Kilmarnock ramblers . Glen Loin to Ben Narnain. February 2012

Preparing for the walk at the Arrochar car park.

A farm relic once used for turning hay.

Lots of frog spawn was seen today.

Looking back down Glen Loin.

One of the many good steep climbs.

View of Ben Vorlich

Serious rain had now started.

Spectacular waterfall.

One of many wooden sculptures in the forest area.

Full information given here on all the local walks.

Tired ,happy and drookit!!

Todays leader is in there.

Yesterday Saturday 25 February I met up with a group of walkers mainly from the  Kilmarnock group who wanted to do a more serious walk than the mainly "C" ones that were available locally today.So 12 of us drove to Arrochar to do the Glen Loin loop with Ben Narnain Boulders thrown in as a wee extra. Starting our walk up through Glen Loin it was a cloudy morning with lots of mist on the hills .The glen is quite an easy part to do on good paths with a few steep gradients but is a more gentler way of gaining some height.As we crossed over the  Inveruglas Water we got a wonderful view of Ben Vorlich(943M) which is definately one to be climbed on another day in the near future( my way of informing the teacher to get himself prepared for a serious day out). Now we went through an area marked on the map as Allt Coiregrogain with Ben Vane (915M) towering above us, here the serious part of our climbing today started at the base of a ridge known as Bealach A'Mhaim which is not quite vertical but extremely steep. Now the heavy rain and wind had started which made the going on this stretch very tough with soft boggy ground to add to the fun . This a fairly short climb but completely zaps your energy levels with its steep gradient. Some of the group had to stop at the top for a few minutes to recover . Here the  wind was blowing a hooly as we looked for somewhere to stop for lunch,nowhere was found so the leader decided to carry on to the Narnain boulders where we would have a later than planned stop.After lunch we then came down the tourist route back to the cars after a very hard 13 mile walk some of it in exrtreme conditions trying to stay upright in the wind we all found to be very challenging. However at the end we were all thoroughly drookit but agreed it was a great experience to have completed the walk in these conditions. Now this group always have a wee huddle at the end of of the day to thank the leader it was decided today to do this in the warmth of the local pub so we all adjourned for a wee drink where the group thanked the leader for all his efforts today he did an admirable job in atrocious weather.