Ben Narnain from Arrochar. March 2012

There was still snow lying in the gullies.

Summit of Ben Narnain.(926M)

A view down Loch Long.

I felt as if I was on top of the world.

Easy walking on the path through Glen Loin.

Plenty of free river water today!

Yesterday I ventured off on my own to Arrochar on Loch Long as the weather in this part of the world had to be seen to be believed ,warm clear sunny days are not what you expect in March. Firstly I caught the 6.40AM bus from Doonfoot to Glasgow changing there to the 9.00 bus to Oban to be dropped off at Arrochar 1 hour later. As I was on my own it was up to me to set the pace for this fairly tough climb. First part was from the car park up to the dam on the tourist route where I turned right to make my way along to the more direct way up this mountain. It involved a fair amount of scrambling and a few false summits I made it to the top in 2hours 20minutes which is no record beater but for me it was a personal triumph considering 3 years ago I could not have attempted this climb with all my excess weight but due to continuing training on the hills the hard mountain paths are becoming slightly easier. From here I went down to Bealach A'Mhaim at the base of Ben Ime to take a very steep descent to the track that goes through  Glen Loin. Walking down through the glen with Ben Vane (915M) on my left and Ben Vorlich (941M) ahead of me was quite  simply stunning before the path takes a sharp turn to take me back to Arrochar to end a 10 mile walk which included my first "Munro"of the year. Now the journey home was different due to the bus company still operating winter timetables I had to take  a local bus to Helensburgh where I caught the train to Glasgow and then the bus to Ayr. What a wonderful day out, my sincere thanks to "Wee Eck" and his SNP government for providing free bus travel and a subsidised train fare without his co-operation I would not go on all these magnificent journeys.