Ben Lomond

Crawford Macnab

16 May 2025

A small team of 5 walkers - Mike, Bob, Crawford, Fiona and Moira met at Rowardennan car park for our May walk up to the munro Ben Lomond.

Even on a weekday morning the car park was starting to fill up and I hate to think of how busy this must get on a weekend.

The forecast was to be hot and warmer on the west coast and this was certainly the case as we started our walk on the planned clockwise route initially on part of the West Highland Way.

It was too early to justify sampling anything from Ben’s Bakes Honesty Box but I would imagine this would be very tempting for those on the WHW or having just completed an anti-clockwise walk down from Ben Lomond.

Before long a reasonable initial height had been gained and everyone had dropped down to single layers in the toasty sunshine. All the time more and more extensive views of Loch Lomond were emerging.

At various points on the way up there were excellent views over to the distinctive Cobbler.

We stopped for a breather and chatted briefly to a small group of volunteers that were planting some Sessile Oak trees. They explained that they were giving nature a helping hand as it would take ages for any such trees to naturally reach that altitude up from the lochside on their own.

Not long after at about 333m we stopped for a longer break as Mike was not feeling great. Having had a recent fall and still with stitches in a head wound this was a day to listen to your body and Mike made the call to not go any higher. Mike and Bob rested for a good while in the sunshine before descending safely back down to the car park.

Moira, Fiona and myself decided to carry on with the walk and continued upwards on a good path to just below the Ptarmigan where first lunch was taken in a nice breeze.

After lunch we soon reached 750m where we could see the nice ridge ahead that would take us over to the north west ridge of Ben Lomond.

Extensive views all round with too many Munros in view to name. The nearby Arrochar Alps looking impressive with Ben Vorlich, Ben Vane, Ben Narnain and Bein Ime.

A bit of undulation along the ridge took us to the Bealach Buidhe at 746m where we braced ourselves for the final 212m up to the summit. Although legs were now getting a bit tired we were thankful that we were going up this section as it would be much more challenging to come down that way. Some big steps and slabs to negotiate but nothing too difficult and we soon topped out on to the summit.

A 2nd lunch was taken at the top as we stretched out in the sunshine. Surpisingly there were actually very few people at the summit given how busy the car park had been.

After chilling for a while we set off on a steady descent back down the gentler tourist route. Impressively (or crazily) we passed not one but two mountain bikers pushing their bikes up the path to the top of Ben Lomond! By this time it was getting even hotter and we were thankful to eventually reach the partial shade of the car park.

A great walk and would recommend if doing the loop to do so in the clockwise direction where you get a better appreciation of the rocky north west slope of Ben Lomond.