Trossachs National Park
Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park was established in 2002 as Scotland's first national park, protecting a landscape of lochs, mountains, ancient woodlands and river valleys that stretches from the southern shores of Loch Lomond to the high peaks of the central Highlands. The park covers approximately 1,865 square kilometres and encompasses an extraordinary diversity of landscapes within a relatively compact area, making it one of the most accessible areas of wild country in Britain for the large population of central Scotland that lives within an hour's drive of its boundaries. The Trossachs, a small but dramatically beautiful area of wooded hills and rocky lochs at the park's heart, gave the national park its name and were among the first Scottish landscapes to attract tourism on a significant scale. Sir Walter Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake, published in 1810, set its action in the Trossachs around Loch Katrine and sparked an immediate wave of visitors seeking the landscape Scott had described. The visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822, orchestrated by Scott himself, further stimulated interest in Highland scenery and established the pattern of romantic tourism that has continued in various forms to the present day. The park contains 21 munros, mountains over 3,000 feet, as well as numerous lower peaks that provide excellent hill walking for all abilities. Ben Lomond, the most southerly munro in Scotland, rises directly from the eastern shore of Loch Lomond and is one of the most climbed mountains in Scotland, its path from Rowardennan carrying thousands of walkers to its summit each year. The views from the top across the loch and south toward the industrial central belt make clear the park's position on the edge of the Highland Boundary Fault, the geological divide between the Highlands and the Lowlands. Wildlife is abundant throughout the park. Red deer are common on the open hillsides, ospreys fish the lochs and larger rivers in summer, and the rivers and streams support healthy populations of Atlantic salmon and sea trout. The native woodland remnants scattered through the park, particularly the old oakwoods of the Loch Lomond shores, are of ecological importance for the species they support and the sense they give of the pre-agricultural landscape of Scotland.