What do I tell Tom? Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Well I did prepare but not quite enough. No all the SOTA gear was with me, no problems there. It was access problems.
Beinn a’Mhanaich GM/SS-066 is one of the Luss hills. There’s place for a few cars at the bottom of the track or 500m along towards Loch Lomond. I’ve checked it out on Google maps and the path to the top is clear. You basically just go North along the ATV/LandRover track to the cairn. Not difficult.
Ah… but the Gairloch Military Training Area is next door to the hill. How close? Well access to the path involves crossing the gates into the training area. There are lots and lots and lots of signs warning you and there are warning lights and flags. Don’t enter when the flags are flying. Seems reasonable direction to me.
The flags were flying 
Now it seems that the boundary runs up the ridge where the path is. But to get to the path the gate was locked. Sure you can climb over the wooden ladder style but you know crossing into a firing range when the warning flags are flying and avoiding a locked gate seems like the start to a Darwin Award story. I was contemplating this when WWIII started. Well it sounded like the Omaha Beach scene from Saving Private Ryan. Lots and lots of SA80 fire. I don’t know about you but I can see the warning flag, the gate is locked and I can hear lots of weapons firing…I am NOT going into the range area. I’ll walk around
I followed around the fence and there was a faint path. And it was hard work in long grass and ascent but I just plodded on and on and on listening to WWIII. After some time the fence was veering away from the ridge line and started descending. No, no, no! I followed it for 100m or so and it was time for some more navigation work. Looking with the camera on zoom following the fence it continued descending to the valley floor. I was hoping it would swing towards the ridge. I came across a ladder style and there was a fence running at 90deg to my fence to the ridge. Well that marks off part of the range… can I cross the style. Right the other a side was a sign saying danger live fire don’t enter when flags/lights showing. Otherwise I’d have crossed and continued. My choice was to lose all the height I had gained, drop to the new foresting track,. walk in a few km and then climb up the steep (STEEP) sides to the top. Or quit.
I quit because I no longer was sure just where the boundary to the training area was and they were firing. I’d looked at the sign by the gate (I have a photo of it now) and it said “THE BOUNDARY HAS MOVED” and looking at my 1:25k OS Map and the MoD map, the training area is much greater. It used to stop before Beinn a’Mhanaich but now extends to Cruach an
t’Sidhein.
And of course… I had no plan B or I’d have done that
Now back home I can see that the track is the boundary and in theory if you are on the track you are not in the training area. Apart from the fact you cross a locked gate and there are warning signs. And the track weaves around the signs crossing a few feet into the area at times. But it also seems that if you are on the side of the sign with the writing then you are not in the area. So I could have crossed into the area with sounds of WWIII and followed the path and been legal and probably safe.
But oh it seems like asking for a Darwin Award. Or meeting some very angry men in green.
I have the number off the sign and will ring it to see if you can find out when they will be firing. If so I’ll post it in the summit info.
Hrrumph! #800 another day.
