Dave Hewitt wrote:Interesting choice of route. Depends a bit on dryness or otherwise of ground (pretty dry just now), wind strength/direction etc, but if I was doing this in good summer conditions I’d probably go along the track past Lossburn reservoir, across to Jerah (nice spot), then pick up a grassy ATV tyretrack path that goes up on to or at least high on the 541m bump NW of Colsnaur. Can’t recall the exact line, but there are several grassy tracks around here and you’ll likely find one heading uphill. Once up, you’ll find that the section west of the Colsnaur fence/wall is rougher – tussocks, some heathery bog – but not too bad or too far. Then it’s not far across the head of the Balquharn glen to Bengengie, which is a fine summit – neat top above a crag.
To get to Cleuch from there, it’s not really worth trying to contour round the upper Alva Burn slopes – there’s no real problem, but it’s fiddly and at one point you have to cross just about the only awkward barbed-wire fence in the whole of the main bit of the Ochils. Better/easier to head north as if going to Blairdenon (path at first, then a bit squelchy) and then angle across at quite a high level to eventually pick up the sketchy path/track that skirts the southern edge of Alva Moss and eventually reaches the top end of the main track at the Craighorn/Ben Buck col. Then it’s just the standard walk over Buck and so to Cleuch.
One additional factor just now however is that they’re busy felling the plantation alongside the Lossburn track, at the very start of your route. When I was last there about a fortnight ago they’d felled about two-thirds of it. There didn’t appear to be any restrictions on access, but there might be machines around and the track might be a bit messy.
Have a good time, anyway – that whole area west of Alva Glen leading across towards Dumyat is interesting – and pretty quiet.
Thank you for taking the time to provide so much detail Dave, much appreciated. Your ideas on the route are pretty much what I suspected, especially in regards to heading north towards Blairdenon in order to get to the Cleuch.
Bengengie is a hill I have seen several times and thought that looks really interesting, I must do it some time, but we never get round to it. Silly really considering we do Myreton and Colsnaur regularly.
Is the plantation you refer to that is being felled next to the reservoir? As if heading back to Sherifmuir? What we plan on doing is camping near the reservoir before tackling a route to Bengengie, Ben Cleuch, Andrew Gannel, King's Seat and down to Dollar. However if there is heavy works in that area we may have rethink our overnight plan.
Eskimo