At the end of August 2022 we’d planned a silly little Sunday morning trip over a rarely used piece of railway track. Then the weather changed into a beautiful day and the adventure grew into a thirteen hour epic going halfway up a mountain!
ScotRail run a Sumer-Only train direct from Edinburgh to Oban which just happens to call at the Summer-Only station at Falls Of Cruachan. This became our big end of Summer adventure!
The Hollow Mountain
Ben Cruachan is called “The Hollow Mountain” because of the power station that’s built in a huge man-made cavern dug into the mountain. There is a visitor centre just along the road from the railway station – we went for a look but it’s not open on Sundays (and not really Rudy’s type of thin I imagine!). The view along Loch Awe is always open though.
A Steep Climb on a Rough Path
Falls Of Cruachan station is on the western spur of Loch Awe at the foot of Ben Cruachan (a 3,694ft / 1,126 metre munro and the highest point in Argyll and Bute). It was going to remain firmly on our list of “hills we did not climb” but I think we went far enough along the track to count as “climbed a little bit of”.
The path to the east side of the train station starts as quite wild and steep with a fair amount of scrambling up rocks. I’m not sure if this is the proper trail that experienced hill walkers choose but Rudy is part mountain goat and loved every minute of his hill climbing adventure!
Dog Gate!
When I first saw this stile I had no idea how I was going to manage to encourage or carry Rudy over. It seemed like the walk was done and time to turn back. But no! Set into the fence is a dog gate! Look at his happy face waiting for me to get myself over the fence after letting him through 🙂
Halfway There?
As a confirmed river & forest trail explorer rather than hill walker this was a steep climb on a Summer’s day and I think even Rudy was glad when we rested a while in the last of the tree cover shade to look back at the view.
But there was still lots more view up the mountain than down though, no matter how much we’re enjoying the walk so far it was clear we’re not going to bag this munro!
Details of the Cruachan Dam visitor centre can be found at https://www.visitcruachan.co.uk/