Ben Vorlich from Ardlui
I’ve recently become enamoured with the whole concept of Munro bagging. Prior to this trip my only previous munro was Beinn Γme which I climbed earlier this year. I’ve been plotting some of the easier ones to get to from Glasgow on the train. Ben Vorlich seemed like a good candidate: only an hour-and-a-half-ish away on the train, 943m up (certified munro), and splendidly beautiful by all accounts.
I got the 8:22 train to Oban from Glasgow Queen St getting in to Ardlui at 9:51. This left me 6 hours or so to get back for the 16:11 train back to Glasgow. The day return cost Β£18.40 with a railcard.
Route
My understanding is that Ben Vorlich is more often climbed from Loch Sloy. There is no train there so I went for a less trodden route from Ardlui on the Loch Lomond side.
I started by leaving the train station, turning right along the main road, and popping back under the trainline. Here I joined an overgrown path with a small burn on my left which headed up the mountain. Not sure if I went wrong but after a while the path seemed to sort of run out. From here I followed an even smaller burn up to the bealach (I think this is the right word) between Stob na Coinnich Bhacain and Ben Vorlich. At this point I rejoined a proper path which took me up the ridge to the summit of Ben Vorlich.
Instead of following the same route all the way back down, I made a small ascent up to Stob na Coinnich Bhacain from the bealach. At this point I probably should have headed back to follow the route I had taken up. Instead I decided to off-road into the domain of the sheep. This was a bit brutal as I descended and got into more foresty fern country. Though after a while following a lovely burn I rejoined an offshoot of the earlier path and bobbled back to the train in one piece.
Please refer to the gpx of my route here (would not particularly recommend following it) :)
Stats for nerds
- Time: 5hr 43min
- Distance: 13.03km
- Total Ascent: 1098m
- Maximum Elevation: 947m
Supporting visual evidence
