Weather/Conditions: Benign winter conditions. Everything thawing, just snowfields left around the summit of The Brack. Grey cloud, base 700m or so, gusty wind, and a bit damp but not too bad.
Distance/Ascent/Time: 12.3km / 900m / 3h 35m
Accompanying: Struan

It kind of amazes me this was my first time up the Brack, having done the Cobbler right across the road over twenty times now.

It was a really good day out, and as usual with walks with Struan, it was very, very quick! We did it in a day, so I picked him up and dropped him off afterward.We parked up in Glen Croe by Ardgartan and set off around the lochside - soon realising we had a mile or so of road walking just to get to the bottom of the hill. We figured we might as well stick with it and make a roundtrip of the hill via. a steep descent back into Glen Croe.



We reached the car park at the end of the road then turned up Coilessan Glen. We put in a hell of a pace to get up to the top of that glen and I have to say, I really enjoyed pushing hard. It was solid work, but it felt good. It seemed like no hardship to turn up toward the summit, which we soon gained, meeting a guy at the top who'd come up from the car park (sensible :-) )

We went off east, down over Cruach Fhiarach and Creag a' Chait. The Brack's northern cliff was clear behind us, and soared up into the cloud. Impressive! An immense sense of well-being washed over me, and I enjoyed the steep-grass bashing, crag-weaving descent back into the glen. I'd been in hibernation since the Munro Round, and this day was indeed proof of the flame, that I could push hard on these hills and get so much back from it.



I also noticed how this hill didn't really feel that remote either. Even when up high, in the snow and in the mist, we could still hear the occasional rumble of traffic, or the sound of a boat on the loch... I realised that in Arrochar we still had one proverbial foot in the civilisation of the south, but this was of course with the perspective of the previous summer, having come from all the corners of the Highlands.

But it's also a place I have to revisit one day, as there are a number of tops all the way down to the end of the Ardgoil Peninsula, not to mention the Anvil itself, at the end... Another short day, but a really wonderful one. Mountains just make me feel good!