Ben Arthur: The Cobbler
There are few mountains more accessible from Glasgow than Ben Arthur. Otherwise known as The Cobbler – as it’s silhouette is supposed to resemble a cobbler at his last – it’s hunched peaks will be familiar to those who don’t know it’s name.
Accessed via a carpark along the road to Rest and Be Thankful, a few miles from the turn off from Loch Lomond, the path to The Cobbler first climbs steeply along a switchback forest road.
The day we walked was the stillest, sunny day we have experienced this Scottish Autumn. As we finally break out of the forest, we look back, feeling as though we have already climbed a mountain – Ben Lomond in the distance peeks high over the forest, reminding us of our first Munroe.
For an hour or so, we walk along the calm, undulating path following the river, always looking up at the peaks that we know we must finally climb. This stretch must stand as one of the most beautiful paths in all of Scotland.
And then we get there. To where the stairs ahead seem to stretch up forever, and so we start.
After what seems like an age, the stairs end and the first of the peaks is reached. On a day like today – clear forever across to the horizon, the view down the other side of the Arrochar Alps, over Rest and Be Thankful, is a fine reward for the effort of the stairs.
The final ascent awaits. We push up towards the needle, the true peak of this Corbett. When we arrive, I confirm my suspicions that ‘threading the needle’ to reach the true summit is beyond my wits. The others are less terrified and head straight for the tricky climb – through a hole in the rock, onto a metre wide ledge (above a 30 metre cliff) and up the rocks to the pointy summit.
Amidst my shouts for them to come down, I get distracted by the view – one of the best I have experienced in Scotland.
The clear day, Ben Lomond over her Loch, the Arrochar Alps bathed in sheer mist, the scale of beauty in this place. The wind in my ears and Andy back, safely at my side, we take it all in silence.
The long walk back is harder – the light is leaving and The Cobbler is no longer willing us forward. Luckily, it is over quite quickly.
The beauty of the day, the relative ease of the climb and the massive pay off with an incomparable view at the top, cements this as one of my favourite walks of our year in Scotland.
