Over The Hill

The seed for this one was sown when planning a walk for Beinn an Lochain a few weeks ago. Notorious for weather related last minute call-offs, it’s always wise to have a back-up plan and so the Cobbler was put on standby. “Well” said Lesley “if you’re going for the Cobbler, why not make it a bit more interesting and check out the ‘ancient’ route from Ardgarten”.

Well, the Beinn an Lochain walk went as planned and our standby wasn’t required but by now, interest had been kindled so the plan was set to try out this route on our next midweek walk. We would start from the Ardgarten Visitor Centre, find our way up through the forest and on to the open hillside, pick up the South East ridge of the Cobbler and make our ascent from there. We were familiar with the ridge ascent having used it a few times previously as a descent route before heading off east to the dam to join the main track.

Maps were consulted, google earth was studied and a route was planned.

The Lochgoilhead to Arrochar section of the Cowal way runs through the Ardgarten Visitor Centre carpark and this gave us a gentle start as we crossed the road to pick up the good forest track which we would follow for about a kilometre before hopefully finding the start of our route northwards through the forest. Lesley had a memory of a piece of white tape tied to a tree at the point at which we should find the start of our track but that was many years ago. Rounding a series of sharp bends and with eyes peeled for any sign of a path, we were amazed to see a raggy, old piece of tape fluttering from a tree in front of us - just as well as the start of the path was hardly discernible. We turned onto the path and although very faint in the heavy undergrowth, it led us northwards over fairly rough ground for about 350 metres after which we emerged onto a forestry road.

An old white post just across the road and slightly to our left signposted the start of our next section of forest track. Continuing north from here, the going was a little easier and 600 metres later with the occasional white post marking our route we emerged from the forest and onto the open hill. We had been climbing steadily and were now at around 300m elevation - time for a quick break. The weather and visibility at this point were fairly good but the cloud level was slowly creeping down although still sitting just above the top of the Brack over to our west.

Ahead of us lay a few crags but another white post beckoned and our progress was very straightforward. Our climb paused briefly as a large raptor appeared over our heads soaring above the crags before disappearing below our sightline over to the west. Initial thoughts were that it was too big for a Buzzard - an Eagle perhaps? But no - our team naturalist, Idris, finally concluded that it was a Buzzard, albeit a fairly large one. Excitement over we continued climbing northwards veering northwest towards the South East ridge and at around 500m elevation we had our first view towards the Cobbler summits, now becoming shrouded in cloud. The wind was also beginning to pick up a bit - we appeared to be losing our good weather. We arrived on the ridge path just southeast of the 614m top of An t-Sron and were now back on to familiar territory - the well defined, but somewhat scrambly path would see us all the way to the summit 1.5km ahead and 300m above us.

Visibility was deteriorating rapidly and the wind was picking up - it was becoming quite uncomfortable - we didn’t expect to spend much time on the top. We scrambled over the last rocky section and onto the final short, steep section of path which quickly saw us up on to the south summit. As expected, the conditions were pretty awful - there’d be no summit lunch break for us today so we set off down to the col between the two tops as fast as our tired legs would take us. Still no shelter so it was off north down the ‘steps’ with our lunch destination now to be the Narnain Boulders. Turning right at the bottom of the steps and on to the well trodden main path we made the 1.5km to our lunch stop in record time - the weather improving all the time.

Now refreshed and with much improved weather we set off heading for the dam a kilometre or so along the path where we would make our crossing to the west side of the Buttermilk Burn (Allt a’ Bhalachain). From here we hoped to pick up the start of the old path which should lead us down off the hill and on to the Cowal Way for our return to Ardgarten.

We made our crossing immediately downstream of the dam across the pile of rocks - not even a trickle of water underfoot - and then climbing the bank on the other side and turning left - there was the start of the old path, standing out quite clearly suggesting that it still sees the odd boot along it. After a couple of hundred metres and the occasional patch of chest high bracken the path entered the forest and before us a wide tree lined avenue opened up and the going became very much easier - for a while at least!

The wide avenue didn’t last for long and we were soon on a more typical forest track with twists and turns, tree roots and muddy patches to keep us alert. All the while we were accompanied by the Buttermilk Burn - fairly quiet today as it merely trickled down the hill to our left, it’s progress punctuated by some very impressive rock formations and deep pools carved out during it’s more turbulent times.

As we were nearing the end of this path the conditions underfoot took a bit of a turn for the worse. The warning came back from Lesley at the front “It’s a bit boggy here!” prompting us to find alternative routes to bypass the worst of it. Lesley’s warning turned out to be the understatement of the day as Idris found himself sinking up to his knees in a quagmire and then struggling to get back onto terra firma. Luckily help was at hand in the form of Gerry who was following right behind. Wrapping his arms around Idris and pulling while Idris wriggled and kicked, solid ground was eventually regained. Needless to say, we picked our paths very carefully for the remaining few metres until we emerged from the trees and back onto the Cowal Way for our 2.5km return to Ardgarten.

A great day - revisiting old paths for some, exploring new ground for others and as Idris remarked about his bog incident - “A salutary lesson in what can go wrong and the possible consequences if walking alone!”

Thanks All - Mike

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