Ettrick Pen and Capel Fell

13 August 2013

Participants - Just me
Where - Ettrick Pen, 692m/2,270', Graham, Map 79, NT 199077 and Capel Fell, 678m/2.223', Graham, Map 79, NT 164069

It is donkey's years since I last walked in the Ettrick area. Looking for a day out, and with no new Marilyns to do (or at least ones that I fancied doing), I decided to pay a visit to Over Phawhope bothy, www.mountainbothies.org.uk, and renew acquaintance with a couple of the hills. I parked the car at the end of the public road, about a mile short of the bothy. Mine was the only car there. I know that these hills are less frequented than the hills further north but I was still surprised that I met no one else all day. It was still August after all! Anyway, I stopped for a while at the bothy and had a look around. It was clean and tidy....
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This is big forest country and the closeness of the trees give the place a bit of a gloomy feel. But all that will change soon as the Forestry folk are preparing to harvest the timber here. They are going to build a track to let them get the timber out so it could be a bit industrial around here for a while. Let's hope that they replace the sitka with some indigenous species. The route to Ettrick Pen led up a track through a wide fire break and then out onto the open hill. This is the view back to the bothy from high up; the bothy is beside the single tree in the middle of the photo. I hope that I'm not in the building if the tree is ever blown down!

There was a big cairn on Ettrick Pen at the junction of a number of fences.....

And expansive views, this is looking to the head of the Ettrick valley.....

My route was straightforward, follow a 4WD track along side the fence over Hopetoun Craig to Wind Fell, drop down to Ettrick Head and go up again to the second Graham, Capel Fell. Here are a few pictures.

Croft Head and Capel Fell from Hopetoun Craig.....

Capel Fell from a "stone man" on the col between Hopetoun Craig and Wind Fell.....

A look back at Ettrick Pen from Wind Fell.....

These hills are easy walking. However they sit at the edge of huge areas of Sitka forest that cover other hills. Imagine what it would be like if these hills also were clear of trees!

It only took 30 minutes to get from the low point of Ettrick Head to the top of Capel Fell- a hill without a summit marker. There is a short wooden stake in the ground west of the fence which might be the highest point but it's one of these tops where it really could be anywhere! Another Graham, Croft Head, lies to its west but I was too knackered to do it as well. Instead, I lounged about taking more pictures. Of Croft Head.....

North to the Moffat Corbetts of Hart Fell and White Coomb.....

West over the Moffat valley and across the M74 corridor to the hills of Galloway.....

and back across the Ettrick valley to Ettrick Pen.....

I then dropped back down to Ettrick Head, went along the forestry track back to the bothy and so back to the car. It is great walking country, maybe it's a good thing that so few folk visit it?