First solo hill walk

[MaxGruenke]

After years of walking fairly gentle hill and forest walks with my OH I decided it was probably time to strike out on my own for the day. Happily the car was in for a service, so while it was in the garage I headed out for a blast around this loop. We've done some fairly long distance walks previously but never usually get to do this length of hill walk due to time and fitness levels, so this was a fair test.

Having dropped the car in the village I extended the walk by roughly 8km as I needed to walk to the start point. Leaving the Co-op in West Linton I headed straight up past the golf club and headed all the way up to the gate just before the saw mill, to join the loop just shy of the stated start point. I turned right through the gate and headed across the bridge, following the Lyne Water briefly before turning slight left and began a gentle climb. Hopping over the fence I joined the farm track and headed back south, turning left when the path/quad bike track became visible to the left.

Following this track, I started the climb into the heavy cloud cover rounding Faw Mount and up towards the top of Mount Maw, keeping the fence line to my right up the fairly steep incline until i eventually came to the trig point. My views were far from spectacular, with visibility around 50ft at this stage. The sheep didnt seem too impressed with the weather either.

Bearing slightly right from the trig point I began a long, slow plod along the track, still keeping along the fence line, sweeping left then right to climb towards The Mount.

Annoyingly, the fence keeps you from heading to the cairn, but given the weather this wasn't too inconvenient. Stopped here for a quick pork pie and an iced coffee (thank you Co-op!) Before heading down the slope towards the first of two very boggy sections. Both are best navigated by skirting round to the left as with previous posts, this first section was particularly boggy, and I had to head significantly further west than the route plot suggests, eventually stumbling my way back to the path, to begin the climb up Wether Law, before dropping very steeply towards bog #2. This was a wider but more easily navigable area, with raised sections much closer together, allowing a fairly straightforward skip over after a short distance to my left.

Then began what felt like a 45° climb up what seemed more like an animal track, with stepped sections owing to the sheep who I presume were further away to the left than the 20ft I could see at this point. I kept pushing through the pain and the path gradually levelled, before a dry stone wall section appeared just to the right of the path, where I climbed again until the first of the 3 cairns I'd targeted. I stopped here for an update on my car's service (yes, you get pretty good signal the whole way!) Then continued towards East Cairn Hill. The fence cuts across the path to the Cairn, so I hopped this while taking care to not damage said fence - don't worry Mr. Farmer, and headed up to the massive, bowl-shaped Cairn. Was disappointing to not get the view, but there will be other days.

After this I headed west, taking the path to my right as I headed back towards the fence, and descended to the glorious plateau coming up to the Cauldstane Slap. I turned left here to take me the 5 miles back into West Linton, passing Baddinsgill Reservoir and what can only be described as a swarm of Pheasant Poults, who seemed very interested in me when I pulled a sandwich out of my bag (I quickly abandoned the lunch-eating attempt for fear of being pecked to death) seems I resemble their usual feeder!

Definitely one to do again on a clearer day, but I loved the challenge and had a fantastic time. Well worth spending £300 on the car for the privilege!