Ben Venue

Ben Venue has appeared several times before on this blog, when I found the Ohprydium, and when the group I was with experienced a mountain rescue. Both of those were later in the year. Climbing it on 19th February meant that we came across some large snow patches, and the path was quite tricky in a few places as the snow had frozen like concrete and gave little grip.

Higher on the hill we had excellent views back in the direction in which we had come.

From the summit we could see Loch Achray to the east, with Loch Venachar beyond, and Ben Ledi to the north-east.

Soon after leaving the summit, we had views to Ben Lui, Ben Oss and Beinn Dhubchraig.

Here the path rose steeply and was covered with hard-packed snow, making it very treacherous. Fortunately we were able to find a way round it on soft grass, which was much less slippery.

The sun was getting low as we descended, with golden light on Stobinian to the north.

From the road at the bottom we had a good view of Ben Lomond in the setting sun.

Ophrydium

On Thursday I went up Ben Venue. Close to the summit (which can be seen in this picture) there is a small pond which sometimes dries out.

Below is a photo of the pond taken early in the year, looking the other way, towards the trig point which is at the second top of the hill.

In this small pond I noticed some greenish masses and I thought this would be something to interest Fred so I tried to collect some. This proved difficult, as it kept slipping out of the collecting tube, so I used a bag instead.

Under the microscope, this turned out to be tiny protozoa, each containing green algae. We identified them as Ophrydium, though this usually grows in a much more defined greenish spherical jelly-like lumps. Maybe this was an old colony.

The creatures have tiny beating hairs at the front...

...and a long point at the rear.

Our videos:

See also:

Green jelly balls of Ophrydium versatile

Droplet: amateur microscopy of the Protozoa

Protist Information Server

Size dependence of composition, photosynthesis and growth in the colony forming freshwater ciliate, Ophrydium versatile. Freshwater Biol. 31: 121-130

Some notes on an uncommon colonial peritrichous protozoon, Ophrydium versatile (O.F.M.). E.D. Hollowday. Microscopy 32, July-December 1975

Mountain rescue

Yesterday I went up Ben Venue with a group. The weather was fine and quite warm, though it clouded over at times. Ben Venue is in the Trossachs, a popular area of forest walks and hills to the north of Glasgow.

There are two main routes up Ben Venue. I had done the western route about a month ago, but this time we started the ascent from the east, passing to the south of the hill and making only the final ascent from the west.

Ben Venue has two tops. Below is the view from the summit cairn (729m) looking south-east towards the trig point (727m) which is marked as the summit on some maps.

From the cairn, some of us walked across to the trig point where we had our lunch. Below is the view back to the cairn.

While we were sitting by the trig point, we saw that somebody had fallen down a small rocky slope and had not got up again. A number of people were attending to her. We realised that these were members of our group who had taken a different route. This group included a doctor who was concerned about a head injury the lady had suffered, so a mobile phone was used to call for help.

We could hardly believe it when a helicopter appeared after only 15 minutes.

The helicopter was an air ambulance which happened to be in the vicinity, but it had no winch so it had to find somewhere to land on the hill. We were amazed at the skill of the pilot who managed to land on a very small flat area between the rocky outcrops about 30m from the casualty.

The casualty was then placed on a special stretcher which could be inflated to immobilize her as there were concerns that she might have a neck injury. She was then carried to the helicopter.

While this was going on, the pilot checked on where she could be taken.

After a short time, the helicopter took off.

It would take only about 15 minutes to fly her to the hospital.

Later we heard that she needed some stitches to a wound in her scalp, but had no major injuries.

We are very grateful for the fantastic level of help we received from the emergency services.