Two Scottish tiddlers

Ben Aan and Conic hill.

October 2017.

Been up to Scotland for the week to chill out in a wonderfully remote cottage on the southern shores of Loch Katrine near Stronachlachar......Early in the week we walked to the tops of two lovely little hills..Firstly came Ben Aan, a popular little hill smack bang in the middle of the Trossachs national park.. Rising to a height of 1512ft, the summit cone stands proud looking out across Loch Katrine and Loch Achray

I believe the walk was 3 miles long from Loch Achray, perfect for a short morning walk...A bit dull and grey as we set off, hoping the forcasted rain would keep away until we returned. Some lovely Autumn colours around the Trossachs at the moment, as you can see from the next picture taken on the lowers slopes of the hill.

The colours of Autumn were not to last though as much of the southern side of the hill has undergone extensive felling..The lack of trees made the summit cone stand out even more prominently...How the hell are we going to get up there we thought.

It turned out to be a simple, though steep climb up a well made path up to a notch on the right of the summit. As we climbed we were treated to good views across to neighbouring Ben Venue..Maybe a hill for later in the week we thought.We reached the summit via a short scramble of the summit rocks, looking out across Loch Katrine we could see the rain rushing in towards us so we didn't stay long. After a couple of photographs we retraced our steps back to the car.

A shame we didn't get much of a view but that's what hillwalking is all about, some you win and some you lose. The views are why we do it I suppose...On our way back down we met about 100 people from all nations..we stopped to pass the time of day with lots of them, there were Americans, Indians, Polish, Scottish, English, Chinese, Dutch and even Geordies...It was a nice walk that I would award 7 out of 10....

A couple of days later we found ourselves on another busy little hill...This time Conic hill from the village of Balmaha on the eastern shores of Loch Lomond...Its a knobbly little fella with smashing views out across the loch to the west, while to the south we looked across to the Campsie fells, known as the sleeping giant.

An interesting feature of the hill is that it sits right on the line of the Highland boundary fault, where the highlands meet the lowlands...some strange rocks up there...Another reason for its popularity is the fact that the West Highland way long distance path crosses over it..It never had the crowds that we encountered on Ben Aan but it was still a very popular hill.

Spoke to a fella from the Netherlands on top, he was blown away with the great views, he explained how flat Holland was and that he was chuffed to have made it up to the summit of Ben Lomond...I didn't want to, but I had to burst his bubble telling him that this wasn't Ben Lomond...I pointed it out, several miles distant, its head in the clouds as usual. I told him it was about three times the height of this little hill..i feel I may have just spoilt his holiday as he trudged off looking disappointed.

We followed a ridgeline back down to Loch Lomond, looking back often at this most attractive looking hill...Its only 1,184 ft high but it seemed much higher than Ben Aan did and totally different in character...

Back down to sea level we enjoyed a walk back along the loch shore to Balmaha where a much needed pint hit the spot.