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Phoineas Hill - woods, hill forts and tree houses!

Phoineas Hill - woods, hill forts and tree houses!


Postby Jaxter » Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:12 pm

Route description: Phoineas Hill, near Beauly

Date walked: 04/04/2021

Time taken: 1.25 hours

Distance: 4.91 km

Ascent: 124m

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I was feeling completely whacked after our 2 days in Torridon and could barely get out of bed until early afternoon. After some food Malky persuaded me out and he suggested a short walk near Kiltarlity on some nice easy forest tracks. It seemed like a good idea and being only a short drive away it wouldn't matter too much if we had to shorten the route.

We parked up in a large gateway and headed up the track - although the gradient was not steep, I was finding it very hard work
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Malky trying to find signal on his watch :lol:
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A walk through forestry had seemed a good idea for a day where the wind speed was a bit insane, and it was, until we popped out of the trees and I couldn't breathe :lol: But when we turned around, the views towards Beinn a' Bha'ach Ard and Strathfarrar were lovely 8)
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We slowly followed the tracks through the forest - there was nothing overly exciting but it was so nice to be doing a really short walk in a different place (I've walked around the Ness islands A LOT recently!)

There was a short out and back to the hill fort on the top of Phoineas Hill so we followed the track more steeply uphill - this was even harder work for me and Malky helped by pushing me uphill in an effort to try and help :lol:
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Looking towards Cabrich
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Finally at the top we were surprised to see a big radio mast, but a wee path around the side took us to the hill fort which was a pile of rocks with some almost views!
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Radio mast (or phone mast?)
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If I'd had more energy we could have continued along the ridge towards the trig point and some of the other lumps and bumps with more views, but for today this was a far as I was getting.

We had a bit of a breather and some water which gave me a bit of a break, and by the time we headed down I seemed to be feeling marginally better (or maybe it was just because we were going downhill now :lol: )

We saw a big tree house - we had seen one earlier but it was harder to get to! Not sure if they are bird hides or something else
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We decided to have a look... the views were good!
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It felt a wee bit unstable in the wind! We continued along the track, again largely downhill, before taking a slightly less obvious path which would cut back across to where we had started. There were a couple more of the tree houses along here
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The next section was a little trickier as we had to use a fallen tree to cross a burn (actually easier than it looked, but could definitely be slippery when wet)
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Some wooden planks led us safely through some slightly boggy ground before climbing out onto the track we had started out on
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Back at the car it was an easy drive back home where I returned to the sofa for the rest of the day. Malky had been right - it was goo to get out, but I was shattered, again :roll:
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Jaxter
Wanderer
 
Posts: 1486
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Wainwrights:81   Islands:35
Joined: Aug 8, 2011
Location: Glasgow/Inverness

Re: Phoineas Hill - woods, hill forts and tree houses!

Postby BlackPanther » Tue Jun 15, 2021 5:43 pm

You should have popped in for tea :wink:

I used to cycle from Beauly to this hill to jog in the forest but gave up after most of the trees were cut down. It looks so sad now.
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BlackPanther
Mountain Walker
 
Posts: 3839
Munros:268   Corbetts:182
Fionas:136   
Sub 2000:75   
Joined: Nov 2, 2010
Location: Beauly, Inverness-shire

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