Cruach Tairbeirt

Participants- Me and Ben
Where- Cruach Tairbeirt, 415m/1,362', Sub-2,000' Marilyn, Map 56, NN 312058

28 February. The weather in February had been dismal with day after day of grey sky, mist and sometimes rain. However, as the month drew to a close it finally cleared; it's true what they say, your spirits rise when there is blue sky and sunshine overhead- at least, mine do. Cruach Tairbeirt is a favourite sub-2,000' Marilyn of mine. It is only a small hill but the views are out of all proportion to its size; it's not a hill to go up on a day of limited visibility. As its name implies, it rises above the village of Tarbet on the west side of Loch Lomond. It provides a grandstand seat for the Arrochar Alps immediately to the north west. This is a view of it from Firkin Point to the south with A'Chrois and Ben Vorlich rising behind.....

I parked at Arrochar station from where an underpass leads onto the lower slopes of the hill and a number of waymarked walks. The red route almost immediately climbed steeply through the forest, a bit of a pech for me but the Furry One set off as if he was doing the flat 100 metre sprint. Fortunately, he only goes a short distance at a time before racing back to find out what is keeping me. I left the main path shortly after crossing a stream and followed its true left bank before cutting through the trees on an obvious sloping line. Once out of the forest, the views soon opened up; this is looking back across Loch Lomond to Ben Lomond.....

Although not one of the official routes on the hill, the path went all the way to the trig, which was situated on a bit of a plateau with fine views of the higher hills immediately across Glen Loin.....

This is Ben at the summit with the Cobbler and Beinn Narnain in the background.....

"Well I've made it to the top, where are my treats then".....

There was a good view of the Loch Sloy dam from here with the loch squeezed between the hills of A'Chrois, Ben Vane and Ben Vorlich. This was the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Boards first project (1945-50) and it was built to supply electricity to Glasgow. I have a copy of "The Hydro Boys" by Emma Wood and the fascinating story of the building of the Loch Sloy scheme is told in that .....

You can see lots of lochs from Cruach Tairbeirt; this picture is looking down Loch Long towards eventually the Firth of Clyde; the Brack is the pointed hill on the right.....

And this is looking across Loch Lomond to Cruinn a'Bheinn and Ben Lomond; the former is on my list of hills to do and I reckon that you must get a great view of the Ben from it.....

Rather than return the same way, we dropped down another and much steeper path due east of the summit. It turned out to be not so good however as the forest section was very wet and muddy and there were also some fallen trees to negotiate before the "path" eventually rejoined the route of ascent. A good short days outing and we stopped at the Firkin Point car park on the way back to sit in the warm sunshine and to let Ben dry out a bit.