Ben Lawers

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Ben Lawers
Ben Lawers seen from Beinn Ghlas
Elevation	1214 m (3984 ft)
Location	Perth and Kinross, Scotland
Prominence	c. 909 m
Topo map	OS Landranger 51
OS grid reference	NN636414
Listing	Munro, Marilyn, Council top (Perth and Kinross), County top (Perthshire)
Translation	Hill of the loud stream (Gaelic)

Ben Lawers is one of the highest mountains in the southern part of the Scottish Highlands. It lies to the north side of Loch Tay, and is the highest point of a long ridge that includes seven Munros.

Ben Lawers was long thought to be over 4,000 ft in height; accurate measurement in the 1870s showed it to be some 17 ft short of this figure. In 1878, a group of twenty men spent a day building a large cairn in the hope of bringing the summit above the "magic" figure. The cairn is no longer there; in any case the Ordnance Survey ignored it as an artificial structure that was not truly part of the hill.

Most of the south side of the Ben Lawers range has since 1950 been owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The area of land under Trust ownership was extended in 1996 by the purchase of the neighbouring Tarmachan range. The Trust owns a visitor centre located at the western end of the range, from where a much-eroded path leads to the summit. A slightly different path also leads from the centre, heading for the summit by way of the intermediate peak of Beinn Ghlas.

Alternative routes that avoid the erosion caused by the popularity of the two routes described above usually start by following Lawers Burn, which meet the A827 at the village of Lawers. Heading north from the burn allows the walker to climb the peaks to the northeast of Ben Lawers on the way. The most direct route from Lawers is to continue along the burn until Lochan nan Cat ("loch of the cat"), then heading straight to the summit by way of the east ridge.

Ben Lawers is designated as a National Nature Reserve due to the abundance of rare alpine plants. The area also has populations of ravens, ring ouzels, red grouse, ptarmigan, dippers and curlews.