Ben Lawers is part of a Natural Nature Reserve and is one of the highest mountains in the southern part of the Scottish Highlands. It lies to the north side of Loch Tay, and is the highest point of a long ridge that includes five Munros (summits over 3000 ft. / 914 m).

In the past Ben Lawers was thought to be over 4,000ft in height, however when accurately measured in the 1870s it was found to only 3983ft. In 1878, a group of men spent a day building a large cairn in the hope of bringing the summit above the "magic" figure; sadly the cairn is no longer there.

Ben Lawers is famous for its arctic-alpine flora. The upper slopes have many plants rare to Scotland but common in high mountains of mainland Europe or in the Arctic.

On the lower slopes, particularly above Loch Tay, there are many archaeological remains ranging from a site used by hunting peoples in Mesolithic times (c. 9000 years ago) through to homesteads and track ways built in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when the area was densely populated. Zigzagging tracks are common on the higher slopes made over many years when people used to bring peat for fuel to the homesteads below. On the southern slopes there are many examples of rock art – enigmatic cup marks and concentric circles thought to have been carved around 5000 years ago.

Picture copyright Walter Baxter and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licenc