BEN VENUE HIKE- ‘FRAGMENTS OF AN EARLIER WORLD’

Start: Ben Venue car park on the A821, between Aberfoyle and the Loch Katrine turn off.The walk is in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.

Height: 2,386 ft or 729m. Distance 14km/8.75 miles.

Time taken: 6 hrs

Difficulty: feels long, good path mostly, rockier/mildly scrambly higher up.

Star Rating : 4 stars

Ben Venue may mean ‘small mountain’ in Gaelic but it felt plenty big to me as we started the walk up to its twin summits.Sir Walter Scott made Ben Venue famous in ‘The Lady of the Lake’, calling its rocky, knolly slopes ‘fragments of an earlier world’. It offers panoramic views over 4 lochs,  a fair portion of the mountains of the Southern Highlands, the Arrochar Alps and even the Isle of Arran.The Ochils above Stirling and  – on a really clear day – Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument are visible too.

It had been decades since we’d been up Ben Venue, it’s heather covered slopes rearing steeply above lovely Loch Katrine.

It’s such a beautiful area and after our cycle the day before round the loch’s north shore (first time on e -bikes, why did we wait so long?) I was really keen to see everything from on high , so to speak.

There is nothing ‘little’ about it however! The original route has changed considerably due to extensive forestry planting, heavily fenced off. In fact, I didn’t recognise the way at all once out of the forest section. I also remember the hill being quite a short plod up moorland and onto the south shoulder or thereabouts. But the now excellent path takes walkers right round the mountain resulting in a much longer approach.

It was a gorgeous sunny Sunday morning as we drove into the car park, at the back of 10am. Very few vehicles were parked which was a surprise. I thought we were a bit on the late side as these Trossachs car parks can get jammed full on summer weekends.

There was a group assembling nearby who looked as if they were waiting for a guide, given some of the conversation I overheard.

Paid the £4 fee for all day parking (it said £5 but only took £4!) then got the boots on and rucksacks sorted and by 10.20am, off we set.

The start is very well signposted all the way to the forest and a bit beyond that too so no need to continually check the map. Handy for a lazy, relaxed start!

The cool shade offered by the first bit of woodland and shrubbery was really welcome as it was already 20C. A warm day lay ahead which can make a hill walk feel pretty exhausting.

Crossed over a bridge beside three beautiful waterfalls, all gushing wildly as the Achray Water braided a little over rocky outcrops.

Ahead we could see the knobbly outline of Ben Venue, the lower slopes clad in the purple haze of heather – another joy of late summer walking.

The cone of Beinn A’an was also visible, another fantastic viewpoint over the loch and beyond to the Arrochar Alps and Ben Lomond.

This wee hill also gives great views of Ben Venue…here in autumn colours…

I did remember the left turn into the main forest , now signposted and the first real uphill section. But the mucky path of old is now a wide gravelly track. Excellent!

 

As we came to the end of the first big forestry section, there was another sign to turn left for the hill.This was great as forestry tracks can be a nightmare sometimes to negotiate.However, a local lad we chatted to at this point who was out walking his dog suggested we go right as it was much quicker! All we had to do was look out for a small off shoot path to the right a bit further on.

We thanked him as he headed off…hmmm…doubts! Decided to follow the signpost but in fact, we took his suggested option on the return and came out ahead of two young couples who’d raced past us earlier. So – a bit of a shortcut indeed!

Up the next bit of open forestry track then the signposts became a little less clear. A sort of diagonal arrow suggested we head off onto a smaller , rougher path which wound up through another bit of forestry. This took us onto what was clearly the  ‘short cut’ track we could have opted for at the last junction.

Across this, the rougher section continued through more open forest and we were now away from the network of tracks and onto THE route to Ben Venue.It soon flattened out as we reached more open ground.

The path ahead really was excellent, beautifully built but it does go on and on without any height gain – we seemed to stay at the 200m mark for ages.

Met a few early birds who were returning from the summit – they’d timed it well because it was already quite hot.

Ben Venue’s summit slopes towered above (and fenced off) as the path took us through Glen Riabhach. The heather was gorgeous and we passed a small stand of Scots Pine which was nice to see amidst the planted conifers.

Finally,  after turning a corner, a beautiful waterfall lay ahead with the path clearly beginning to climb in that direction too.

It became slightly boggier in places but overall stayed pretty good with even a few stone steps cut.

There was a group ahead perched on a large boulder, finishing their snack and getting ready to descend (more early birds) as we made our way up parallel to the falls. We met them just as we were confronted with a ‘rocky step’ as these bald outcrops are called. The path had completely disappeared and I must admit , it seemed a bit odd that the path builders took the route this way. I often think path builders should not be allowed to be taller than 5’ 8 or so as otherwise they forget that not everyone has big long legs that can leap up obstacles or easily ascend particularly high stone steps!

My hips these days often feel like they need WD40 and neither do I have long legs so in fact I dodged the first section of rock and took a trampled eroded option up through the heather.Clearly, I wasn’t the first to refuse the stone equivalent of Becher’s Brook facing us. Chris tentatively made his way up the rock, finding it a bit slithery and polished but ok.The next rock section was awkward because I couldn’t stretch my legs enough to get purchase to haul myself over the top, so Chris offered me a hand which I gratefully grabbed and inelegantly clambered up. If Eurovision type marks had been awarded for scrambling technique I would have scored Nul Points.The group coming down took their time too with hands extended to those who were a bit more cautious. I heard the older chap in the group(mid 60s I’d guess,  about our age) stating how carefully he was taking it here in case of a fall. I’ve been told before that a lifetime of regular jogging (I wouldn’t elevate it to running these days) has left me with inelastic ligaments/joints but I suspect that’s probably also due to lack of proper stretching and poor technique. Yoga might be the answer, though I’ve vowed to take it up before and still haven’t got round to it. It really can be difficult to fit in a new activity –  old habits die hard!

The path resumed, mostly pretty good though with a few boggy sections but nothing too bad. Up we headed, glad to be gaining height at last as we were now at the 500m mark and by the time we arrived at the large cairn marking the turn off down to Ledard Farm we only had about 130m of height to go. Easy peasy, I thought, this was great!

Wrong!!

Now the hard work really began as we clambered up one sizeable rocky knoll and down the other side.Ahead lay another short, steeper bit of path taking us up and over the next outcrop before – this was getting familiar – another wee descent presented itself.

‘This is the wild, rugged west! Of course its craggy! ’ Chris stated the obvious as I moaned about losing height so much. My mindset was all wrong, comparing the walk to how it used to be and not being prepared for these wee stings in the tail although to be honest, they weren’t exhausting as such , just unexpected. I’d not recognised Ben Venue from the walkhighlands description of it being ‘rocky’ and had thought ‘eh?’ Ah… she of little faith! That description is now bang on.

I think there were about three clambering up and down sections before the south summit finally appeared beyond a fin of rock with the rocky path climbing up beside it though quite easily.

Views to Loch Katrine below opened up a little…

With some relief, we sat down on this lower top , surprised that it had taken us 2hrs 45 to get here, pretty much without stops. 

But  – all worth it because what absolutely beautiful views! 

Lochs Achray and Venacher stretched out to the east towards the flatter scenery of the Lowlands. Dumyat and the Ochils.The Campsies and Glasgow beyond.

Some peaks of the southern Highlands were visible too…Ben Lawers, the Ptarmigan Ridge ,Ben More and Stob Binnein. Ben Ledi.

Famished, we both devoured our sandwiches and downed a lot of water – it was warm! The guided group that had been at the car park appeared after 10 mins or so.

But the true slightly higher summit (by 2m) was still to be reached so after a 15 min break, off we set down and across a few more wee knolls and finally up to the knobbly summit.

Here were definitely the finest views of the day because this top had actually blocked out quite a bit of the panorama from where we had been sitting.

Now the whole of Loch Katrine and Loch Arklet were laid out below us and the array of peaks to the west and north was superb. What a spot!

Arran was visible – faintly – away to the south and west.

We took a slightly different route off and in minutes picked up the main path again. It’s a bit odd that it pretty much by passes this higher point, it being the best viewpoint too. The offshoot path to it is very faint and easy to miss completely.

Lots of people were coming up now – Ben Venue was mobbed!

Back down the various steeper wee sections, no difficulty as such but I never feel my balance is anything like it used to be so poles used carefully and a couple of shuffles on the backside too.

Soon we were at the big cairn again and the moorland path took us the slabby rock area which the guided group were now making their way carefully down. However, it was easily avoided by simply cutting down through the heather followed by the other wee section I’d used on the way up.I was down in a jiffy. Chris was determined to stick with the rock and gamely negotiated it with care, as everyone was doing. I have no problem choosing the cheatie way!

We now had about 90 mins of straightforward path walking back to the car park so took a brief break beside a little burn. Oh the pleasure of hot feet going into ice cold water! The hard work was behind us.

We stopped on occasion to check the Merlin App we both had on our phones (thank you weaselmaster for that idea which I read in one of your reports.) Amongst more common birds such as Wren and Goldfinch, we picked up Goldcrest and Red Crossbill  -that latter being a first.The App has been a great addition to our walks as smaller birds aren’t always seen and we’re useless at most bird calls.

A couple of short but mildly cruel little uphill sections as we took the meandering route from the forest edge, back to the car park. A last look back at Ben Venue , certainly not looking ‘little’ and well deserving that mention in Scott’s poem:

‘High on the south huge Benvenue

Down to the lake in masses threw

Crags, knolls and mounds, confusedly hurled,

The fragments of an earlier world.’