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Ben Venue must be the 'Ben' of the
Trossachs. It's a bumpy hill of craggy knolls and gentle grassy slopes,
although the Romantic painters would try to convince you it was more
akin to the Cuillin. I
hadn't expected to climb it today. Uncle Sandy, Tom had climbed Ben A'an
and we decided upon Ben Venue as a second walk. It was without a doubt
a longer walk, although we could only try and see how far we got.
Tiredness, the time or boredom would dictate whether or not we turned
back.
But things went well and the forest was enjoyable. We'd forgotten a map (we'd only
expected to do Ben A'an) and used a photograph I'd snapped from the car park billboard. The
track left the trees and opened into a small valley at the head of
Gleann Riabhach. The first evidence of a strong wind appeared here: it
blew and gusted down the valley, although we seemed fairly sheltered for now.
The path climbed alongside an attractive waterfall where we saw a herd
of goats. But I don't think we were prepared for the wind - on the
ridge, it hit us with unrelenting,
uncompromising force. Not bad either for a pretty small hill. It blew us all
the way around to the summit, and skewed our faces back into funny expressions - too horrific to show on the internet! Even the
dog seemed unhappy in the wind. But we all made it up without issue and
continued to the East Top upon which sits a trig point. Both summits
look about the same height from one another, but we are assured the west
summit is indeed the top...
And in view were parts of the Highlands that I don't often see. My
'commute' is usually the A82 or A9, which reveals almost nothing of the
Trossachs. In immediate view were the attractive forests beneath Ben
A'an and in the west were the high tops spanning Loch Lomond's east
bank. Loch Katrine seemed wild in it's western end. It rims the east
bank of Loch Lomond, remote itself but for the West Highland Way. And it
seemed odd to be on Ben Venue itself, a mountain I have often glimpsed
but never visited.
To get back to the car park, we decided it was hopeless to walk into the
wind, back the way we came. So we descended south-east over tussocks and
crags, which led to felled forestry, and in turn down to the approach
track.
We were shattered when we got back to the car, so a MacDonald's in
Milngavie went down well. My day's food had been a 10-pack of Carmel
Wafers - not quite ideal.
360° panorama from Ben Venue
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