Lamington Hill, a good one in the snow

[gld73]

There had been very heavy snow in the Borders and Lanarkshire amongst other places, and having seen the pictures on the news in the morning, I didn't leave Edinburgh until late morning/lunchtime to give time for the main road to be cleared. Edinburgh itself was snow free, and the northern Pentlands were clear of cloud and not deep in snow when I passed by; I considered re-doing one of the hills there, but as I was heading to Cumbria I thought I might as well get a bit further down the road and do a hill I hadn't done before. I had 3 or 4 possibilities in mind, but as I drove on and hit stretches of the main road which still had snow and slush on, I decided I didn't want to venture off the A702 on to more minor roads which would be even worse, so settled on Lamington Hill from Lamington.

No phaffing about trying to find somewhere to tuck my car away on a verge, there was a nice car park just off the A702 next to one of the 2 churches in the village:

car park

Rather than walk back alongside the A702, I walked through the village on its still-snow-covered-road, so I just had a few metres of pavement walking beside the A702 before crossing over to the small church and through the little gate at the back of the churchyard mentioned in inca's walk report (thanks!) - the route I went up the hill basically followed that suggested route.

Several sets of footprints had taken the left fork, but only 2 sets of footprints were left further up by the time I was making my way up Lamington Hill

Helpful prompt that walkers should go left at this fork of the track, heading up through the woods. There's then another left at the next fork (though going right would still be okay, it would intersect with my return route I think).

Nice powdery snow and some useful stiles lay between me and Lamington Hill ahead

Once out of the trees there are 3 stiles or gates to cross. The snow was nice and powdery, about ankle deep, so not hard to walk through. Lamington Hill was up ahead, always nice to see what I'm aiming for. I was happy to see it wasn't in the cloud just now, unlike Tinto to the west.

Tinto (that's a low cloud covering it, not my glove in front of the camera)

Heading up the gentle slope to the summit, view back down the way I'd come

No views from Lamington Hill summit when I was there

With more time and clearer conditions it would have been nice to extend the walk, but I made do with a short stay at the cold summit before heading back down, the same way initially. The way up had been nice, but just to vary things a bit, rather than veer right to cross the stile / gate I'd crossed on the way up, I continued down the track (or what I hoped was the track under the snow) a bit more in a south-west direction to head down towards Baitlaws

Once down on the lower slopes I could look back and see that maybe the top was clearing a bit

I decided to aim roughly for the buildings at Baitlaws as I knew there would be a minor road heading back towards the village from there

From the field on the hillside I came out at a turning area or junction of tracks. I dithered whether to take the track to the right to stay on the north side of the burn or cross over the footbridge, eventually opting for the latter.

On this occasion I opted to go left here, over a footbridge. Another time I might try right.

Passing up through a field alongside a fence brought me out on the single track road :

Coming out on to the single track road to the Baitlaws buildings, I'd just come through that open gate on the left in this shot looking back (there was a snow covered sign next to it, which I wiped clear and saw it directed walkers through there)

Further down the road it forked. At this point I finally looked at my map as I couldn't tell if right was just a driveway to some houses. I saw that left would leave me with more walking alongside the A702 back to the car and that didn't really appeal (both because of it being a busy road, but also because I'd get splattered and soaked with dirty slush), and that right did go to a couple of houses but a footpath then continued on - so I went right. I did spend a few minutes wandering awkwardly around the gardens and driveways of the 2 houses though, thinking how suspicious I must look - with everything under snow I couldn't tell what was lawn, driveway, path or anything, and there were no footsteps to follow. Finally, after taking the plunge and walking across what I thought was maybe someone's private garden, I discovered it was the way to the path through the woods and down to the south side of the burn.

Coming to the bridge, I decided to turn right over it and rejoin my outward route, knowing that the way via the small church meant little time by the main road.

Turned right here to cross over the bridge

Reaching the small churchyard again

Nice view of Tinto from the village as I headed back to the car.

At last!

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It was only a short walk and under other circumstances, it would be nice to do a couple of the other local marilyns in the same day. But even on its own it's a nice hill, a good one to do in the snow, and with some options for varying routes up and down, so one I'll happily do again in future when I'm heading along the A702.