Hill of Alyth and Hill of Loyal

12 July 2017

 

Participants: Neil and Ben

Where: Hill of Alyth, 300m/984', Hump, OS 53, NO 237 505 and Hill of Loyal, 274m/899', Tump, OS 53, NO 252 502

 

I'd been thinking about climbing Hill of Alyth for a while, situated at the eastern edge of the Grampians it had to be a good viewpoint. The route descriptions that I had read say that you should park in the main car park in Alyth; however, a look at Google Earth the night before suggested that there was a parking spot at the end of the road that went to the Lands of Loyal hotel and which was the start of the track up the hill. And indeed there was. The track started steeply uphill and there was a good view back down to the village with the Sidlaw hills that run between Dundee and Perth in the distance.....
 

 

Once on Alyth Hill itself, there were a number of grassy paths all of which looked as though they would take us in the direction of the top. It wasn't too long until the trig and topograph came into sight; unfortunately, the topograph had lost its indicator panel so I had to rely on my own knowledge of the highland hills to identify the many peaks in view. This is looking north with Cat Law prominent.....

Ben Vrackie above Pitlochry is framed by the two structures.......
 

 

There was also an old metal seat from where there was a fine view of Strathmore and the Sidlaws......

and if I twisted round I was looking directly at Ben Lawers on the western horizon with Schiehallion to the top right of the photo (half hidden by the single tree) with the Carn Mairg group in between.....
 

 

The trig is not on the highest point of the hill, that is a few hundred yards further on beyond a dip in the ridge.....
 

 

Ben is sitting close to what seems to be the highest point with the eastern vista beyond.....
 

 

Another view to the Sidlaws.....

Glen Isla and Cat Law......

And again from slightly back towards the first top.....
 

 

After resting on the seat for a while, we set off down. This is the next objective was Hill of Loyal.....

so it was back to the gates at the col between the two hills. There was ample evidence as we climbed up that there were cows about but there was no sign of the beasts themselves. The summit area was featureless.....

and the views an inferior variety of those from Hill of Alyth. The only new view was looking east .....

Hill of Alyth from Hill of Loyal.....

We didn't linger. All was going well until I suddenly spotted a herd of cows and calves below us, heading purposefully for the gate in the fence that we needed to get through. They also spotted us and were looking a bit unfriendly so I decided that we had better avoid them. What to do? We went back up the hillside and moved parallel to them to try and get to the gate first but it soon became obvious that that was not going to work. So we about turned, went higher still out of sight of the cows and headed back over some very rough ground in the direction that the herd had come from. It was an extremely rough traverse taken at as fast a speed as I could muster but we did get away from them and were able to descend to where I eventually found a part of the fence that I could get Ben under. And the irony was that when we eventually got back to the col there was no sign of the cows; they must have wandered who knows where to another part of the hill. Who said that Tumps are simple hills to climb?