Ben Vorlich

Ben Vorlich at Loch Earn is a mountain which presents a deceptively sharp, pointed profile when glimpsed from the East. Anyone seeing this hill from around Perth, or while travelling Southwards on the A9 towards Stirling could be forgiven for thinking that Vorlich is almost conical. This view, taken from the North, across the Loch shows the breadth of the hill, and the long steep southern ridge, the usual line of ascent from Ardvorlich at lochside.

I remember climbing Ben Vorlich and Stuc a Chroin, its flat-topped, steep sided neighbour in 1996 - a week before I married Mrs Hideous. Four of us climbed these two hills in blazing sunshine, while Mrs Hideous was still toiling in the Saharan sunshine doing her medical elective at a Mission Hospital in West Africa. A minor coup in the country had made communication worse than usual and I hadn't heard from her for a few weeks, which was playing on my mind somewhat, as I recall. After the descent of the hill and the return drive to Dundee, I moved all my stuff into what would be our first flat together, on the salubrious Lochee Road!

The memories a photo can generate!