It was time for Douglas MM7DCD to propose our next SOTA activation, he proposed Ben Vorlich and both Kris MM7OAI and I agreed this would be good one. It was also the first six-point summit for each of us. For me personally, it’s also my fourth munro.
There are actually two “Ben Vorlich” summits, they are both munros and don’t sit too far apart. Our target for this activation was the one next to Loch Sloy (GM/SS-013) rather than the one often completed with Stùc a’ Chròin (GM/SS-008).
The walk starts from the Inveruglas Visitor Center where parking at the time of writing is £4 for the day. The weather forecast for the day was very pleasant, according to MWIS we had a 90% chance of cloud free munros. I tracked the walk via GPS as always, which you can view here on Strava. You’ll get a good look at Sloy Power Station (hydro-electric) as you leave the car park.
The walk is very clear to follow if you follow the steps/route on Walk Highlands. The first 2.5 miles is gentle and on a paved road that I assume is used for access to the dam at Loch Sloy.
At around 50 minutes and 2.5 miles of walking you’ll come to the climb - this isn’t well signposted but the steps are shown below. Much of the climb is done using these steps, it’s fairly straight forward but steep and would be tiring for beginners. As you walk up the steps you’ll get a great view over the dam on Loch Sloy as shown at the top of this post. At one point we could see inversion at the peak of the neighbouring munro Ben Vane.
The climb carried on for a further two miles and few hundred meters till we reached the summit at 945m (3,100ft). Unfortunately for us the 90% chance of cloud free munros didn’t apply, we arrived at 11:00 and left at 14:00 and remained in the cloud for the duration.
Band conditions however were favourable for a change, I had a quick QSO on Douglas’s handheld before setting up for HF. I had 11 QSO on 40M followed by another 10 on 20M finishing with a total of 22 QSO which I’m happy with. This is another walk I’d happily do again and would recommend to keen SOTA activators in the area.
