Walking, scrambling Loch Lomond and the Trossachs

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps
• Further Reading

View Sample Route Map

40 Ben Lomond: South Ridge and Ptarmigan

Start/finish Rowardennan Pier (Ben Lomond car park) NS 359986

Distance 10.5km/6½ miles

Ascent 1050m/3500ft

Approx time 5½hr

Max altitude Ben Lomond 974m

Terrain Hill paths, steep and mildly rocky on the northwest ridge

Map LR 56; Explorer 364; Hrvy Loch Lomond

Ben Lomond is Scotland’s most popular mountain, unless perhaps Ben Nevis is even busier. The Ben Lomond Path, straight up and down from Rowardennan, is demanding on the leg muscles but otherwise slightly uninteresting – until it reaches the summit cone at 750m. Then it steepens, and the final 500 metres are along a rather sharp ridge that’s exposed to wind and weather. This stretch may disconcert the inexperienced walker who thought it would be as warm as it was down at the loch side.

More ambitious or experienced walkers will take the interesting ascent route by the Ptarmigan. The path is smaller; the approach to the mountain is a ridgeline rather than a slope. Finally, the northwest ridge is real mountain ground, steep and with drops on either side, where the hand will touch rock here and there. That ridgeline may occasionally surprise you with some old, hard-frozen snow. Up the Ptarmigan and down the Ben Lomond Path is the suggested direction, to take the more demanding ridge uphill, and to enjoy in descent the BLP’s gentler gradients. For a considerably higher dose of loneliness and exhaustion, take the roundabout Route 42.

Ben Lomond Path straight up and down
(plus Ptarmigan Ridge descent option)

The Ben Lomond Path needs little description. It starts immediately above the swoop-roofed National Park hut, waymarked ‘Ben Lomond Hill Path’. Wide and well built, it runs up through plantations. These have recently been clear-felled, so there are fine views up and down Loch Lomond. After a brief rocky moment, the path reaches a kissing gate at the plantation top, with another gate, 1km later, on open moorland at the 400m contour.

The path runs up the broad slope, with the views behind as the redeeming feature. At 800m the slope steepens harshly, to the final 500 metres of summit ridge. This section is quite airy, around the rim of Coire a’ Bhathaich, with the wide path slightly below the crest on the left (western) side.

Ptarmigan Ridge descent The crowds descend by the same route. If you impulsively decide to go Ptarmigan instead4 then descend the steep northwest ridge ahead to a shoulder at 750m. (This is the first place where the descent stops being steep, and the ridge even rises to a slight knoll NN 3625 0310). Here turn sharply back left, southwest, and follow the small but mostly clear path along the Ptarmigan ridge. Below the 600m contour the path eases down onto the right-hand flank, to rejoin the true spur line almost at its foot, below the Sput Ban waterfall. It then runs down to the West Highland Way track directly below. Turn left back to Rowardennan.

Ptarmigan Ridge ascent

From Rowardennan Pier start along the shoreline, on a wide path that passes a granite ring war memorial then joins the track of the West Highland Way. At the entrance track of Rowardennan Youth Hostel this forks right, then keeps left at another fork just above. In another 300 metres the track passes Ben Lomond Cottage (actually a large-ish house, ‘Rowchnock’ on some maps). Immediately afterwards it crosses a wide stream. Turn up to left of this stream on a small path, passing through a gateway and then a kissing gate above.

With a fence on its right, the path eases away from the stream. It is small but well repaired, with well-designed zigzags. (Please don’t short-cut as this will create stream lines to erode the path.) At 150m altitude the path reaches a shoulder, with the waterfall Sput Ban above. The path slants up to left of this, and runs below (on the left side of) the spur above.

At 600m altitude the path finally reaches the spur line, and follows it as it becomes a pleasant hummocky ridge. This ridgeline bends round to the right, running northeast, to a shoulder at 750m below Ben Lomond’s steep northwest ridge.

The small, loose, zigzag path heads up this steep-sided and mildly rocky spur. At 850m the ridge steepening is aided by good handholds in rocks alongside the path. The emergence at Ben Lomond summit is sudden, with the trig pillar a few metres ahead.

Ben Lomond Path descent is along the almost level ridgeline ahead, with steep drops left into Coire a’ Bhathaich, and the wide path just down to right of the crest. After 500 metres the path heads down the steepish slope on the right, to the broad moorland shoulder below.

The well-built and usually busy path descends gentle slopes southwards. At 550m it steepens somewhat, and at 400m it passes through a kissing gate.

At 200m a second gate leads into clear-felled plantations.3The final descent now has fine views up the loch.

Note If these aren’t sufficient distraction from your battered toes, then the path bed has glacier-smoothed bedrock which in at least one place shows scratch-marks from the stones embedded in the moving ice. Also, above and below the forest road crossing, the path bed is dark, friable volcanic rock quite different from the stripy grey schist of the rest of the walk. That dark rock may well be a basalt dyke extruded by the Mull Volcano, 80km away and 50 million years in the past. By the time you’ve made up your mind on the plausibility of that one, the car park should have appeared below you.