Innerdouny Hill

14 August 2011.

Participants - Neil and Ben
Where - Innerdouny Hill, 497m/1,630', Sub-2,000' Marilyn, Map 58, NS 687918

I hadn't planned on going walking today but the weather turned out better than was forecast. So having decided to go, the next question was where? I am fast running out of local-ish Marilyns that are suitable for Ben and that I have not blogged; the fact that the forecast was much better for the east of the country narrowed the choice even further. In the event, I opted for Innerdouny Hill, the most eastern of the Marilyns in the Ochil hills. I had done it before and it provided a nice short day mostly on a forest track which was an advantage after all the recent rain. Although the map shows the hill covered in trees, the actual summit area is in fact clear and there is no problem getting to the top and there is a bit of a view.

I drove through the Hillfoot villages and took the Dunning road at Yetts o'Muckhart. There was space for a few cars at the entrance to the forest at Littlerig; mine was the only one parked there today so it looked like we would have the hill to ourselves. There was a lot of forestry work taking place in the lower reaches of the forest; you can see the summit that we were aiming for peaking out above the trees in the following two pictures.....

 Like a number of these forested hills, the track sloped gently up across the hillside so that you actually approach the top from the opposite direction that you started from. The first part of the forest had been cleared but higher up it remained as I remembered it....

At the highest point of the track just before it started to go downhill again, there was a good gap in the trees; the ground wasn't too rough and there were traces of a path.....

We crossed an old wall (a few stones were missing so no problem for Ben) and just beyond that could see the trig.....

The cloud had been building up and an obvious shower passed to the south but it remained dry for us. There was a reasonable view from here to Loch Leven and the Lomond hills.....

The sun came out again on the way back, this is looking to the hills on the other side of Glen Devon including Ben Cleuch (distance right). There are lots of wind turbines in the Ochil hills now, together with the forestry this is getting to be quite an industrialised landscape.....

By the time we got back to the lower reaches of the track, it was a perfect summers day.....

We enjoyed our 5 mile walk.