Ben Vorlich Loch Earn

Dinner Meet 2007

& Squirrel Nutkin
Sunday 18th November

Sunday saw our departure from the lodges - 'hastened along' by the reticent owner of the site.

Ben Vorlich on the south shore of Loch Earn was our hill today, the novelty being the short approach road from St Fillans, instead if our usual Lochearnhead approach.

Parking just over the old hump back bridge, Roni and Julie set off before the boys - they were well up the hill before being caught.

(Andy and Bill gave the feeble excuse that they were tired after a pre-breakfast run on the hill tracks above Comrie)

The 'backmarkers' had a close encounter with a Red Squirrel in the woods above Ardvorlich House.

'Feorag' showed no fear as he foraged in a trench by the track, quite possibly this was a ground cache site. It's common for Reds to store seed in pits in the ground by scatter-hoarding. This means that 1-4 seeds are cached in shallow pits, making for an extremely large number of caches. Most of these will be located in close proximity to each other. 

Great views were had and time was spent observing squirreling. 

No wonder it took time to catch the girls. 

The hill road has an easy gradient and we crossed a couple of wooden bridges to the road end, after which the next mile of pathway is a well made conservation track.


This track turned abruptly left, and all but disappeared due to erosion, as we clambered steeply up onto the north shoulder. 

No respite yet - no sooner had we reached the shoulder when we were faced with a couple of false summits before the final 600 foot slog to the trig point on the west summit.

The west summit with the trig point is the higher of the two by a matter of about 8 feet - the east summit is about 150 yards distant (due to mist we didn't see a thing!)

It was cold, so we didn't linger long for lunch

.
Our 2007 Dinner meet was a great success, with good company, excellent value accommodation and a welcoming hotel with a memorable meal.

Of course the walking was OK too!

Ben Vane

Tinsel, curling and Nobgoblins

Sunday 30th December

Our walk was to be an easy one - starting from the busy carpark at Inveruglas. The park information centre/teashop gave a surprisingly good coffee and it was around 11.00 before we set off.

The kissing gate at the Coiregrogain road end was a tight fit for some, too much Christmas Pud perhaps? 

The main gate has a profusion of padlocks, now which key fits ....... 

It's not a particularly attractive walk in, as the Hydro pylons and station tend to dominate the view.

Ben Vane is a fine wee mountain, quite craggy in places. The path up is quite steep in places. Previous ascents have been through the tunnel at the Loch Sloy dam and then exploring the trackless craggy slopes above the loch.

It was really mild and the path was squidgy underfoot so it was rather a surprise to be told by descending walkers that we would need crampons for the summit slopes. 

The Moray Club were very well prepared and we had our winter gear, unfortunately it was in the cars at Inveruglas! Undaunted, we wandered up the track at a leisurely pace. Graham had some cracking stories to tell - as usual, none of them true!

Frequent stops gave ample photo opportunities, shame the cloud lowered at the same rate we ascended.

Just 40m short of the summit Roni, Dee and Graham turned back as the path and crags were coated with verglas.

David had his crampons, Andy and Bill having to take great care, as it was very slippy underfoot, The summit is a flat little plateau, almost a curling rink in today's 'mild' conditions!

and....Nobgoblins? 

Ahhh, you'll need to ask Dee about that one....

Andy, Graham, David Dee & Roni