Greenside Law, Black Law, and a handful of tops

[jgregor]

We parked in the car park by the Megget Reservoir dam. We took a few minutes to go and look over the dam and read the information boards (at least the ones that could be read). Looked like being a nice morning for a hike.

Megget Reservoir

We walked along the road a short distance, then turned north up the track at Craigierig.

It was definitely warmer than had been forecast, even though there was a fair bit of cloud cover. It wasn't long before we were down to t-shirts and slapping on the sun cream!

Following Yair Sike up into the hills

We continued up the track until we reached the east side of Greenside Law. We then left the track and headed up to the top - a broad dome with the summit marked by a tiny 'cairn' (or a small pile of stones, depending on how you look at it ). Greenside forms the eastern side of the head of the valley formed by the Manor Water, from which this range takes its name. From here we had a good view over to it's larger neighbours, the Corbett-height Donalds, Dollar Law and Cramalt Craig.

Cramalt Craig

Notman Law

Looking down the Manor valley, and Posso Craig with its top in cloud

Looking over to Black Law

The Donald Tops Conscleuch Head and Deer Law

We descended back to the track at Foulbrig, where the springs of various tributaries of the Manor Water make for muddy going. We continued up the track a short way past Bitch Cleuch before heading onto the open hillside once again, turning north-east up Redsike Head and on up to Black Law.

Looking down Bitch Cleuch and over to Dollar Law

Part way up Black Law, looking back at Greenside Law

And looking the other way up at Black Law

The second, slightly higher top of Black Law is pretty flat. It is marked by another small cairn, though somewhat bigger than the one on Greenside. In all other aspects, the shorter Greenside has more character though!

The small cairn at the summit of Black Law, looking towards Dun Rig

With the Donalds done for the day, we made the detour along to Black Cleuch Head, a fairly nondescript and boggy summit near a gate, and the first of the Donald Tops on this hike.

The soggy summit of Black Cleuch Hill

From here it was back to Black Law, and then we turned south over to Conscleuch Head. Although a Donald Top, it's more of a bump on the way to Deer Law, with its true summit an unmarked clump of grass a bit west of the fence. It was then a short distance on to the more substantial top Deer Law.

Deer Law summit

We descended Deer Law to the south-west, following Cons Cleuch (which confusingly does not even touch Conscleuch Head), picking our way down using various sheep paths and breaks in the heather until we reached the track by the Glengaber Burn. Looking back we could see an ATV track coming down Deer Law further along its west side that would probably have made our descent a fair bit easier. Oh well!

We followed the track a mile and a bit down to the road at Glengaber, and then back up the road to the car park again.

View down to Megget Reservoir

Reaching the track following the Glengaber Burn

Syart Law

On the road back tot he Megget Reservoir car park