may prefer to return by the same steep but well-repaired path. For the rougher descent, return along the ridge north, on a path just to left of the main one. As the main path turns down right, the side path heads down left. It is small and not very clear as it runs down a dip, with the length of Loch Katrine ahead. It heads northwest, across a stream, to a stile (NN 4993 0842).
Path up Ben A'an; the clear-felled plantation here will soon be native birchwood
If you cross the stile you'll just have to reclimb the fence below. So head down to left of the fence to the top corner of a plantation. The path continues to left of the tall plantation fence, recrossing the stream, into oak woods. It is steep and rough, and in places wet and peaty. It drops onto the tarred track alongside Loch Katrine, arriving beside a cattle grid.
Turn left alongside the loch – the track was blasted out with gunpowder, but in Walter Scott's time this was a path suspended from the crags with heather ropes. Pass through the car park at the ferry pier Nice café with balcony here; also toilets. Expensive parking. onto the entrance road. After 800 metres, where a tarred lane turns off right, turn half-right onto a duckboard path. This runs east through open woodlands. Where it divides, the right-hand branch has better views up to Ben A'an but both reach the car park for Ben Venue. Turn left along A821 to a junction, and right for 250 metres to Ben A'an's car park.
ROUTE 4
Aberfoyle to Menteith Hills
| Start/Finish | Aberfoyle Riverside car park NN 521009 (or David Marshall Lodge NN 519015) |
| Distance | 16km/10 miles |
| Total Ascent | 700m/2300ft |
| Time | 6hr |
| Terrain | Two-thirds paths and tracks, one-third rough ground over the hills |
| Max Altitude | Craig of Monievreckie 400m |
| Maps | LR 57; Expl 365; Harvey Ben Venue |
The extreme northern edge of the Lowlands is formed of a layer of tough conglomerate (puddingstone) rocks, bent into an upright position by the movement of the Highland Boundary Fault. These rocks form the abrupt ridgeline of the Menteith Hills (as well as Conic Hill, four of the Loch Lomond islands and Callander Craigs). From its heathery, peaty vantage you look south across the Lake of Menteith to the Lowlands, and north across Loch Venachar to the Highlands.
You also look down on the woods and plantations of the Queen Elizabeth Park. The well-laid trails around David Marshall Lodge give relaxing walking under birch and oak and by small waterfalls. The junction of forest and hill here is also the joining point of Highland and Lowland, with a glimpse of the strange ocean-bottom rocks of the Highland Border Complex.
The start from the David Marshall Lodge makes the walk slightly shorter, but you'll have to pay for your parking. Skip straight to the second paragraph below.
Start from Aberfoyle up the A821 (Callander). Take steps up left past the Bowling Club to short-cut the road's big bend. At the top of the village, turn right up stone steps (not the bike path that turns up right 30 metres further along the road). In 50 metres, the green trail joins from the right: continue uphill, ahead. Cross the bike path and another one above, up to the David Marshall Lodge, 300 metres away on a hilltop. Pass to left of the lodge and head down to the small lake beyond. Bear right, around the foot of the lake, to its northeast corner.
A path turns away from the lake, southeast and slightly downhill. At the next junction, as one waymark indicates the fork up left, follow the other marker forking right over a small culvert bridge. The path drops to the foot of the Little Fawn Falls.
Cross the footbridge below the falls (signed as Bike Path 7) and turn left up a steep path (a gentler way takes the smooth track slanting up over on the right, then in 400 metres back left). It leads up to the splat point of the Go Ape death slide. The death slide (I bet they donu't call it that these days) could be a short-cut from the lodge to this point, saving 400 metres. Behind the crashdown point (the punters actually arrive at moderate walking pace) a path marked u'Site 2u' contours above the stream, with handrail, and up into more monkey stuff suspended in trees. Pass up through the dangle zone to a track above. Turn up left,to pass another small waterfall over on your left. In another 400 metres is a four-way track junction.
On Craig of Monievreckie, to Lake of Menteith
Turn sharp right, southwest and slightly downhill, with a red waymarker. The Forestry Commission's trail layouts and colours tend to change every decade or so – in 2008 this was a blue waymarker. The track levels for a while, then climbs to the top of the forest, where it ends. Immediately above is the former Lime Craig Quarry, cut into the very edge of the Lowlands. The back wall is reddish conglomerate, whose cobbles, where broken, show discoloured quartzite washed out of a now-non-existent mountain range. The lower rocks, to left and right, are quite different: reddish black where weathered, pale green when freshly broken. This is serpentinite, originally a fragment of ocean bed snatched up between the two moving continental blocks. See pictures of the quarry in Appendix A.
A steep path runs up to left of the quarry, then turns right, to a gateway gap above. A viewpoint overlooking the David Marshall Lodge is just ahead, but turn left alongside an old fence on a faint, wet, path northeast. The path soon edges up right to follow a small ridge just above. With a forest block visible ahead, turn right alongside two decayed fences side-by-side, towards the highest point of the hill. After 800 metres southeast, climb a heathery bank then turn left on a small path to the trig point (400m) on Craig of Monievreckie.
The decayed fence follows the ridgeline northeast. The path heads away to right of the fence to start with but soon rejoins it. Follow the ridgeline for 3km, with two sharp dips along the way. With plantations ahead, the fence ends at the top of low crags.
Slant down left, then
