Beinn Narnain, 17th October 2026

 My friend and Scouting colleague Alasdair and a group of friends and family have decided to take on the Three Peaks Challenge in May next year. I've offered to guide for them on Ben Nevis, but in advance of the winter, Alasdair was keen to see where his fitness was.

I met Alasdair at the local train station on Friday afternoon and we headed over to mine for some dinner and a chat about the plan for the next day.

In the morning, we were up bright and early, and on the road just after 0815, with a stop at Milton Starbucks on the A82 for coffee. The morning was bright, but there were lots of patches of dense fog on the road up, then they would just fade to reveal sunshine. I think we would have been too late for an inversion, but it was possible.

We pulled into Arrochar about 0915 and the Argyll and Bute Council car park was already full. With no spaces, we headed for the private car park run by Luss Estates. That cost us £12, but was a damn sight cheaper than the people who had verge-parked later in the day in the council car park, all of whom had a yellow parking ticket when we returned.

We got ready and headed off along the shoreline at 0932 and crossed the road to start on the zig zags through the forest. We'd started cold, but soon warmed up and had to drop a layer.

Around 50 minutes later, we'd emerged from the forest and started to get some lovely views of the Cobbler. We weren't climbing that today, but it's always a great sight. We met a guy convinced he was at the Narnain Boulders, but was about 200m out of the forest. I didn't have the heart to convince him otherwise, but there were plenty people for him to follow and he would have found the boulders soon enough.

Aldo and the Cobbler

We headed for the afore-mentioned Narnain Boulders and had a chat about how they must have tumbled down from Narnain at some point.

Narnain Boulders

It was a beautiful and windless day as we wandered our way up to the dried up puddle that is marked as Lochan a' Chlaidheimh. There we followed the track to the back of the hill and up towards the summit of Narnain. It's a steep old slog but Alasdair managed really well. We hit the summit at 1205 and there were quite a few people about. Visibility was excellent and so we picked out a load of hills and lochs. We could see Ailsa Craig, Arran, and the Paps of Jura. To the north, familiar hills of Crianlarich and to the east Ben Lomond and the Trossachs.

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Aldo on Narnain

Views out to Ailsa Craig and the Cobbler

Ben Lomond

Cobbler with Jura visible on the horizon

We sat for ages and had lunch, but it was time to head off - we were heading off the opposite way most people come, just for variety and I wanted to try something out....

We descended the Spearhead gully which was some steep ground, but with people coming up, it made it a little bit more of a challenge. Alasdair held his nerve and descended safely through the steeper terrain.

Spearhead gully

We kept dropping height, eventually making it to the point marked at 660m on the map. Everyone we spoke to that had come up had come up from the old Succoth pipe track and said it was a soaking muddy river (my recollection from years ago). From the point we were at, we could make the dam by descending a straight km south, dropping about 300m. Steep but grassy. We went for it - it wasn't too bad, not full of holes or slippy and it got us away from the crowds.

Another nice view of the Cobbler

We got back to the dam and joined the people all heading up and down the main track again. It didn't take us long to get back to the car, just after 1505. We saw the Waverley on her last Scottish summer trip up Loch Long and paid the ridiculous parking fee, before heading to the Village Inn so Alasdair could get a pint and enjoy a sit outside in the sun.

Hike Distance: 13.66km

Hike Time: 5h 36m

Ascent: 944m

No new Munro for me, I did this first on 28th March 2000, according to my paper log.