Weather/Conditions: Overcast, windy
Distance/Ascent/Time: 5.5km / 250m / 1h 35m
Accompanying: Alone

Writing 2017 - I'm almost certain I wrote about this before, but somehow lost track when I switched websites. That's unfortaunte.

I went to Ben Bowie to continue my monthly new-summit tally, sandwiching my trip between bouldering. I parked up at the roadside and followed forestry tracks into woods. Ben Bowie is a fairly low-key hill, but this corner of Dumbartonshire was to give me a few easy tops, enough elevation that there are small hills scattered about, but not quite so far as to be full-blown Highland hills.



At this point in time I also felt I was in a period of transition. The fact I was out at the end of the month to find a new summit gave some indication that my outdoor activites had shifted somewhat away from climbing new mountains. I was bouldering more and often repeating old summits. But Ben Bowie was a nice hill to fill the afternoon. To climb something so small and have it feel like an effort made the big hills of to the north seem even larger. There was a sense of dislocation, that I'd forgotten my passion for the north and it's hills, and was trying to find it in rock climbing in the Central Belt. I shouldn't have worried too much though, the following spring it all came flowing back and 'normal service' on the hills was resumed.

360° Panorama

Ben Bowie