Total distance walked: 12km
Total ascent: 712m
Time: 1200 – 1700 Sunday 31 August 2008
A fitting end to the wettest August since records began, this was the wettest walk I’d done in three years. Climbing with me was my good friend Jo, who as a hill-walking novice wanted something easy-but-not-too-easy, and Ben Venue fits the bill.
I’ve been up it several times, always by the same route, and it’s never become dull, especially because of the fun second half – the descent from the summit.
Ascent-wise, we parked at the Loch Achray hotel (amongst the couch-tour buses) and headed up into the forest, following the signposts colour-coded for the summit. The first four kilimetres or so are within the forest, and not too interesting, but at least the good paths allow you to march them off with little effort, and soon you find yourself deposited at the start of a mud-path to the mountain proper.
We stopped briefly here for munchies before the midges hurried us on our way, and soon the mud-path dried out a little and rose higher above the stream pouring out from the coire west of Ben Venue. In the higher parts of this coire the path steepened and began zig-zagging up through some rocks, eventually depositing us at the flatter up reaches of the coire.
The wet path climbed gradually up to the huge cairn marking the turnign point in the trip. At this point we were on the mountain proper. The path wound up through steeper rocks to begin with before leveling out later. There were a few lumps and humps making for some up-and-down before the final “ascent”. In the mist it was har to tell where the summit was, but a good path kept us going in the right direction and eventually we wandered up to it.
For some reason (which was probably the weather) there were hardly any other people out today, despite it being a Sunday in the “Summer”, but we met the only other two walkers of the day here at the summit cairn. We didn’t linger in the drizzle, instead diving straight down into the mist SE towards the next litte top.
As we got to the col between the two tops we turned NE towards Loch Katrine and dropped quickly down grassy slopes. The clouds thinned the lower we got, but the rain also turned more persistent. What had been a light refreshing drizzle for most of the day was a moderate shower by the time we got to the birch woods on the lower slopes. In between we slip-slided downhill on the wet grass, Jo spending more time on her backside than upright.
The birch woods (always my favourite part of this route) were dripping with water, and as we swung downhill using the trees for balance we dislodged lashings of water onto ourselves. The final section of the birch wood, as we struggled around ferns, fallen trees, gorges and muddy slopes, was the most entertaining of the day (for me at least – I think Jo might have began to lose a little patience).
Once we emerged sodden from the woods the rain was tending to persistent, and the path back to the loch was more of a stream. Eventually though we arrived (soaking) back at the forest track, and with only a frustrating detour due to felling between us and the car we got our heads down and marched it off.
A stop at the Carbeth Inn for dinner on the way home rounded off an altogether enjoyable day. It says a lot for this hill (or rather this specific route – if we’d descended by our route of ascent it wouldn’t have been nearly so much fun) that we still enjoyed ourselves on it despite the weather.
Filed under: Bags | Tagged: ben venue, hill walking, mountain, route, scotland, Scottish
