Several years ago Nita and I walked the three hills to the north of Glen Douglas on the west side of Loch Lomond. For what are relatively small hills this is a surprisingly strenuous walk as there is quite a lot of steep ascents and descents. As such, by the time we’d climbed back up to the second hill, we were running a little late and so rather rushed over to Beinn Bhreac, the last and highest of the three hills. We subsequently didn’t have much time to enjoy the big views out over Loch Lomond or to explore the rocky little tops.
Yesterday, with the forecast looking fine, we went back to Glen Douglas, only this time, to walk Beinn Bhreac and to explore it and its neighbour Ben Reoch. We’ve done several walks this year in these hills around Luss and on each occasion it’s been quite dark and hazy. As we arrived in Glen Douglas yesterday things were looking very similar with cloud misting the tops and fine drizzle falling. But even so, the glen was looking fantastic.
The route up from the glen to the summit of Beinn Bhreac is pretty direct and like most of the Luss Hills, steep and generally grassy. As we gained height the drizzle stopped and the cloud lifted, giving fine views back into the glen and across to the surrounding tops. I have to say that it’s been three weeks since we were on the rocky tops around Conival in Assynt and my legs were complaining as we made our way slowly uphill. With the sun starting to come out it was quite warm and it seemed to bring out the wild life…. flies and midges and … a lizard, which was hopefully eating some of the latter!
After so much grass, the summit of Beinn Bhreac is a pleasant surprise, being made up of a series of rocky outcrops and crags, the highest of which gives an amazingly large view over Loch Lomond. You can see a long way north up the loch and right down to the southern end. Directly opposite is the Munro, Ben Lomond which was looking great, although no doubt, it was a lot busier than on our side of the loch! We had seen no-one and that was to remain the same for the rest of the day.
As I said, on our previous visit to these hills, we had kind of rushed on our way over from Ben Reoch and had by-passed it’s more interesting and craggy little subsidiary top. Yesterday, we decided to make our way over to it and enjoy exploring around the crags. On leaving Beinn Bhreac however, we came across an amazing crevice in the rock. It looked like the side of the mountain was breaking away and would, sometime in the distant future, collapse down into Loch Lomond. It was surprisingly deep and offered shelter for many plants which were somehow clinging onto the ledges of the rock.
By the time we reached the rocky top near Ben Reoch, the sun was bright and hot and after picking our way around and through the crags, we settled down for a very pleasant rest, enjoying the views and the sight of four Ravens that seemed to occupy this lofty little top.
It was certainly a fine walk and it was well worth while revisiting and spending time exploring these tops. As you know, I’ve recently been doing some drawings based on our earlier visits to the Luss Hills. I think I may well get a couple more done based on our wander yesterday.
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