Almanac

The Lady Of Vision.

- Willie Shand

Just east of Killin, Ben Lawers rises above the north shore of Loch Tay in Highland Perthshire. Had it been just 17 feet higher it would have been able to join our elite band of hills over 4,000 feet high. As it is though, at 3,983 feet above sea level, it’s the highest in Perthshire and one of the county’s most popular climbs. Munroists are well rewarded for their effort in climbing Ben Lawers as to reach the summit the track first crosses the 3,619-feet high summit of Beinn Ghlas which is itself a separate Munro. That’s two for the price of one.

You want to pick a good, clear day to tackle Ben Lawers as the views over Loch Tay and the neighbouring range of the Tarmachans are quite exceptional. You can see across the whole country from the North Sea to the Atlantic simply by turning your head. Besides the distant views, lime-rich soils make these hills perfect for Arctic-Alpine plants. Alpine lady’s mantle, moss campion, mountain forget-menot and some, like the saxifrage cernua, that aren’t found in the wild anywhere else in Britain.

For a brief period, Ben Lawers did actually poke its head above the 4,000 feet mark. It’s not easy to improve on Nature but in the late 1800s one local man by the name of Malcolm Ferguson, along with some of his friends, decided to make up for Mother Nature’s shortfall by building a massive 20-feet tall stone cairn on the summit thus raising it to 4,003 feet. The cairn, however, is no longer there.

Lawers takes its name from the Gaelic for “the noisy one”, no doubt referring to the Lawers Burn that tumbles down the hillside to spill into Loch Tay at the village of Old Lawers. From the summit we’ve a fantastic view over Lochan nan Cat from which the Lawers Burn begins its journey.