Your National Park adventure starts IN CALLANDER

Ben Gullipen Walk (Cock Hill optional)

Length: 3 or 6 miles, depending on start point (1½ to 2½hr depending on route)
Start: Bridgend Callander or A81 roadside

Fairly easy walk on forestry roads. If you have a mountain bike, and are fairly fit you may like to do this one on your bike.

About half way up, some of the best views of Callander and Callander Crags may be had. Views to the pass of Leny are seen all the way up but the views to the west and north from the summit surpass all.

Option 1: Bridgend starting point.

Park at Bridgend and walk up to the mini roundabout where you should turn left and immediately look for a ruined gate on the right with a pathway leading up through the cleared woods.

Follow the main path, ignore the first turn on the right, and continue through the woods. The path swings to the left and through a gap in an old drystone wall. Ignore a right turn and continue on the main track until you exit the woods at a junction. Turn left then in a few yards, left up a long slope. Follow this track, ignoring any side turns until you come to a T junction.

At the T junction turn right and follow up the hill, through the gate where the top comes into view. Continue to the top with great views to the highlands on your right and Stirling, the castle and Wallace Monument in view on the left. You may also encounter the local herd of highland cattle on the way up!

Option 2: A81 roadside start.

Take the A81 (Glasgow) road from Callander for about 3½ miles. To find the correct starting point, count to the 3rd access road on the right after the white cottage on the right just before the woods. After a sharpish left hand bend, watch for the roadside parking on the left just after the access with the 5 bar metal gate.

Gullipen only.

Follow this track ignoring all right forks for about 1½ miles to the masts at the summit.
Return by the same route OR if you can arrange to be collected by car at Invertrossachs road:

Continue to the west past the masts - the path peters out and you more or less bash your way through the heather - beware several rocky outcrops - and make your way down to the small lochan (Lochan Balloch) which you see from the summit of Gullipen. At the west end of the lochan find a path leading down beside a burn to the north between the high rocks. Mind your feet here if the ground is damp - its a bit greasy. Following the track will bring you to a forest track where you should turn right to drop down eventually to the Invertrossachs road at the little gatehouse lodge. Your car is now 4 miles away on the Glasgow road (that's why you need to be collected)!

Gullipen from Cock Hill.

As you drive up the A81, count to the second access on the right after the white cottage - it's on a left hand bend, and the track is closed by a single bar across the track. Park here - but don't block the access.

Stick carefully to directions or take a map since the forest paths here are complex with many tracks leading up to a mile before ending in the centre of forest

Walk up this track about a mile, -take no side tracks, the track veers right and Callander comes into view as the track drops slightly. Veering round leftish and then taking the left fork, the track now climbs toward Gullipen. Take 2 left forks followed by 2 right forks to join the main track to the summit. Return by the other route by ignoring the left turn. This now leads to the A81 where if you turn left, your car is about 150 yards away.