Over The Hill

Rather unusually this summer, for a second weekend in succession fine weather was forecast so the hills were calling once again. However, for various reasons both mine and Lesley’s usual walking buddies were otherwise engaged, so we decided to team up and head for a local favourite, The Cobbler.

We were booted up and on our way from Succoth car park for 9am, up the zigzags, where in places the once broad path is becoming somewhat overgrown by bush and scrub, so much so that it narrows to a single lane at points with the vegetation brushing your shoulders as you pass through. It was very quiet, and so when we zigged around one of the zags and met three others on the decent I assumed they had been out very early, however, they turned out to be from the police mountain rescue team, who among other teams had been out overnight searching for a 24 year old girl and her Jack Russell dog who were overdue on a walkthrough from Inveruglas, via Ben Vane to Arrochar. At this point she was still missing, but glad to say a post on the Arrochar Mountain Rescue team social media page announced that she had been found safe and well later on in the morning. Happy ending.

Zigzags and forest behind us, the fine path which runs parallel to the Allt a’Bhalachain lead us nicely upwards with those never-ending amazing views of The Cobbler directly ahead, passing the Narnain Boulders and dropping down to cross the Allt a’Bhalachain before heading up into the slightly more challenging area among the crags lining the ridge from the north to south tops of the mountain. I say slightly more challenging, the path has been improved over the years and is now an obvious rock and stone high-stepping trek apart from two short sections where a four-point, hands on approach is needed as you scramble up two short gully sections and over a stretch of boulders before the final steep climb onto the bealach between both peaks. I have to admit to finding myself taking a few short pauses over this section, after all, it was quite hot and I wanted to enjoy the views. Anyway, that’s the excuse I’m sticking with.

Onto the ridge and a short walk over the rough path and we were soon joining those already on a sunny summit from which the views were just amazing, as is always the case on this wonderful mountain so close to home. Fantastic. As we were looking around we spotted two climbers on the rock face of the north top, it seems everyone was intent on making the most of this beautiful day.

Time to go, and we made our descent down the constructed track to the west of the north ridge to rejoin the primary track back to the zigzags and finally Succoth.

A fantastic day, thanks for your company Lesley, I think we made a good team! John