Why we love Ben Lomond

Transcript

3 speakers: Alasdair Eckersall (Property Manager and Senior Ranger); David Allsop (Ranger); Michael DiMaio (Seasonal Ranger)

Alasdair
My name is Alasdair Eckersall. I'm the Property Manager and Senior Ranger here at Ben Lomond, which has been in the care of the National Trust for Scotland since 1984.  

Ben Lomond is a pretty large mountain, the southernmost Munro (mountain over 3,000ft) in Scotland.
We're only about 30 miles out of Glasgow here, about halfway up the east side of Loch Lomond.  
And here, the Trust own and care for about 10 square miles of ground that takes in the summits of Ben Lomond, the shoulder of Ptarmigan, and another hill to the south called Ben Uird.  
It's all part of the old Blairvockie Farm, which was the area of ground that the Trust purchased in 1984.

As well as the mountain paths, we've got a low-level history walk: the Ardess Hidden History Trail.
That's about a mile long, just on the lower slopes, and links up some of the archaeology sites that we've come across and it helps tell some of the story of all the folks that have had their lives here in previous centuries.

At our work base at Ardess Lodge, we've got the Ben Lomond Bunkhouse, which was first developed in 2011 and has gone from strength to strength since then.
All the income that comes from providing that accommodation goes straight back into helping us care for  Ben Lomond by supporting the work that we do.

David
I'm David Allsop. I'm the ranger for the National Trust for Scotland here at Ben Lomond.
My main job is basically looking after the footpath on the mountain, because we have 50/60,000 visitors each year and that causes erosion of all sorts to the landscape.
So, a lot of my job is repairing the footpath, which involves a lot of landscaping, a lot of building steps and drainage features.  
I get a lot of help from volunteers and obviously other rangers, and the path team that come in.

I love Ben Lomond because I just love working outdoors, being in a mountain environment. 
I can go to the mountains in my own time,  but to actually work on a mountain and look after it and be responsible for its upkeep and care,  looking after nature – it's all about conservation.  
Just being outdoors working; having a job doing that is very rewarding.  
So, that's the main reasons why I love working on Ben Lomond and for the National Trust for Scotland.

Michael
My name is Michael DiMaio. I'm a seasonal ranger at Ben Lomond, cared for by the National Trust for Scotland.

We're going to do a woodland pasture.
We're going to have maybe a 4/500 woodland pasture exclosure there, with trees in it.
But they're all in bracken because it's grazing land and there's no grazing in the bracken.   
So, we're allowed to do that in the bracken. 
Today has been removing the bracken and stripping it and bagging it up, because it's going to go for a thatch on the little cruck frame that we've got at Ardess here.
It's getting rethatched in a couple of months and we're going to use a traditional way of doing it and the traditional material.
We thought, let's go up to where we're doing the woodland pasture, so we get two jobs in one.  

I love Ben Lomond.
I've been up it five times this week; I was up it six times the other week.
I could see Ben Lomond from the housing scheme that I grew up on.
It's probably one of the first Munros I ever hiked up and it was way back in the day, before Alasdair got his team really managed together, to get the path sorted, and it was just a big black bog going up.
So, that's a complete difference to come back like 10/20 years later the next time I did it.  
I camped on the summit and it was a breeze to actually walk up the mountain.
It was so relaxing.

Alasdair
I love Ben Lomond because when I first came to work here, I was still quite young – I was in my early 20s – and Ben Lomond is a place where I was able to soak up and learn about mountain habitats and species, and be able to get the feel for the changes in the habitat as you move through them.
You just get more of a feel for the mountains as living, breathing places.