Narnia and Back in 725 metres

Today Beanie and Biggles went for a walk in the mountains and discovered a secret portal that took them into a far away, magical winter wonderland. Just like going through the wardrobe in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was all rather exciting, and needless to say prompted a fair bit of baying and aaaarrrfffing!

The forecasts were looking very good for hill walking – some sunshine, very little wind and frozen solid underfoot even at sea level so no mud! We decided upon Beinn Dubh – Glen Striddle Horseshoe. We did this walk just two or three weeks ago but despite promising forecasts we were shrouded in a thick, grey fog for the whole walk. Today our timing was perfect. As we drove into the car park at Luss the early morning clouds started to break and large patches of blue sky appeared. We were rewarded with some great views of Loch Lomond very early on in the walk:

You can just make out the little pier at Luss on the far right

The sun was quite warm and we soon started to strip off layers of clothing:

There was a slight dusting of snow on the (false) summit ahead :

As we reached the snow line the temperature began to plummet and the layers started to go back on:

Ben Lomond in the background

Biggles’ big gob in the foreground

We think the magic portal was around here somewhere. Biggles did sense something mystical and got rather woofy – although it might have just been a sheep!:

Looking back down towards Luss

Very quickly it started to turn into an arctic expedition…although I’m not sure who the sherpas were – me of the Beags!

Eventually we reached the summit where the views were out of this world. It really did feel as if we’d been transported into a magical winter kingdom. And not a soul in sight. There were tracks in the snow but fresh snow had fallen on top of them so it looked as if we had the mountain to ourselves.

The natives looked and smelt a bit strange but were friendly enough:

From the summit, a broad ridge continues around in a horseshoe shape for 5 kilometers or so. We set off on our journey along the ridge with spectacular new views opening up at almost every step:

The Arochar Alps in the distance

The Arochar Alps again. That’s the Cobbler second from left (top). Weather permitting we’ll be up there next week

Boy was it cold up there! The Beags didn’t seem to feel it. We had their winter coats with us but didn’t need to put them on

Looking forward along the ridge…

..and looking back towards the summit of Ben Dubh

All too soon we reached the end of the ridge and stumbled across a second portal to take us back out of the magical Kingdom. We lingered here a while, not really wanting to leave this special place.

But then again, it had been quite a while since Beanie and Biggles had breakfast and there was a lovely scent of sheep wafting up the hillside. Before we knew it we were hurtling through the portal at breakneck speed with a familiar ‘aaarrrfff, aaaarrrrfff, aaaarrrooohhh’ echoing in our frost bitten ears!