Stronend

24 September 2010.

Participants - Just me
Where - Stronend, 511m/1,678', Sub-2,000' Marilyn, Map 57, NS 629895

Steven was looking after Ben for a few hours (or should that be chewed up by Ben) so that I could get a hillwalk. The weather had changed from warm and unsettled to cool and bright and with superb visibility; autumn was definitely on the way. Stronend is the highest point of the prominent escarpment north of Fintry and provides an uninterrupted view of the hills of the Southern Highlands. This is it from the north.....

I was climbing it from the south however. I left the car in the Sports Centre car park in Fintry and took the private road to the Culcreuch Castle hotel. Stronend rises directly beyond the hotel.....

 Just before the hotel, I took a right turn and passed through Culcreuch farmyard which seemed to be full of barking dogs- fortunately constrained in kennels! It was obviously an "animal day" as I quickly came across a herd of cows with calves on the hillside which necessitated a detour. Having been charged by cows on a couple of occasions, I am very wary of them. Anyway, cows avoided, I was soon on the open hillside and a steep climb up the escarpment easily avoiding all the rocky bits. Looking back, there was a good view of Fintry......

The plateau when I reached it was gently sloping and a bit wet underfoot (the cairn is in the distance at the extreme north edge of the plateau)......

but a path of sorts followed the edge of the escarpment and kept to the hard and dry ground. This route also provided the views; across the Forth valley with Ben Lomond prominent.....

along the escarpment to the hills of the Southern Highlands.....

and there was also a view south east to the Carron Valley reservoir and Meikle Bin.....

There was a substantial cairn with plenty of shelter from the cold wind and a great view to the hills to the north.....

and it contained an unusual trig, I can't recall seeing one built of local stones before although I am sure that there must be others.....

I returned by the same route, again avoiding the cows. I was walking for 3 hours and 30 minutes and it was about 5 miles with c. 500m of ascent.

A new friend for the hills.....

12 September 2010. A new member has joined the team, but as he is very young, it means that I probably wont get out to do many hills for the next few months. But after he grows a bit he'll be starting his own list of the Marilyns. His name is Ben and here he is.....

Black Mount and White Meldon

11/12 September.

Participants - Just me
Where - White Meldon, 427m/1,402', Sub-2,000' Marilyn, Map 73, NT 219428; Black Mount, 516m/1,692', Sub-2,000' Marilyn, Map 72, NT 080459

 It was back to the Borders for another MBA meeting and I again took the opportunity to climb a couple of the sub-2,000' Marilyns. I think that this area looks particularly fine at this time of year when the leaves are starting to turn. Autumn was definitely coming- the swallows were gathering on the telephone wires so they will be starting their long journey to warmer climes soon. One other nature thing that I noticed during the weekend was the large number of bumble bees that were about; good to see as this was a species that was supposed to be on the endangered list not so long ago; it may still be in some parts of the country.

Anyway to the walking- this is White Meldon from the Meldon valley, just west of Peebles.....

This is an historically rich area and an information board provided details. "The Meldon valley was first settled 5,000 years ago by small farming communities who built their houses of timber. About 2,500 years ago, as the population increased and timber became scarcer, stone was used to build defences and circular houses. The valley was dominated by two hill forts- on the Black and on the White Meldon hills on either side of the valley. These forts provided protection for the valley people; the defences can still be seen as low earth banks round the circumference of these two hill forts. There is a bronze age burial cairn within the fort on top of White Meldon (although it is difficult to differentiate it from the stone cairn which has subsequently been built close to the summit of the hill)."

Here is a photograph of the hill fort; this is all that remains of a wall leading to the highest point which now contains a trig.....

This is the cairn near the top which supposedly is a mix of the bronze age cairn and a modern one.....

and here is the view that I got looking south over the Tweed valley.....

I suppose that the Black Mount is a distant outlier of the Pentland Hills; this is it from the west.....

And presumably it gets its name because of the amount of heather on its slopes, although I was able to avoid most of it by following sheep tracks and grassy tongues. Parking is a problem for this hill and I have found it best to tackle it from the north. There is space for a few cars at the entrance to a track close to Westfield farm; this track goes into the heart of the hill which can be climbed from any point on it. I opted to go up the west side, traverse the summit ridge and come down the east slopes back to the track.

This is the track close to the start, the route that I took followed the grassy spur towards the right of the picture.....

and this is looking back down to the start and across the valley to Dunsyre Hill.....

The sky to the west was getting very black, it was obviously chucking it down. Fortunately, the wind blew the cloud mostly from north to south and I only caught the edge of the rain; it was at its worst just as I reached the eroded trig which like on White Meldon stood on a small mound.....

But it had cleared again by the time I got to the east end of the surprisingly narrow summit ridge where there was a good view east to the Pentlands.....

Glas Bheinn Mhor

1 September 2010.

Participants - Just me
Where - Glas Bheinn Mhor, 570m/1,870', Sub-2,000' Marilyn, Map 32, NG 553258

 On a previous visit to Skye, I had thought that the Marilyn of Glas Bheinn Mhor must be a good viewpoint. It rises straight from the shores of Loch Ainort above the houses at Luib.....

Although the forecast was good and the cloud was well above the tops, there wasn't much in the way of blue sky and sunshine when I parked the car on the old road near a cattle shed. Steven had blisters on his feet so he stayed in the car. The hill looked a lot steeper from here than I thought that it was! The going low down was the usual mix of thick heather and grass and bog but to be honest, I was more concerned at avoiding eye contact with a Highland bull and its followers that appeared to be free ranging across the lower slopes. I therefore made a wee diversion to the east slopes and joined the ridge about the 200m contour. Once on the ridge, the going was excellent on short cropped heather and higher up on short grass. Must be a rare occurence on a Skye hill! I soon reached the remains of a dyke and folowed it all the way to the summit. This is looking down the ridge to the start at Luib; Dun Caan on Raasay is prominent.....

The views were all that I expected, pity that the light was a bit flat for photographs. This is the cairn.....

this is looking towards the Glamaig group.....

towards Sgurr nan Gillean with Marsco in front of it.....

looking down on Strath Mor and Loch Slapin....

and the view that I was most looking forward to- towards Belig and Garbh-bheinn with Blaven beyond. Garbh-bheinn is the only Corbett that I have still to climb on Skye and I was able to get a good look at its north ridge which would probably be the ascent route.....

This was a straightforward up and down route which took me 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Sgurr na Coinnich and the Kylerhea ferry

31 August 2010.

Participants - Me and Steven
Where - Sgurr na Coinnich, 739m/2,424', Graham, Map 33, NG 762222

 We were doing a mix of sightseeing and walking, staying at Balmacara. I had often looked up at the Kylerhea Grahams when I had been passing through Kyle of Lochalsh but had never got round to climbing them; I was going to partly rectify that today. We had got a distant view of them from Eilean Donan castle on the drive up the day before.....

So we drove over the Skye bridge, took the narrow road that goes to Kylerhea and parked at the highest point of the road at the Bealach Udal. Opening the car doors, we were met by a cloud of midges! It had been frosty during the night and I thought that that might have started to kill them off but they seem to be resistant little buggers. So we wasted no time in getting the boots on and setting off up the rough hillside, trying to avoid the worst of the heather. Fortunately, the ground got easier the higher we got, although it was pretty dire going for the first 150m or so of the ascent. This is the view we got as we approached the summit of Sgurr na Coinnich the first and higher of the two Grahams on the north side of the road.....

The second Graham, Beinn na Caillich, lies just to the north but there is a fair drop between the two and it is a rough looking ascent and of course it all has to be repeated on the way back. This is it from Sgurr na Coinnich with Loch Duich on the left.....

As I am not intending to do all the Grahams, I didn't bother carrying on to it. Wonder if that will come back to haunt me!? Anyway, here I am at the summit of Sgurr na Coinnich with Kyle and the Skye bridge in the background.....

This is the view down to Kyle from just beyond the summit.....

and this is a zoomed shot of the bridge.....

We returned by the same route; it was a round trip of 2 hours and 45 minutes and the midges were still there when we got back to the car. The rest of the day was spent touring. We visited the otter hide at Kylerhea but the animals were not at home. I had particularly wanted to cross back to the mainland by the ferry at the Kylerhea Narrows, the earliest regular crossing point between the mainland and Skye. The ferry here is the last turntable ferry in use in Scotland and originally served the crossing at Ballachulish. I remember using that crossing when I was a kid so I guess that I had travelled on that boat- the Glenachullish- before. It is certainly a throwback to an earlier era, so different from the CalMac ferries of today! Here are a couple of pictures of the ferry.....

On the way back, we also stopped in Glenelg where I took a picture of the two Grahams- Sgurr na Coinnich is the one on the left.....

Druim na h-Earba

30 August 2010.

Participants - Just me
Where - Druim na-h-Earba, 288m/944', Sub-2,000' Marilyn, Map 41, NN 090713

 We were on our way to Skye for a few days. I like to break up the journey; going this route I usually stop at Corran, take the ferry which is free for foot passengers and have an hour's leg stretch in Ardgour. But sometimes I like to vary this by doing an easy Marilyn and Druim na h-Earba falls into that category. This is the view from Ardgour looking up Loch Linnhe; Druim na h-Earba is the small pointed peak in the distance to the left of the boat.....

There is a parking area at a picnic spot at the high point of a side road that leaves Fort William at the first roundabout entering the town from the south. The parking was at a height of about 130m so a lot of the climb was accomplished in the drive. From the picnic area, a rough footpath has developed that goes to the trig and as might be expected from its position overlooking the loch, the views were excellent. This is looking down Loch Linnhe towards Corran.....

looking across the loch to the Corbett of Stob Coire a'Chearcaill.....

looking to Ben Nevis with the zig-zags of the tourist track visible.....

and looking back down on Fort William.....

It was a nice day so I sat around at the trig for a while before going back down to the car to continue the journey. It was a good hour's break from driving.