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Ochil Hills 10 from Glendevon

Ochil Hills 10 from Glendevon


Postby Derek Wardlaw » Fri Apr 04, 2014 10:57 pm

Fionas included on this walk: Ben Cleuch

Donalds included on this walk: Ben Cleuch, Blairdenon Hill, Innerdownie, King's Seat Hill, Tarmangie Hill

Sub 2000' hills included on this walk: Dumyat

Date walked: 23/03/2014

Time taken: 8 hours

Distance: 30.7 km

Ascent: 1404m

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Start at Castlehiil Dam car park at Glendevon, cross the main road at the east end of the car park and follow the single track road for Glenquey Dam, after a while you reach a split in the road, head straight on here as the right hand road heads to a farm that you can see on your right,continue on till you come to a gateway with a "Private Road" sign on it where no vehicles are allow past, walk through this gateway for a short distance where you will see a fingerpost on the right in the verge, the sign directs you to veer off the road at this point to take the path to Glen Sherup, follow this path slightly down hill towards a small stream that leads out from the Glenquey Dam overflow, ahead you will see a small wooden bridge that crosses this stream, cross and follow the path till you come to a gate, go through the gate and you will find yourself next to a landrover track, head left along the landrover track for a couple of hundred yards till you come to a gate that is padlocked on the left that would (if you could go through it) take you down to the Dam sluice, when level with this gate continue along the landrover track for approx another 20m where you will see a grassy path heading off to the right, take this path and follow up through a small lightly wooded area with Innerdownie Hill now up ahead, continue to follow this clear grassy path for a good distance where you will come to a junction in the path, one path continues straight ahead and one veers off up hill to the right, take the path that veers to the right and continue uphill, this path should be followed all the way to the top where you will see Innerdownie Hill summit, you can choose to leave the path near the top and head straight for the cairn or you can just continue to follow the clear path to the broad ridge and head back to Innerdownie Hill cairn, on a clear day the views are tremendous in all directions.

From Innerdownie Hill cairn head southwest following the wall on your right as you look towards The White Wisp your next port of call, follow the wall for some distance on the clear path till you approach a wooded area on your right on the other side of a fence, this is where the wall becomes a deer fence, follow the deer fence all the way to a high stile where the fence joins another fence, cross the stile and follow the path straight up a gentle slope, following this path for a very short distance will take you to The White Wisp cairn.

From the White Wisp cairn, look west towards your next target Tarmangie Hill with its obvious cairn, follow the clear path west and you will reach a fence, hop over the fence and continue on the path till you reach a wall, follow the wall now or some distance till you reach a new swing gate on the right, go through this gate and follow the path to Tarmangie Hill summit cairn, if the visibility is good, then you will be treated to great views down Glen Sherup and looking south west you will see you next target of The Kings Seat, you will also see Ben Cleuch off in the distance.

From Tarmangie Hill cairn follow the path southwest for 20m or so to the gate and the wall, go through the gate and now follow the wall west till you come to a corner in the wall, at this corner leave the wall and head down the clear path downhill, head downhill till you come to a stream where if you look across you will see a path that leads steeply up the side of The Kings Seat, cross this stream and head up that path, this gets fairly steep but continue on up and the path becomes clearer till you reach the broad plateau on top of The Kings Seat Hill, follow the path and it starts to head south naturally towards The Kings Seat cairn which is a large shelter cairn and also a second rough cairn that sit side by side.

Once at the cairn, head back the way you came for a distance, you pass a small pool on your right (this however dries out in Summer but leaves a mark where it usually is) pass this and you will come to a junction in the path, take the right hand path, this if followed leads down to a sort of beallach between The Kings Seat Hill and your next target of Andrew Gannel Hill, as you head down it steepens till you reach a fence, cross the fence and a soft wet area where you will see a path heading up Andrew Gannel in front of you, head up this sometimes wet if clear path and you start to gain some height again, continue on up this path where you will eventually reach a plateau area with no cairn, but if you walk southwards along the plateau path for 20 or 30 yards there are some rocky cliff type outcroppings, this is Andrew Gannel Hill summit, if visibility is good and you look slightly northwest from here you will see your next target of Ben Cleuch.

From Andrew Gannel you will see a path that heads northwest and a fence, follow the fence line for a couple of kilometres and you cant go wrong, it takes you down into a wet area then gently rises again all the time following the fence line, you may now be getting views north and the southern Highlands starting to show, but continue along the fence line till you reach a corner in the fence, jump over the fence and continue to head west up the fence line again which will take you directly to Ben Cleuch Summit cairn at 721m the highest top in the Ochil Hills Range where there is a shelter cairn and a map cairn showing directions for all the visible mountains that can be clearly seen from Ben Cleuch on a clear day, great views of Ben Vorlich, Stuc a'Chroin and Ben Ledi in particular but if you take the time to study you can see Ben More at Crianlarich and also the Ben Lawers Range, even the Glen Lyon and Blair Athol Munros can be seen from here too.

If you now look northwest from Ben Cleuch summit you can see the next target of Ben Buck, it doesn't look much from here and doesn't look that far away either, in truth it isn't far, just follow the fence line again from Ben Cleuch cairn ( the same fence you just followed up to Ben Cleuch) for a few hundred yards and you will come to a stile, cross the stile and follow the path that again follows the fence and heads north this time, this takes you to the small and inconspicuous cairn of Ben Buck, although not a particularly spectacular hill the views north to the higher mountains of the highlands can be quite impressive.

From Ben Buck cairn you can see your next target to the northwest, that being Blairdenon Hill, to get to Blairdenon Hill from Ben Buck it is advisable to follow a path that heads west and downhill, dont be tempted to head straight for Blairdenon as there is a large area of particularly wet peat bog between the two hills that looks like you could just walk straight across, I would suggest you don't attempt this due to experience and instead follow the path downhill west as suggested, follow this path to a low area where you meet a landrover track coming up from the glen, at the landrover track follow it right for a short distance where you will see a faint path breaks off to the right which skirts the outer edge of the substantial peat bog as you continue in a westerly direction, some parts are really quite wet here and a bit of creative walking is required as you are basically following a faint quad track, keep your eye on this track and follow it till you meet another faint quad track coming from the left, join this track now and it starts to head right, keep following this as it sometimes meanders a little but persevere and the track does eventually get a bit clearer and now appears to be heading in the right direction towards Blairdenon Hill, continue to follow what now becomes a clearer path up the gentle slopes where you come to a gate in a fence, cross the gate and follow the path upwards, continue up till you come to a small cairn, bypass this cairn and continue to follow the path northwest to the true summit of Blairdenon Hill, you eventually come to a fence where you will see the small cairn across the fence, jump over to the cairn, this is the true summit cairn of Blairdenon Hill, this is the furthest outlier of todays walk, so now you can look south from the cairn towards the second last hill of the walk, Colsnaur Hill, with its distinctive pointed cairn in the distance, and over south west you can now see Dumyat and Lossburn Reservoir if the visibility is good.

From Blairdenon Hill cairn head over the fence in a southward direction where you follow the fence downhill, you come to a right angle in the fence half way down but just continue to follow this fence down till you reach the lowest part where there is a ditch to cross, cross the ditch up the slope and continue to follow the fence that heads south towards Colsnaur Hill, after following this fence along a usually soggy faint path the fence eventually becomes a wall, follow this wall on your left with Bengengie Hill's pointed top on your left for a couple of kilometres to Colsnaur Hill summit cairn with its good shelter area at the foot of the cairn,

From Colsnaur Hill cairn you now head southwest on a path that heads downhill, follow this path down, the path is clear and eventually comes to an open gate that;s a bit wet, go through this gate and continue to follow the clear path downhill, you will notice that as you head down this path you are now losing a lot of height and Dumyat is across the glen in front of you, continue downhill till you reach a very good clear landrover track, once at the landrover track you head right up the landrover track, continue to follow the meandering landrover track for a few kilometres, the track heads up and down a few times to avoid some steep sided gulleys but eventually levels out and peters out to to a grassy path that heads past a small ruin on your left, but if you look further west there is a larger ruin called Jerragh, follow the path downhill towards this ruin, once you reach this ruined farmhouse and outbuildings you will see the path passes through a gateway in the boundary wall and heads further downhill where you arrive at a wooden gate with a bridge crossing a small ravine, follow this path across the bridge to an area of some other lowly ruins, pass these and head for the corner of the field westwards and Lossburn Dam where you can cross the river and head up the rough stoned landrover track southwards towards the direction of the last hill of the walk, Dumyat, walk up this landrover track till you come to a "T" junction some 200 yards up from the river you just crossed, at this point head straight on off the landrover track, don't take the landrover track left as this will lead down to Menstrie, and don't go right either as this goes alongside the Lossburn Dam and out to the Sherriffmuir road, head straight on in to a swampy area with a faint wet path through it heading up the north side of Dumyat, as you proceed through the wet area the path ahead becomes clearer, just continue to follow this path and it starts to steepen as you go up Dumyat but the path is very clear now, continue to follow this till you reach Dumyat summit cairn and some splendid views of the Forth Valley and Stirling with Wallace's Monument prominent.

From Dumyat summit cairn follow the path west and downhill, the path is very clear and very eroded by the huge amount of walkers Dumyat attracts, just continue to follow this clear path all the way for a few kilometres where you will eventually reach a fence and the Sherriffmuir road where there is limited car parking space, this is the end of the walk, the walk just completed took in 10 Ochils and was 30.7 kilometres (19.1 miles) in length.......you will now need a good rub down and your bed....lol
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Derek Wardlaw
 
Posts: 10
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Sub 2000:8   Hewitts:1
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Re: Ochil Hills 10 from Glendevon

Postby pollyh33 » Fri Mar 18, 2016 10:02 pm

I feel that you should have put a bit more detail into this report Derek- very sketchy! :roll:

PS it's all very well walking 18 miles but how did you get home???
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pollyh33
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Re: Ochil Hills 10 from Glendevon

Postby Derek Wardlaw » Tue Jul 21, 2020 7:40 pm

Dropped off at Glendevon then picked up at the car park for Dumyat.. 👍
Derek Wardlaw
 
Posts: 10
Munros:282   Corbetts:70
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Re: Ochil Hills 10 from Glendevon

Postby Dave Hewitt » Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:47 pm

Good effort - a decent day out. A few notes on this given that bits and bobs have changed since it was written in 2014.

The high stile just before Whitewisp now has a gate alongside it - very useful as the stile could feel precarious at times especially on a wet and windy day in November. When the WTS first put the stile in it didn't have a platform on top and was quite a dodgy affair in such conditions. Much easier now with the gate, anyhow.

On King's Seat you can save a bit of energy by not going along to the big double cairn at the far end of the plateau, as the summit is at the near end - there's now an obvious (smaller) cairn there. To get from Andrew Gannel (where the fence end of the little plateau is seemingly a metre higher than the crag end) to Ben Cleuch the shortest/driest way isn't that described, ie beside the fence, but what tends to be known locally as "the short cut" - cross the fence to join an ATV track the north side and follow this until level with Cleuch summit, where you just cross back over. This is a couple of minutes quicker in walking terms and avoids the main wet areas.

However, having said that, the OP's route omits one of the Donald Tops, namely the Law, and this can easily be visited en route from Andrew Gannel to Ben Cleuch. To do this, follow the OP's route to beyond the boggy dip, then look for a grassy path forking L - this swings round pleasantly to the Law. Then just cross the fence at Law summit and take the standard route to Ben Cleuch and you're back on the route given. Not far beyond Andrew Gannel you can also make the very minor diversion to the tiny (but with a good view) summit of Whum Hill for a bonus 2000er.

Once beyond Ben Buck and through the col with the main track in it (escape route to Alva here), it's also possible to easily add on Craighorn - just a ten-minute diversion for another nice summit. After Blairdenon, the easiest ground to get to Colsnaur is probably to carry on a couple of minutes to the dip for Greenforet Hill (the Tiger Moth wreckage and memorial in the dip adds interest), then cross the fence and head south from there - this is better ground that the direct route. Once up the far side of the burn/fence slope, angle across left to the main wall and as mentioned there's a path there leading to Colsnaur - this path seems to have improved in recent years for some reason.

If not wanting to take in Dumyat, there are a couple of very nice and easy descent options to Menstrie from Colsnaur. Also if not wanting to take in Dumyat, from Blairdenon possibly the best of all ways off is to head for Bengengie (briefly squelchy at the main dip), then along the lovely grassy ridge to Mid Cairn and so eventually to the sharp little top of Torry or Wee Torry directly above Alva - one of the best of all Ochil summits and the turning point in possibly the most brutal short hill race in the country. From Torry, don't go down the race route unless you're feeling brave, rather retreat briefly and go down the obvious grassy gully to the east and thus to the lower reaches of Alva Glen - if you can find the best path it takes you right down to the car park via the corner of the golf course.

Lots of good options, anyway. A very pleasant - and very accessible - range of hills.
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Re: Ochil Hills 10 from Glendevon

Postby LoveWalking » Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:10 pm

Dave Hewitt wrote: "the short cut" - cross the fence to join an ATV track the north side and follow this until level with Cleuch summit, where you just cross back over. This is a couple of minutes quicker in walking terms and avoids the main wet areas.

Thanks for the tip :)
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