A winter climb from Ben Lomond's north east corrie - and some comments about the threat of privatisation.
One of the pleasures of living in Stirling is the easy access to some quite respectable hills. Despite this, it is not difficult to find nooks and crannies of our district which are still relatively unspoilt.
Even Dumyat in a hard winter can serve up some gems - there are at least a couple of short but pretty steep routes which can become heavily iced. The steep south facing gully on Craig Leith reputedly can provide first class climbing conditions on rare occasions.
Apart from Dumyat, Ben Ledi must be our most popular local hill, and yet, even on good days, there are some short but cracking wee winter gully climbs where evidence of any other human activity is rarely found. A few winters ago, you could be guaranteed perhaps more than twenty days when these lines would be in perfect condition; with a car from Stirling, it was quite possible to climb a couple of them - all within half a day. But such opportunities on the lower hills seem to be increasingly rare nowadays as milder, more blustery unsettled weather becomes the winter norm.
Fortunately for us, the mountains of the nearby southern Highlands have a wealth of short but perfectly enjoyable routes in the winter grades I to III. But they do not have the same grandeur or challenge as the Northern Corries or the Glencoe hills; the scale is just not the same.
![[Alistair Wilson and Ben Lomond]](lomond1.jpg)
One Sunday a few years back, Alistair Wilson and myself found ourselves in one of the area's finest parts. We had left Stirling early and parked up at Loch Dhu on the Aberfoyle to Inversnaid road. The Strathclyde water department road took us pleasantly over to Gleann Dubh and a remarkable view of Ben Lomond's north east corrie. We'd had high barometric pressure for several weeks and the early thick cover of snow now shimmered as the sun caught the ice and neve. From our angle, it had that Alpine appearance which Beinn Laoigh takes on.
We left the road, (having regretted that we hadn't brought bikes), and struck up the hill near Comer farm, birthplace of Mary, wife of Rob Roy MacGregor. The corrie was magnificent, and it was almost unbelievable that despite the previous weeks of settled weather, we only found the signs of one other party. They had taken a very pleasant line straight up the corrie, coming on to the ridge beside a small tower.
As we drew higher, the cliff on our left loomed up. A heavily iced cormer rose almost vertically - presumably the unclimbed line referred to in the SMC's Southern Highlands District Guide (1979 ed) .
Beyond that two parallel gullies broke the face; a large chockstone appeared to block the right hand gully and the cover looked thinner. The left one opened out on to huge cone of steep snow/ice. We chose the easier looking left hand parallel gully.
We then had about four hundred feet of superb Grade II snow and ice; good positive placements for crampons and ice axe, with reasonable ice screw belays. Rock pegs were used a couple of times but the quality of the rock is not good near the bottom; layers of slightly crumbly mica schist which improve with height.
We came on to the summit ridge some distance south east of the top; while judging from the tracks there had been more activity from the Rowardennan side, we could not see a soul anywhere on the hill that day. A low lying mist was building up towards Dumbarton and in the silence of the late afternoon sunshine it was truly difficult to believe that we were only a kick in the bum away from Scotland's central belt.
That area is well documented and is easily accessible, yet almost ignored as climbers race up the A82 or the A9. Long may it be so. Probably, the walk along the private road from Loch Dhu puts folk off, thus preventing Ben Lomond's east side from deteriorating into the quagmires which characterise much of Ben Ledi and the approach to the Cobbler; and for that we should be grateful to Strathclyde Regional Council who have resisted opening up the road to private vehicles.
Whatever we think about blanket layers of sitka spruce and water board roads and dams, at least the publicly owned organisations have, over the years, come to understand and (in part) accommodate the needs of walkers and climbers. Access is one of those needs, but solitude is another - even so close to the great conurbations.
The area around the Trossachs and Loch Lomond is largely managed by Strathclyde, the inheritors of the great purchases of land by Glasgow Corporation in the 19th century. But what will happen if those lands are sold off by the Government? Will Lamont(1) chuck the money away in another Bank of England extravaganza?
How will private companies manage the land? Will the estate roads be opened up for tourist explitation? Will the timeshare developers move in? Will there be more car parks and Rob Roy gift centres? Golf courses? Country clubs?
Will one of our finest local areas of hill country be permanently ruined for the sake of short term speculative investment?
After all, commercial organisations only spend money on investments for commercial reasons; otherwise they would be philanthropic rather than commercial operations. And as we know from the English privatisations, the supply of clean water is almost a secondary consideration to the ownership of vast areas of land.
It is inconceivable that commercial ownership of the land will not lead to commercial development of it.
Quite apart from what I believe is the convincing political and moral case against the privatisation of water, there are clearly issues which the hillwalking and climbing community should address.
Otherwise, future generations might never experience the great privileges that we have enjoyed, even on our own doorsteps. I hope that my fellow climbers will join the protest movement against the selling of Scotland's water.
Donald MacDonald
31st January, 1993
(1) Norman Lamont, as Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time, had just chucked away billions at currency speculators in a doomed attempt to maintain the value of the Pound.
Text and Photo © Copyright Donald MacDonald, 1993
Visitors since 23 February 1997:Michael De La Rue in Edinburgh has done some sterling work constructing a series of really useful pages with hotlinks: