Some guide books recommend this route in preference to a path cutting straight across the shallow valley below the dam. So far you've had it easy, climbing from the car park at around 200m to the dam at about 520m in some 3.5km. This is half the total height you've got to climb. The rest now lies directly between you and the summit at 841m, but you climb it over a distance of 1km. While there's no evading the steepness of the pull up to the summit of Ben Vrackie from the dam, much of it is over superbly made paths barely visible from the valley below.
Opinions differ widely about the pros and cons of made paths.
There still remain a few stretches where you have to find your own way, and the erosion here proves beyond doubt the benefits of the made paths elsewhere. But this is certainly one of the easiest climbs of a mountain of this height you'll find, and the path leads you to within a few yards of the summit. Ben Vrackie's summit offers, on a good day, one of the best viewpoints in the southern highlands. North lies the mass of Beinn a'Ghlo with Glen Tilt and the vast wilderness of the Cairngorms beyond. Ben Vrackie isn't one of Scotland's most challenging mountains.