Ben Lawers
1 NN608378 Leave the car park and cross the road following the signed main path towards Ben Lawers. Enter the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve through a gate and take the path uphill, across a small footbridge and, trending right, reach the gate onto the open mountainside below Beinn Ghlas. The Nature Reserve covers a total of seven Munros across the Ben Lawers and Tarmachan ranges, and has the most celebrated collection of rare mountain plants in Britain, as well as over 500 different types of lichen. Look out for wildlife including mountain hares, ptarmigan, ravens, ring ouzels, skylarks and black grouse.
For a much shorter but very pleasant walk follow the Edramucky Trail around the nature reserve, created and waymarked by the National Trust for Scotland.
2 NN615391 Continue on the path through the gate and follow the main path, which soon zigzags steeply uphill. Stay right at the path junction and continue to the ridge. The path levels off a bit here and trends left (north) to the summit of Beinn Ghlas. It’s worth taking a few moments to admire the great views of Ben Lawers from here or look south-west for the triangular peak of Ben More in the distance. Next follow the obvious ridge north-east from Beinn Ghlas downhill to the col and then go steeply uphill to the trig-pointed summit of Ben Lawers.
3 NN635414 Turn round and re-trace the outbound route down to the col and then up the ridge to Beinn Ghlas. Turn right here and follow a smaller path down the ridge to the col and path junction. It’s possible to extend the walk here and bag an extra two Munros by climbing up the steep side of Meall Corranaich and following the ridge along to Meall a’ Choire Leith. Our route returns to the start from here.
4 NN620407 Turn left at the col and follow the obvious and well-made path south following the course of the Burn of Edramucky back to the main outbound path. Turn right onto this and follow it downhill, through the gate into the nature reserve and back down the outbound route to the start.