Ben Vorlich, Loch Earn - Winter

The Race to the top
Sunday January 13th

All thoughts of 'will the weather be too wild' are soon forgotten when you are out on the hill.
You just cope, and mostly enjoy the experience.
Our wee group left the shelter of the trees in the lower glen and plodded up the well made path.
Well drained paths like this one get a big 'thumbs up'

On the open hill we were hit by a succession of snow showers.

Our world shrank to a grey curtain, where were our 

'summits cloud free'?

In Scotland we have a fabulous mountain weather website -

Mountain Weather Information Service.

 It has been very accurate on countless days out,

but today's weather front arrived a bit ahead of schedule.

To be fair, 'confidence in timing low' is the key phrase!

There were a few well spaced parties ahead of us,

guess they hadn't been to Mhor in Callander!

  Snow showers came frequently,

 limited visibility coming and going each time.

David and Graham battened down the hatches 

as another squall moved towards us.

We stood in a shallow groove and ate our 'pieces' ....

snow and ice particles constantly blasting us. 

....some had a bigger piece than others.....

....while others patiently waited.....

We decided to split into two parties -

 'summit' and 'how far will we go?' 

Bill, David  and Andy raced on into the blowing snow, while Dee, Roni and Graham walked on, eventually turning back around 850m.

The 'boys' found the summit trig had feathery ice crystals 

growing into the wind.

 On Ben Vorlich's east summit - 

visibility was not great.

Several fierce squalls of freezing snow and ice soon shifted us. 

It took just 35 minutes to run from the summit to the intake dam.

Our pal was waiting for us

Back down in the lower glen not far from Ardvorlich House, 

we spotted blossom on one of the trees.

Must be a special micro-climate here......

Remember  - this is Scotland mid-January.

Azelea 'Praecox' screamed colour,

it's a beautiful plant.

On reaching the cars the 'summit' squad caught up with the 

'850m' mob who had been lucky enough to see some of the red squirrels who inhabit the glen.

Roni met a young couple on the way back down, Gillian and Stuart.

Their conversation turned to different styles of crampons -

 and what to buy.

Roni remembered that in her garage were two pairs 

of 'old' Cassin crampons. 

Always good to recycle gear to someone who will use it! 

Here's hoping they have much fun with well travelled 'jaggy feet'.

Roni, Graham, Deirdre, David, Bill & Andy 

Ben Vorlich - Loch Earn

Mhor of the same please 

Sunday 13th January

After the blue skies and stunning sunset yesterday, it came as a bit of a shock to see the snow had arrived 8 hours earlier than forecast.

Roni's meeting instructions were clear,
 'if you arrive at 9.00 - time for coffee, we leave at 9.30 sharp'

On this occasion everyone was on time!
Fear of Roni, or gasping for coffee?

We were first in the cafe, the heavy falling snow the main topic;
Dee said, 'should I stay or should I go?'

As usual, adventure and good company beckoned......

Mhor Cafe - get in early or be prepared for a wait

Callander was a ghost town, we've never seen it this quiet.

where have all the trippers gone?

The single track road along the south side of Loch Earn, passes the attractively restored 16th century Edinample Castle. Today all eyes were on the road in case of ice. Ardvorlich House - home of the Stewarts of Ardvorlich, is the normal start point up Ben Vorlich.

south Loch Earn road

The tree lined east driveway leads past the stables and farm.

From memory the garden in front of the wall always has interest, 
but in January!

What shrub is in prolific bloom?

East driveway - Ardvorlich Estate

Bill guessed an Azelea Praecox - flowering in the middle of January is highly unusual, it's normally Mid March and into April.

Wonder if the wet and mild spell over December has confused it?

Azelea -  blooming in winter ?

Ardvorlich Estate has always been walker friendly, a discreet sign pointing to the winding track beside the 
pleasantly wooded Ardvorlich Burn.

Ardvorlich is a category B listed building

Easy walking on the track takes you through scattered birches.

Powering on in front - as usual....

The trees were holding a fair amount of snow - the trick was to hit a branch just as someone walked under it..........

admiring the snowy trees.....

We had two 'friends' waiting for us, Highland garrons (ponies) who spend life on the hill.

'Garron' appears to be an English corruption of the Gaelic, 'gearran' meaning gelding - which, in case you don't know, 

is a castrated male horse .....

No matter what you call them, they are hardy beasts indeed.

Graham's be(a)st friends

With heavy snowfall the ponies have to clear snow 

to get to the vegetation.

Makes you wonder about the saying 'scraping a living'.

'I'm hungry'

It was very picturesque - but we knew that on the open hill, blizzard conditions were guaranteed.

fresh falling snow

At the track end and just before the Allt a Coire Bhuidhe a new intake dam has been formed as one of three feeds to the small hydro electric scheme on the estate.

None of this infrastructure existed when we last visited Ben Vorlich in December 2007

Intake dam on Allt a Coire Bhuide

This scheme was one of the first to take advantage of the UK governments Feed in Tariff for electricity production.

It produces an average of 2,400MWh, so you can work out the income if you wish!

It is well designed and isn't obtrusive - rather this than a few wind turbines on the ridge.

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!