Feature
Ben Lomond: Forty Years On
By Irvine Butterfield
(Writer in Residence!)
Memories of Ben Lomond have dimmed with time and I cannot even recollect the day I had made my only ascent. The narrow road from Balmaha was so unfamiliar that it seemed like a completely new experience. It was, I reflected, a long, long time since I had set foot on Ben Lomond. I recalled a path striking up the hill from the Rowardennan Hotel, but if it still exists, as the Landranger map suggests, then I failed to locate it. Even the path from the spacious car-park goes unsigned at the start, but seems obvious enough when the brain kicks into gear. Too lazy to look at the map? And was I anticipating a "tourist route" and the all too familiar ‘lead you by the hand’ way-marked path?
The trees in the forest were being harvested and gave pause for thought as, maturing about 40 years, they would have only just been planted about the time of my previous visit. The dead-hand of ranked conifers hadn’t apparently extinguished all life as I heard the tap tap of a woodpecker close by. A lot of work had been done on the path, with lots of pitched steps to assist upward progress. It did occur to me that there must be an awful lot of paths which might benefit from such treatment but how did one prioritise and where is the money to come from? And how does one decide what is best practice and ensure this is followed - what does Bob Aitken make of it all nowadays? Nonetheless, pitched or not, my pace seemed slow and it did enter my mind that I might not even make the summit. I really ought to invest in a smaller camera and lightweight gear but somewhat anachronistically I cling to the old ways and pay the penalty of carrying a heavy pack.
The whiter sky of early morning carried with it a hint of blue and a cool waft of a northerly wind would be welcome as I pressed on in anticipation of the views to come. The peak still seemed very distant and as my gaze swung round towards the ridge of Ptarmigan I noticed the obvious plod of a path on the lower slopes. In "High Mountains" this was a suggested alternative return from the summit and I paused to reflect what contribution to erosion I might have been guilty of. Curiously, at the time I wrote, the intention was to get walkers to look at the mountain and appreciate the whole rather than slavishly following, and constantly pounding the same route. At the time, my generation read Murray and others who urged us to put something back, but even then it would have been difficult to envisage the massive increase in the outdoor movement.
Several walkers, who had left later than I, passed me on the long drag across Sron Aonaich but I was encouraged by two young Glaswegians who were gradually overtaking me on the approach to the final climb to the summit ridge. One was exhorting the other ever upwards and berating his companion for his smoking habit which, he suggested, required too many stops to be made. I learned that they had been out earlier in the month and had to abort on The Cobbler due to lightening. A similar failure to ‘top out’ on another of the Arrochar Alps meant that the smoker would make his first ascent if he could reach the summit. Thus encouraged by the presence of an old hand, our trio, by degrees, make the final haul across a very icy path to the triangulation pillar.
Here eyes feasted on panoramas which took in distant Cruachan beyond the Arrochar Alps, the pike of Ben Lui and its attendant peaks, the long crumpled ridge of the Crianlarich hills, and south to the waters of Loch Ard and the distant Pentlands. The sun moving round to the west threw shadows across the hills as we took our leave of the hill, pausing for a last photograph of the islands in Loch Lomond. My two companions, each in his own way, were very happy with their day - one, of course, encouraged by summiting his first Munro. As they said their kit wasn’t of the most expensive sort but the £25 rucksack was copious enough to accommodate their needs, spare sweaters and the like. I recalled that in many ways their enthusiasms were much as mine had been all those years before, when "there was no substitute for wool". My kit hadn’t been that great either - Grenfell cloth was the order of the day, with woollen jumpers, and stout boots. The prize purchase had been one of the earliest anoraks, ‘as worn by mountain rescue’, which in those days was probably viewed much as Goretex is today. It might have been windproof but when wet the dye ran and on one occasion soaked right through to my skin. As a sentimental gesture it was actually stuffed into my sack for the last Munro when I again got soaked and cramp, a repeat of the gears first outing. Sure we got wet but the wool helped so long as you kept moving - and we never knew what ‘wicking’ was all about. To me it was refreshing to see a new generation just getting on with it - exploring, experiencing, and enjoying - I thought it a cause for celebration and bought the lads a pint in the pub to celebrate the young Glaswegians first Munro. There are some things that haven’t changed!