We have had 2 weeks of really quite nice dry WX in the UK which explains why I’ve done 3 activations in 5 days. I was planning Beinn Eich for earlier in the week but other things got in the way. However, the WX looked good for Thursday, maybe a bit of high altitude cloud and warmer than earlier in the week but still essentially dry and sunny.
Beinn Eich is one of the Luss summits on the West bank of Loch Lomond, a seriously pretty part of Scotland. I’ve done so many Eastern, Southern and Central summits that I need to “go West young man” to find uniques. The downside of that is the motorway cross the centre of Glasgow and towns and so it’s busy and slow when quiet and in the rush hour it’s a nightmare. There isn’t any other way other than avoid rush hour. The traffic was building in the morning but I was before the main traffic. Sadly I hit the evening rush and it took me 1h05 to cover 15km on the motorway, luckily I now have an automatic as that would be an awful lot of clutch operations 
Up at 6am, out the door 650am, arrived Luss car park 825am. I didn’t push it and the car said 48.7mpg which is OK. I did push it when I cleared the jams on the way home and got that down to 40mpg 
Anyway Luss car park, oh the delights. Luss is incredibly popular with visitors so there are lots of cars and traffic was a real problem but now 2 good car parks but boy do they charge… for a moment I thought I was in the lake district! There’s no all day option, you have have to buy the amount of time you think you will need. Now most people buy a bit more so they don’t run out and get fined… the council make more money this way. It even costs 50p to spend a penny But at 850am I was £7.50 lighter, booted and suited and on my way. It was meant to get warm for March in the afternoon and it did. -2C at home, 1C at 830am in Luss and 15C when I returned. A 17C temp change in 10 hours!
Some summits in Luss make good pairs, even triples but you also need more fitness than I have for some rounds. Also for a number of peaks you start essentially at sea level, so there 700+m ascents and often 1 in 5 slopes or worse. Beinn Dubh GM/SS-090 starts from Luss carpark and is a reasonably gentle ascent to the 1st summit followed by a 2km bimble in which you lose 75 and gain 85m to the tru summit. Simples! It’s a knee and thigh killer if you take the horseshoe path back to Luss. Oh do my thighs remember that descent! At least you are walking on the summit almost at once. For Beinn Eich there is NO, ZILCH, RIEN, NADA parking anywhere near the start of the path. There are places if you have a LandRover/Hilux/L200/Ranger etc. where you can pull off, but normal cars there are no real places that do not cause inconvenience to the locals/farmers. You may park in these places and get away with but as someone on the MT I’m meant to set an example. This means I had a 4.5km 245m ascent up the billiard table smooth tarmac road to get the the sign that says “Beinn Eich” The sign is just before the last farm, Edentaggert Farm. Except the sign has gone but the stile is still there. It’s not hard work TBH though.
From there over the stile and across a boggy field, make for the next stile up the hill and in front of you and over that stile or just through the collapsed wall and avoid The Somme style bog just across the stile/wall. Go up aiming for the unmissable lump and look left for a gate. The gate is wired shut but there’s a stile. Over and there’s an obvious path in the grass. Follow this to the top.
First good view of Beinn Eich after 50mins walk. Edentaggert Farm is the one on the left. The other two, Glenmollachan Farm and the cottage are “abandoned” so you may get away with parking at them. There’s planning permission applied for to demolish the old farm buildings and build posh house there. Talking to a local, they all now have 1gbps fibre installed 
So follow the path to the top. Do not do as I did as the path also follows a semiburied water pipe. The true path turns off at one point and another path follows the pipe. I followed the pipe path till it just felt I wasn’t climbing enough. A GPS check showed I was off course and so it was straight up over dead Bracken for some minutes to regain the path when the path was more obvious than a motorway. The average slope is 1 in 5 and steeper in many places. You will probably pant and sweat a lot, I did in the warming morning sun
And then you just follow the path to the top. It never seems to end, just non stop climbing. The views are not bad though it was misty again. You can see the path in this shot looking back down, Loch Lomond in the distance. You can see a cleft in the rock where the ridge suddenly descends, I came up on the right of that cleft and finally found the path again. At this point the steepest climbing is down. Just an effortful plod from here. I’d lightened my load as I knew it would warm, out with the 705 and tuner and in with the KX2. I did add an extra 500ml of water though. There are many gorgeous streams on the way to Edentaggert but nothing after.
Then I was there! Beinn Eich GM/SS-068 cairn.
Not a bad view form the top. Doune Hill GM/SS-054 on the right, Beinn Dubh (mid hill) GM/SS-090 on the extreme right. The further hill with forest at its foot is Beinn Breac GM/SS-081 and the fine Arrochar Alps in the far distance.
Playing with auto-fill-in flash. Amazing for March to be hatless and fleeceless and downless at 703m ASL What you can’t see in my expression is the jellylike consistency of my legs. It was now I knew I did not have the power to do either of the extension hills often combined singularly or jointly with this one. Loch Lomond behind me.
Six obvious SOTA summits. In front on top of the amazing cliffs Beinn Dubh (mid hill) GM/SS-090, out to the left with forest plantations, Beinn Bhreac GM/SS-081. The stunning Ben Lomond GM/SS-011, till you see it close up you don’t get the full majesty of the hill. In the far distance Cruarch Ardrain GM/SS-004, Ben More GM/SS-001 and Stob Binein GM/SS-002. There are probably more SOTA summits if you study hard.
A zoom on the Crianlarich boys, An Caisteall GM/SS-007, Cruarch Ardrain, Ben More, Stob Binneirn. Very murky, sorry.
Loch Lomond, also murky.
Radio time. Up with the 5m pole, 40/30/20 EFHW, KX2 and we’re off. My new plan is to start with 15m CW for some solar peak DX, then 40m/60m SSB to offer the hill to the locals who supported my activations before I could bass the brash. Then whatever I feel like. But first I had a KitKat and finished off the extra water. So 15m started off with nice strong EU chasers: F, OE, UR, DL, VK1. What!!! Yes, 1154Z clear as bell Bill VK1MCW was calling. Random calls from DX always floor me, I mean you expect to work W6 S2S during the EU<>NA activities but random VK calls are always just that bit speciall. I gave Bill 559 and he gave me 539. 539 for 10W CW in essentially a 20 EFHW at this point on 15m tuned up with the KX2 tuner. And I’d forgotten to add the counterpoise so just the coax from the KX2 to the 1:49 was in use. Seems to work Bill spotted me and also Arthur HB9CEV also “workable in VK1”
I was quite pleased and when I stopped cheering I continued the activation. I finished off 15m and did 40m SSB mainly G/GM/GW callers. I worked Jack GM4COX and he remembered he did all three closely grouped summits. I was making a note that I need to give Jack a good shoeing next time I saw him when he said “it was 20+ years ago and I was 20+ years young and much fitter”. I left him off. I know I could climb them if my life depended on it but it would not be fun. I don’t mind pushing myself a bit now and then but not that much.
After 40 I tried 10m. Funny, not picked up by RBN, tune band people calling SSB. I saw a spot for someone on 28.030CW and when I tuned down on 28.031 I found an enormously loud station lighting up all the segments on the S meter, S9 + lots. It was S01WS. Now 30+ years back I heard an ST5 forlorning calling CQ on 6m and managed a rough CW contact with him, from an FT690 barefoot in to an HB9CV antenna. So I knew S0 was in that area. Of course it’s Western Sahara, nice DX on any band. I couldn’t tell if he was working split or not. I sent my call just once and listened more. He called again and QSB’d to nothing . Bugger! Deal DX. Despite calling for a while, nobody wanted a QSO.
17m was in good shape. I, W4 (x2), F, S5, EA, 9A, OH, OK. Rich N4EX was a good 579 as was Matt W4GO. I don’t think it should be allowed but F8FKK and Eric F5JKK were both calling me at the same time. Hahahaha, that trick doesn’t work since last time it happened… I know there’s two of them now
Now all the time I was on the air the high level cloud built up and the wind grew from barely anything to quite strong and boy was it cold. I was cold, the sun was going behind cloud, I had a long walk back and limited time.I could have squeezed another 30 mins and tried 30m but instead I packed up and took photos ready for the long walk out. Walk out was exact reverse of ascent.
A better view of Ben Lomond, Crianlarich hills and Beinn Dubh (mid hill). Ben Lomond does look inviting. Better get it done this year.
Some famous hills The Cobbler GM/SS-020, Beinn Ime GM/SS-006 and Beinn Narnain GM/SS-016
SOTA excess: near hill on the left Cruarch an t-Sidhein (Fairy Hill) GM/SS-080 pronounced “croo-ark sheen” and right Beinn Lochan then Doune Hill GM/SS-054 . Plus a cast of thousands at Arrochar and around the Rest and Be Thankul. Just about everything is a SOTA summit. Deep Joy!
More Joy. The problem with Cruarch an t-Sidhein is it sits above an enormous arms depot so the easy access involves not being shot. Or you have to walk/climb much wild ground. Possibly it can be done from Beinn a’Mhanaich GM/SS-066, the knobbly hill on the left. You can see it doesn’t look hard to avoid the steep face and then it’s just a bit of a pull. Bit of a pull? It’s 450m to the bottom of the col from the top and then 388m up Cruarch an t-Sidhein. Scald Law is only 299m from the car park. But boy does it look fabulous or what?
A less murky Loch Lomond.
Half way down the steep bits, murk dissaptaing, Edentaggert Farm in the centre.
Back at the car I was a bit tired! Boots off and then I invested in a nice Cappuccino from the cafe. I’d had another KitKat on the way down so that was pushing my sugar allocations which meant no ice cream in the sun at Luss. But as they were £3.60 for a single scoop it wasn’t too hard to say no. I let myself chill for 20 mins then consigned myself to the nightmare of an evening rush hour journey across Glasgow… nightmare.
Today I had no aches or pains and haven’t fell so chilled and relaxed for a while especially with the contagious stress of helping my son move to his new house. I fitted an oven today. Not really challenging but the previous kitchen installers are probably best described as monkeys with hammers. At least it’s wired in to the wall properly this time.
I pulled the route from the GPS… what 13.7km walked is nothing but 934m total ascent for a 703m hill climbed form 14m ASL. I should be exhausted. Here’s the track and profile.
(C) Ordnance Survey 2025
A damn good day out though. Hard work but so worth doing and the Luss hills are also so very pretty.
