This walk starts from the cafe at the side of Loch Awe adjacent to the hydro electric power station..Ben Cruachan is apparently the 14th highest spot in the UK..I didn't know this when we set off it just happened to be close by where we were staying..
I would say that the climb up Ben Cruachan is the steepest I have ever done and is pretty much relentless except for a short bit around the Cruachan dam which feeds the power station which is buried deep underground in a hand dug cavern.
Once you negotiate the dam there is a small brook that runs down the mountain side and as there is no path we decided to follow it..The ground is rough and rocky and it's easy to go off in different directions like me and Tony did and soon we were quite a distance apart.. I decided to give in first and made my way across the small stream and rejoined my walking mate.
Looking across the reservoir you can see Drochard Ghlas..It looks easy from here but my printed instructions said "head for the obvious bealach" Unfortunately neither of us had any idea what a bealach was so we just followed the stream uphill and hoped for the best..
Can you spot the obvious Bealach??
By now the walking was getting tough and we didn't seem to be getting very far either..I'm only used to walking the lakeland fells and this munro stuff is more strenuous and the solitude of the place is very striking..
This the stream and we followed it for ages uphill...
Eventually the route we were following began to get really steep and I was glad when we reached a flat bit where we could get our breath back and admire the view.
Looking back from the "obvious bealach" towards Loch Awe you get some idea of the scale of this hill and we weren't at the top yet!!
The final bit of the ascent is pretty much a hands and knees job gasping for breath and wondering why we didn't stay at home instead..
This is the final bit that you have to go up and it nearly did for me..My walking mate Tony has done a few marathons and even he went all quiet for a while..
Bloodied and bruised we finally hit the top and quickly got very cold as well...
My original plan was to make this a bit of a circular walk and maybe bag some more Munros. The obvious route for us to take to achieve this along this ridge..
It's funny how quickly we decided against going down this ridge. The chances of getting to the other end diminished as we slowly froze up in the cold..
Despite the crappy weather, the views from up here are splendid indeed .
One day I will have another go at this hill and see if I can't complete the circuit.. I reckon it would take at least 9 hours so it will have to be summertime when the days are long enough..
