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.
My mum died on Christmas Eve, and as I'd been living in her home as her main carer, I did not want to spend Christmas Day at home alone, so I joined a friend to climb The Cobbler. He lives in the Borders and hadn't climbed the Cobbler before, but it was my fifth or sixth time on the mountain. There was snow at the top, and we should maybe have had full winter kit, though I had no problems in my light boots, and we met a man wheeling a bike to the top, who posed on the icy Needle wearing his cycling shoes. A lovely day, complete with fogbow and Brocken Spectre .
