Autumn is a lovely time to visit Highland Perthshire, with its riotous displays of reds, oranges and yellows. The flip side to autumnal walking holidays however is that the weather doesn’t always play along! On our last trip we finally got to do a walk I’d wanted to do for the last few years, but the weather had never been quite right. A high up walk which needed clear skies for the views, but short enough that you wouldn’t need a full day of non-stop sunshine for it – if we get non-stop sunshine in Scotland, we usually head up a larger hill.
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The route in question was the nature trail at Ben Lawers national nature reserve, a very short walk of just over a mile and taking about 45 minutes to complete. I’d found this route in our Pocket Mountains guide to Perthshire, and being surprised with a longer than expected sunny window while we were down the road in Kenmore, we decided to see if we could nip around the route before the sun went in.
The start is from the National Trust for Scotland car park on the slopes of Ben Lawers, which also doubles as a start point for this popular Munro. While there were plenty of cars parked up, I think pretty much everyone had headed up the hill, as we didn’t really see anyone other than when we were coming back to the car park at the end.
Given that this was such a short nature trail walk, I was expecting it to be mostly flat and without much of a view: similar walks we’ve done in the past seem to end up mostly being through woods near a river (with the exception of the mountain trail at Beinn Eighe NNR in Wester Ross). Not so with this walk – the first half is quite undulating, but never too steep for too long, following a rocky trail which criss-crosses a small burn multiple times as it gradually winds its way uphill.
It’s definitely not a casual stroll to amble along not paying attention to your surroundings, but that’s fine because your surroundings are very nice. There’s no crazy, mind blowing views like you’d get from the top of a mountain, but there are some lovely views back to the loch below and ahead to Ben Lawers in front of you. Visiting in autumn the Rowan berries were out in full force and they added a nice splash of colour to what might otherwise have felt like quite a bleak walk. Despite only lasting for 45 minutes the trail is very varied as you cross stepping stones, walk below the mountain and look down over the loch below.
The return leg of the walk joins what I think must be one of the main paths coming down off Ben Lawers, being much broader and flatter, descending back down gradually to the car park. It really was a very pleasant walk which I’d recommend for filling a short weather window, but I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘must do’ hike compared to others in the area. I wouldn’t mind coming back to do Ben Lawers though!
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. The nature reserve is grazed by free roaming cattle, but we didn’t encounter them on our walk. The nature trail is stile free and shouldn’t pose any difficulties for dogs, with water loving dogs enjoying multiple opportunities to have a paddle in the stream. The trail is generally quiet and there is no road walking.
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