A walk in the park
We started and finished in the fleshpots. Three days and two nights from Callander to Inversnaid on Loch Lomond. In between, it got wild, lonely, and quiet, another side of the national park, far from rangers and permits and interpretation boards and visitor management and bureaucracy. Instead there were the sparse cries of ravens, yellow grasses bowing in the autumn winds, tussocks and bogs and peat hags. The SMC's guidebook for the Southern Highlands describes the uplands between popular Ben Ledi and Stob a'Choin, our final summit as '...a rather desolate stretch of featureless hills of no great interest to the climber or walker.' It didn't disappoint! Here's the route, minus my little pre-dawn excursion from the second camp to Stob a'Choin's summit. Around 50 kilometres walked and over 2,500 metres climbed in all: We also left the motors at home. Instead, trains to Stirling where we rendezvoused, bus to Callander, then boat from Inversnaid to Tarbet a...