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Heavy rain and dark grey skies on the 1hr drive over to Moray after lunch, but my late start worked out well as it stopped raining by the time I started the first walk - in fact, not just stopped raining, but grey skies turned to blue. With so many people getting into trouble on big mountains this last week or so, I'd decided to stick to safe walks and mop up these couple of unexciting local marilyns at last.
I read reports of doing Hill of the Wangie from the north and south but not the west (there maybe is one there, and to be honest I'd be surprised if there isn't, it's a good easy route). It looked like a good option on the map and so it proved in reality. I'd assumed it would take a bit longer, but it seems the majority of people's walk times have been spent wandering around fire breaks at the top trying to locate the trig point! Now that the trees are currently felled there, it isn't an issue hence was a much quicker walk than I expected, so I made the walk to the next hill, Burgiehill a little longer to compensate.
Hill of the Wangie:
1hr, 5km, 125m ascent
- Start of forestry track, next to Hill Cottage.
- Followed the track through a couple of gates across a field and back into woods, continued on until the track branched here, taking the left one.
- View south over Dallas
- Trees looked like they were finishing up ahead. From this point, it's not far to where I turned up to the left.
- Left the track here and took this path / mountain bike route up through the trees. Came out on the top area of the hill which had been conveniently felled of trees.
- No trouble finding the trig point just now.
- Even without the trees, there aren't great views from the 'summit', but Ben Rinnes is visible at least
- Rather than head back down to the forestry track by the MTB path I'd taken up, I took this rough, wider track down which pretty much ran parallel to the MTB route.
- Returned back to the car the same way, getting a good view over to Burgiehill where I was heading off to next.
Burgiehill
2hrs, 11.3km, 200m ascentBurgiehill can be done in an under an hour and with barely any ascent if parking by the start of the access track to the transmitters, but it was nice weather and I had time to do a slightly longer walk, so I just did it from the B9010 as I headed back from Hill of Wangie rather than detouring to park closer.
- Parked in the layby /parking area at the junction of the B9010 with the minor road to Pluscarden Abbey and walked up the Pluscarden road.
- Turned left up the Burgiehill road, with it's lovely old sign ...they don't specify distances that accurately now!
- The single track road climbed then flattened out; shortly after that I took this track on the left. The sign implies forestry work needs access but I didn't see any evidence of it being current - and there's room to park on the other side of the road a few metres away anyway. So this is where the route would normally start for bagging Burgiehill, just follow the track...
- ...which goes all the way to the transmitter compound at the top of the hill
- The trig point is on the east side of the compound (though ground a few metres away looked slightly higher to me). No views from here though.
- Heading back down from the transmitters, there were views back over to Hill of the Wangie and, beyond it to the right, Ben Rinnes.
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Not an epic mountain day by any stretch of the imagination, just a couple of easy walks on forestry tracks... but still nice to turn a couple of red balloons to blue
