The Great Trossachs Path

Wednesday 20th and Saturday 23rd April 2022

After a very cold night that put my sleeping bag to the test, I was greeted by sunshine and it soon warmed up, so I finally broke camp and left Arrochar to walk along the road to Tarbet where I caught the ferry across Loch Lomond. I got off the ferry on the eastern bank beside the Inversnaid Hotel where the West Highland Way passes heading north while another long distance trail, the Great Trossachs Path, starts its thirty mile trek through the Trossachs ending in Callander. I had planned to walk the Great Trossachs Path at Easter 2020 and was all booked and ready to go when Covid put a stop to all my plans, so now two years later, I was finally going to do the trail. Initially I had to climb steeply through lovely woods on a path that was badly eroded in one place, though with my rapidly gained height above Loch Lomond, I had great views across to the Arrochar Alps including Ben Vorlich that I had climbed a few days earlier. Once the path entered a conifer plantation it became very muddy and I feared that this poor start to the condition of the trail would be the norm for the whole length, but far from it. Soon I reached the car park for Craigrostan Woods where I dropped down to Arklet Water and walked along a road past the Inversnaid Bunkhouse to the Garrison of Inversnaid.

This was the site of a barracks in the eighteenth century, but is now just a farm and there I discovered a wonderful, well-made footpath took me through Glen Arklet and the RSPB nature reserve of Inversnaid. However, I was carrying a very heavy rucksack, which was already proving to be making the walk difficult for me and I was reminded of my first day on the Fife Coastal Path last year when I struggled so much and eventually stopped after four hours and just eight miles, and I was now using the same rucksack. This time I didn’t have an option to give up as there were no buses that would take me to my campsite and let me resume the walk the next day with a lighter load. I had to keep going. Perhaps I was better prepared now and the rucksack was not as heavy, so I was able to keep going, but this was still a difficult walk and a great trial of my determination and stamina. Every ascent on the undulating path was an agony. Eventually, after passing to the north of Loch Arklet, I returned to the road and reached the shores of the fabled Loch Katrine where I stopped to have my lunch and enjoy the views across the loch to Ben A’an before setting off along the private road around the reservoir.

Unfortunately this road also undulated and each climb was absolute agony as I struggled to carry my heavy rucksack along the many miles of the private road. On this western section of the road, many of the bridges showed signs of being recently upgraded to cope with large amounts of water such as from the heavy storms of recent years. Signs warned that the road would be closed if bad weather was forecast, but I had no such problem as the sun was shining with the weather continuing to improve throughout the week. Eventually I reached the western tip of Loch Katrine where rugged mountains lined tranquil Glen Gyle ahead of me before turning east I headed along the north shore. This bank had more woods and the road was decorated with celandines and primroses, which was a welcome sight while overhead clouds obscured the sun that had shone throughout the morning. Despite some dark clouds, fortunately it never rained as I continued to slowly make my way along the road including up some particularly prolonged climbs that were a trial to ascend, so I was glad when much later I realised a path branched off down to the shore while the road ascended once again.

The Great Trossachs Path would be so much better if the whole of the route around Loch Katrine was on such paths as this was a delightful walk beside the shore of the reservoir, but all too soon I came back onto the road and dragged myself into the Trossachs and to the pier where the famous Sir Walter Scott steamship was anchored. The scenery around the Trossachs was delightfully wild and I was glad to finally be able to see why this area is so highly regarded, but as I approached the pier the commercial aspects began to intrude and marred the experience for me. However, I wasn’t seeing the area at its potential worst as having already walked seventeen and a half miles along the Great Trossachs Path after a late start, it was now six o’clock in the evening and the place was deserted. The trail continued along a public road before turning right onto another private road through delightful woodland, but soon I crossed Achray Water and entered another conifer plantation. After three days of walking in the Argyll Forest Park I was fed up with lifeless conifers and now I was in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park amongst more conifers.

The path turned several times and climbed the hill, which at this late hour after many miles along the trail I was not in the mood to do, so I was relieved to come across a sign that directed me off the forestry track onto a good path that crossed a road onto a wide forestry road and led me down to the shore of Loch Achray where the national park has a campsite. This was a stunning location and I spent three nights there enjoying the Trossachs before resuming the Great Trossachs Path along the forestry road beside Loch Achray. After eventually crossing Black Water I incongruously passed a London double-decker bus that was parked next to the Byre Inn, before walking beside the road through the village of Brig o’ Turk. A good, recently-built footpath took me to Lendrick Hill car park where an excellent visitor centre enabled me to use their facilities and fill up my water bottle before tackling a steep, torturous climb on a good path through woodland. At the top I was rewarded with stunning views back towards Ben Venue while a wonderful terrace path took me across the hillside above Loch Venachar while I enjoyed the fabulous views in the sunshine, though now a cold, easterly wind was blowing.

With the small town of Callander in sight, I was eager to finish the trail, especially as I had a bus to catch and start my journey home, but first I had follow the path around the old fort of Dunmore through an area thick with gorse. Eventually I reached the road where I joined the course of an old railway that passed between meadows filled with delightful wildflowers, but I was in too much of a hurry to catch my bus so I couldn’t stop and enjoy them as I would have loved to do. The Great Trossachs Path has a lot of variation from the short climb up from Loch Lomond that was the roughest of the entire trail, to the prolonged walk along the road around Loch Katrine and the terrace path above Loch Venachar that leads into Callander. I was frustrated with the large amount of tarmac on the trail especially around Loch Katrine, but generally the paths are very good, partly because nearly all of it can be cycled which demands a high standard from the trail. In 2020 I had planned to do the trail at the beginning of my holiday starting from Callander, so going in the opposite direction and I think that may be the better way as the best views are then ahead of you and the worst of the footpaths are on the final descent down to Loch Lomond. Although short for a long distance trail at only thirty miles, it is an excellent way to explore the delights of the Trossachs, especially if, like me, you have never been there before.