To see a selection of my Loch Lomond and the Trossachs images please click here
For much of the past 18 months I have been walking and photographing in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.
The work (if you want to call it that) was for 2 guidebooks that have just been published by Northern Eye Books. They form part of their superb Top 10 series of guidebooks and are the first in the series to focus on walking in Scotland.
The Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park is almost my local patch, being only an hour or so from where I live. It is a place of great beauty, grandeur and drama and one I love exploring.
But what makes it so special?
Well for starters the landscape straddles the highland Boundary Fault Line and consequently has a magnificent array of rugged peaks.
It boasts 40 mountains over 2,500 feet in height including some of Scotland’s most iconic Munros and Corbetts: Ben Lomond, Ben Ledi, Stob Binnien and the incomparable Ben Arthur (better known as The Cobbler), to name but a few.
Yet away from the big mountains and the park is also home to numerous lower hills, such as Conic Hill, Ben A’an and Duncryne, each of which offer a challenge but are within reach of the general walker.
What’s more the views are just as astounding as those from their bigger cousins and Top 10 Hill Walks and Easy Summits details an array of superb and accessible routes.
Also within the National Park’s confines are around 50 rivers and burns, 3 National Nature reserves, 2 Forest Parks and 22 large lochs, including Loch Lomond — at 28 miles long and 5 miles wide, the largest body of freshwater in the UK.
Add to this Loch Arklet, Loch Ard, Loch Katrine and Loch Venachar and you have an array of beautiful water with breathtaking scenery and wonderful wildlife.
Walks in and around these marvellous lochs can be found in Top 10 Lochside Walks.
I am currently working on two more Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Top 10 books so much of 2017 will be spent wandering the hills and glens of this exceptional corner of Scotland.
Wanderings - the ramblings of Outdoor Fergie. 