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.....