Over The Hill

As far as walks within Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park go, then Ben Lomond, via Ptarmigan Ridge, and the stretch of the West Highland Way along the shores of Loch Lomond between Rowardennan and Inversnaid must be two of the most walked routes in the park. Lying between the lochside path and the high level Ptarmigan Ridge route to the summit of Ben Lomond is a much lesser known, and certainly much less walked ridge which branches off northwards from the main Ptarmigan Ridge, maintaining a height of around 450 to 500 metres until it drops dramatically down into the steep gully formed by the Cailness Burn; today we set about to add a few more footprints to this unfrequented, and un-named ridge, which we have unilaterally come to refer to as "Lower Ptarmigan Ridge".

And footprints were about all we were going to see for the day as the cloud base was well below the 500m level that we would be walking at, so much so, that the moment we left the main Ptarmigan Ridge path as we crossed the very obvious stream and small gully that mark the source of the Eas Snegan just below the summit of the 499m Tom Fithich it was compass bearings and maps, as even the forest, which we knew was just a few hundred metres below remained invisible to us as we contoured around the western slopes of Ptarmigan and headed for the Bealach Gaoithe to join the lower ridge below the rather impressive crags on the western side of Ptarmigan Ridge.

Just below the bealach, we crossed Stoat's Burn and an obvious grassy rake provided a good ascent route towards the summit of the un-named 574m top which marks the start of "Lower Ptarmigan Ridge". On the ground, this ridge proved to be a myriad of humps, bumps, troughs and small gullies all of which are not evident, even on the OS 25000 mapping, which, given the very restricted visibility, meant that we always had to be on top of our navigation as we negotiated each stage of the ridge line.

It was not until we were nearing our descent point towards Cailness that we were rewarded with the most fleeting of clearances in the cloud, and at which point I tried to grab a couple of photographs, simply to record our presence on the ridge, rather than any objective photographs of highlights along the ridge.

Back at shore level and on the West Highland Way track, our navigational exercises completed the worst we had to contend with now was the ever increasing intensity in the amount of rain that was falling, reaching incessant and torrential by the time we reached the Rowchoish Bothy where Jimmy worked his fire-making magic, much to the admiration of 5 WHW overnighters, and had a roaring fire going literally a few moments after our arrival - 30 minutes later, we left these foreign travelers with the gift of fire, thereby ensuring warmth throughout the cold night, and the means whereby they could dry their rather wet looking clothing prior to their next stage along the WHW.

And, by the number of WHW walkers headed towards Rowchoish that we passed as we made our way back to Rowardennan, I guess by now Jimmy's pyrotechnic skills are legend amongst the current crop of WHW walkers!

A great day, irrespective of the weather - Thanks Alan.