Walkhighlands

Just as with our recent Dun Rig round this was a another quiet day of sun and skylarks with barely a soul to be seen. Parked up at the end of the road which threads for several miles south west along Ettrick Water - there is space for about 4 cars. A helpful sign "Ettrick Horseshoe and Bodesbeck Law" pointed the way along a grassy plantation road. Shortly afterwards the path split next to a broken signpost - we took the right fork to Bodesbeck Law. The track soon emerged from the trees and the day's first top came into view.



The top was quickly reached - a good vantage point for the Moffat hills to the West.


I can see why some versions of this horseshoe miss out Bodesbeck as a fair amount of height is lost and only slowly regained.

There is a fence to follow all the way and we stayed on the right of it as it wound its way over Fauldside Hill, White Shank, Smidhope Hill and eventually to Capel Fell. This top seemed to be unmarked but did afford a good view to Croft Head which looked interesting.

Soon we were quickly descending to Ettrick Head where we crossed the Southern Upland Way. The stile made a very handy picnic table with us sitting on either side of the border.


The direct way up Wind Fell looked a bit steep so we trended right to avoid the peat hags and headed in the direction of Windfell Nick, later curving around to the top.

The top of Wind Fell was only marked by a fence stump in the bog - not very inspiring - but we did have a nice chat about the merits of smaller hills with the only other walker we met that day. In contrast the cairn on Hopetoun Crag was a much better affair - the haze was getting less now and White Coomb range was more clearly visible compared to earlier.

And then it was on to Ettrick Pen, its top marked by a rough cairn, before picking our way over grassy slopes westwards to hit the gap in the plantation.


This took us down to Phawhope bothy and a short walk up the Potburn track back to the car.

Fab ! I had been wondering how to tackle these hills and this route looks the way to go (maybe next winter).

Cheers LS. I think with a little extra effort you could include Loch Fell in the same outing. Croft Head looks a bit too separate a hill, though it would be interesting to devise a route which combined Loch Fell and Croft Head from Ettrick Head.