Ben Lomond is the first Munro for a great many Scottish walkers, and the numbers explain why: 12km, 990m of ascent, four and a half to five and a half hours, on a path that is engineered almost the whole way. It starts at sea level on the loch shore at Rowardennan and finishes at 974m, which is an honest mountain day by any measure, but the route asks for stamina rather than skill.
The tourist path climbs steadily through forest, breaks out onto open hillside, and follows a broad shoulder to a final steepening below the summit ridge. The last section is the best of it — a narrow crest with the ground dropping away east into Comer and the whole loch behind you.
Most walkers return the way they came. The alternative descent by the Ptarmigan ridge is rougher, rockier and muddy lower down, and it turns a straightforward outing into a proper hill day; take it only if the weather is settled and you are comfortable on ground where the path comes and goes. In winter this is a mountain that needs an ice axe, crampons and the knowledge to use them, not a longer walk.
