Ben Lawers

Ben Lawers (Scottish Gaelic: Beinn Labhair) is the highest mountain in the Breadalbane region of the Scottish Highlands. It lies north of Loch Tay and is the highest peak of the 'Ben Lawers group', a ridge that includes six other Munros: Beinn Ghlas, Meall Garbh, Meall Corranaich, An Stùc, Meall Greigh and Meall a' Choire Leith. It is also the highest peak in Perthshire, and the tenth highest Munro in Scotland. Ben Lawers was long thought to be over 4,000 feet (1,219 metres) in height, but accurate measurement in the 1870s showed it to be only 3,983 feet (1,214 m). (the figure of 3,983 ft is a conversion from metric - the surveyed height from the main triangulation has always been 3,984 ft on imperial maps published since the 1870s.

Ben Lawers is formed of metamorphic rock, most notably calcareous mica-schists, and lower down, schistose grits. Although only the 11th highest Munro, it is the second highest non-igneous peak after Aonach Beag, which owes its exceptional height to proximity to Ben Nevis (the other high igneous group being the Cairngorms). Ben Lawers stands out by around 100-200 metres from neighbouring massifs as an isolated landmark 30 km east of the main Highlands watershed along or near which comparably high peaks are ranged. This associates with its proximity to the major Caledonide Loch Tay Fault along which kilometric displacements have occurred; adjacent to this fault are other landmark peaks at Ben Vorlich and Beinn a'Ghlo. The summit of Ben Lawers is affected by a pair of conspicuous Rock Slope Failures, providing shelter in their landslipped recesses, havens for wildlife, and large debris masses in the south corrie which if reinstated could restore a pre-historic summit in excess of 4,000 ft.

Ben Lawers lies on the local watershed between the rivers Tay and Lyon. Since the 1950s, water has been captured from the numerous burns on the south face of Ben Lawers and Meall nan Tarmachan as part of the Breadalbane Hydro-Electric Scheme. The water is diverted to the Lochan na Lairige, from where it is piped to drive hydro-electric turbines at Finlarig on the banks of Loch Tay. The level of the Lochan na Lairige was raised by the construction of the 344-metre-long Lawers Dam, a buttress-type dam that is 42 m high.

Due to its high elevation and underlying geology, Ben Lawers is home to an exceptionally rich selection of arctic-alpine plant species and habitats. Since 1964, it has been designated as a National Nature Reserve (NNR).

There is much evidence of former settlements and other human activity on the southern slopes of Ben Lawers above Loch Tay. The fertile limestone and schist soils on these southern slopes have been farmed since very early times and there are many Bronze Age remains. The discovery of many boulders with cup and ring marks led Derek Alexander, an archaeologist for the National Trust for Scotland, to note that the Ben Lawers was likely to have been "a very significant landscape in prehistory".

Overgrown tracks climb up the mountain from the valley to the peat beds and sheilings on the hillside, and there are ruins of cottages each surrounded by a small group of trees. These, along with the remains of ridged pastures, are signs of early cultivation. This evidence of habitation, and the presence of huts associated with transhumance at high elevation, demonstrate that local people are likely to have visited most if not all of the summits of the Ben Lawers range whilst grazing animals at height during the summer. The mapmaker Timothy Pont visited the area 1590s, and writer Ian R. Mitchell considers that Pont's surveys show that he, or one of his associates, is likely to have climbed Ben Lawers, and should therefore be credited with earliest recorded ascent. Otherwise, the earliest recorded ascent was by members of a party organised by military surveyor William Roy: although it is not certain that Roy himself climbed the peak, his writings show that measurements were taken from the summit of Ben Lawers on 17 September 1776.

In 1878, a group of twenty men led by Malcolm Ferguson spent a day building a 6-metre-high (20 ft) cairn nearly 15 metres (50 ft) in diameter in the hope of bringing the summit above the "magic" figure of 4,000 feet (1,219.2 m). The cairn, which was topped with a massive block of white quartz is no longer there; in any case the Ordnance Survey ignored it as an artificial structure that was not truly part of the hill.

Prior to the 14th century, the mountain stood on the lands of Clan MacMillan. Chalmers of Lawers obtained the land by force from the clan in the mid-14th century in the reign of David II. The land was confiscated from the Chalmers family in 1473 by James III and given to Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy after Thomas Chalmers was implicated in the murder of James I. The lands have mainly remained in the ownership of the Campbells of Glenorchy and Breadalbane up to the present day, with some notable exceptions. Many of the farms were sold off in the late 1940s.^{[additional citation(s) needed]}