On Top of Ben Lui

Camping a hundred feet below the summit

tent near Ben Lui I spend a day in Edinburgh, leaving in the early morning of the next day. I get a lift on a 27 year old Ford where the driver has to manage the steering wheel as is well known from Humphrey Bogard films. I get to Killin in the early afternoon, starting a walk that will turn out in the end to be one of the best I've ever made.
From Killin I follow the river Dochart towards the west. Carrying a heavy pack I don't get as far as I want. I have to put up my tent at a little loch not far from my original target, the youth hostel of Crianlarich. I love this little hostel with its pure atmosphere, its strict but friendly warden, Harry, if I'm not mistaken, remotely hidden underneath the railway damm. In 1993 I shall return to find a modern hostel not worth visiting any more.
About 3000 feet above sea level *
After one night in that poor village of Crianlarich I make my way further west. After following the Strath Fillan road for a few miles I turn to the left to walk uphill through the woods. «Woods» means something else in Scotland compared to Germany as the trees are widely spread. I go straight for the summit of Ben Lui where I put up my double-roof tent in the evening. What you really need in Scotland is a good tent. It does not rain very long, actually, at most 7 days and nights, but if it rains it rains cats and dogs. This evening, however, I am lucky: A lovely sunset follows a day of foggy clouds covering the top of the mountains.