South of the A83 as far as Dunoon and sandwiched in between Loch Fyne and Loch Long are a number of peaks, none of which qualify for Munro status. The southern half of the Arrochar Alps includes Beinn an Lochain, which at 901m was wrongly included in Sir Hugh Munro’s original list of 3000ft peaks in Scotland. The mountains list contains all peaks above 600m.
Ben Donich is generally not a difficult climb, but it has a lot of crevices that can be treacherous if covered in snow. I posted this walk as a Meetup event, and as the forecast was for -4 with a windchill of -11 to -13, I described the walk as "Hard" and stressed the importance of ice axe and crampons or microspikes and poles as a minimum. 12 of us went, and it was a great atmosphere. I did advise two people not to come, as they had no hillwalking experience and no crampons, poles or microspikes, but another Meetup group posted the same walk in the same week, and those two people went along! In fact, we passed people wearing trainers on the day. It was so icy that a man we met in the car park who had a boxer dog with him had to turn back right at the first gate, because the dog was slipping all over the place. We all made it up and down the "Bad Step" and had a great day out. Unfortunately I'd done a hillwalk with another group the day before, which had ended with a long walk out in our winter boots, giving my blisters. As a result my feet got really painful on the way back down. But all in all a great day.
