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Previously in my three-week hillwalking odyssey, I had ticked something off my bucket list by going on two completely separate hillwalks in the same day.
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=120350 It had finally got me to 10 mountains climbed this year, but I was looking to climb a couple more before my flight to Jakarta to be reunited with my wife and daughter. There wouldn't be time for a Munro this week, as I was meeting a load of people on Saturday to watch them eat steak (I prefer burgers) then hopefully climb Corserine with my uncle on Sunday. But would there be time for another first: an evening hillwalk after work?
Centre Court on Wimbledon is the easiest place on Earth to get some hearty laughter from a crowd. You just have to turn up and say "Hi!" to Sue Barker (well, it's Clare Balding now) and they go ecstatic.
If I know Roger then that watch is worth at least £8,700.
On Wednesday I met some old work friends for more burgers. I had a lot of burgers and stuff in these three weeks. My diet went to pot basically, but the hillwalks acted as the great balancer, reeling me back in health-wise. At least that's what I tell myself.
Andy Murray (my hero) is about to win the third set against Tsitsipas, and oh he's injured himself.
Still, he takes the third set, as Judy watches on concerned. Hopefully he can see this match out tomorrow when I'm climbing Windlestraw Law.
I had never been on evening hillwalk before, with the exception of one jaunt to Duncolm on a Friday night years ago. That was a lot of fun, but as this was a Fiona it felt like a bigger deal, and a great opportunity to shoehorn in an extra mountain when it shouldn't be possible. I nearly climbed it last Thursday (just before my non-stop weekend trip to the Mamores, a Mànran concert, Dalwhinnie and Blath Bhalg) but it would have been too ambititous. I'm not getting any younger frankly, and work on the Friday would have been brutal. So here I am a week later, working an 8am-4pm shift and hightailing it out of Glasgow on the M8.
I arrived on Wull Muir just before 5.30pm, and was very nearly wiped out by a tractor driving down the middle of the road. I seem to attract problems on the road at the moment. We didn't even have a car for five months (#Carmageddon) then I nearly got taken out the game by a camper van in Glen Nevis, and now this. I pulled over at a rough layby for an amazing view of Edinburgh.
The Scott Monument is just visible to the right. And in the first photo you can just about see the new hotel that looks a bit like a... erm, well, a.........
Just before 5.45pm I was parked at the layby for the quickest route up Windlestraw Law. it's midsummer, I don't have my usual Friday childcare issues and it's sunny, so if there's ever a time for an evening hillwalk, this is it!
The steepest part of this climb is the first bit, but the track is good and you start at over 280m, so within a few minutes you're past 400m.
Is that the summit I can see in the distance? After 15 minutes?
After a while the track breaks down into a couple of different (peaty) routes, then a fainter path higher up near the fence. Might not be pleasant after heavy rain, but we've had a fair amount of rain recently and it was still ok.
Ah, so it wasn't the summit I could see. Still, a good idea, especially in this weather.
I heard a buzz on my phone. Andy Murray had lost the last two sets against Tsitsipas.
Brilliant. An unintended consequence of smartphones is that they can accidentally ruin hillwalks (and many other things) with bad news. I should have muted FlashScore for the walk, but I forgot. Must remember next time...
There's the summit, through the gap in the fence and the shortcut path.
57 minutes from road to summit. Not often you can say that!
Edinburgh was still just about visible over the other Moorfoots, in front of the Pentlands, so I got the proper camera out again.
That'll be me in a week! (Well, not in an Easyjet, I'm going to Jakarta...)
The Castle from a strange angle.
North Berwick Law.
Bass Rock.
The Eildons.
A bird (not going to embarrass myself my guessing which one) stands guard over Edinburgh.
I briefly joined the WalkHighlands route to head South to the Donald Top of...wait, what's it called?
20 minutes later I was at the summit of...... Bareback Knowe?
That a hill name, or an instruction? What's going on here?
I mean, whatever works.
Oh, turns out the real summit is just beyond that large cairn. Not even sure there was a cairn here from memory? Now it's time to head West back toward the road, but I took a weird diagonal line, which was a bit of a schoolboy error.
I should have carried onto the fence then turned right, but instead I took a pathless diagonal line that was a bit rough for 10 minutes or so. I didn't have a paper map for this one (I know, asking for trouble) and, while the WalkHighlands app is almost flawless, it doesn't have fence-lines, so I forgot there was a fence to follow. At least there were good views towards Tinto and (I think) Culter Fell.
I found the fence quite quickly and wanted to head over to it, but there was a gang of sheep also following the fence downhill.
Eventually they just turned round and headed back uphill for some reason, allowing me to regain the faint path next to the fence.
Perfect early evening weather, to the extent that I was feeling quite guilty - apparently a festival in Tiree had been cancelled due to weather warnings, but it was idyllic in the Moorfoots this evening?
Gulp, At least there was a gate here.
What could possibly go wrong? Enter Part II: Whitehope Law.
Kinda like The Window at Creag Meagaidh, except it's not.
I headed down to the back of Glentress Farm and crossed the road. It was 8:02pm. I had climbed Windlestraw and made it back to the road in less than 2hrs 20mins including the Top, so in theory I could just head back up the road to the car and try to find a takeaway dinner in Edinburgh. But that was never the working plan. I don't have a lot of time for hillwalks, so I want to maximise every day. Sunset was just before 10pm. Surely two hours should be enough for Whitehope? Less than 400m up, so that's, what, about an hour? 45 minutes down, no bother. If I'm still on the hill at 10pm then there will be a load of residual daylight anyway, what with all the sunshine.
I had found a few bridges on the aerial photos, so I figured there was some sort of path up the hill. And there was! For the first minute...
Even with contour lines to cross-reference against, I think I'd under-estimated how steep the start was...
Path update: gone.
That's my car, up at the other farm. It's the first time I've seen it in a while, and it's also the *last* time I'll see it for a while...
More than 20 minutes in, and I still haven't reached the sheepfold at 370m yet. There was a trace of a zig-zag path but, every time I thought I'd found it, it disintegrated in front of me.
Ok this isn't looking very good suddenly.
It's frustrating because I actually really enjoy planning bespoke routes, rather than plodding up the same route that's in all the guidebooks / websites. But I don't have the stamina to cope with it. In my book the main benefit of a path isn't for route-finding (and I was never properly lost on Whitehope Law) - it's to help with underfoot conditions. And in lieu of a path, the underfoot conditions on this hill were *dreadful*.
Oh, and some massive flies followed me the whole way up. Here is one in the picture, doing a good impersonation of a wasp.
Nearly 1hr 30mins after leaving the road(!) and with the time hitting exactly 9:30pm, I reached the fence on the ridge. And with this being Whitehope Law, there still wasn't a path. How can you build a fence without even making the faintest beating of a path next to it? Was it planted by aliens?
At 9:37 I reached the slight turn in the fence and the tiny cairn. I had made it: the last of the six Moorfoot Donalds is finally climbed! But I wouldn't call it a compleation until I get off this hill, don't want to count my chickens here.
Maybe there was just enough time for some zoom photos: having humphed the camera up this horrible hill I didn't want to leave with nothing. And to be fair the views were pretty special, thanks to the weather and the sunset.
Yeah, it's me, there's the cairn, can we go soon please?
Windlestraw Law, across Glentress. If you only have time for one, please pick that one.
This was the best one. I was convinced it was Arran at the time but after getting home and checking the German viewfinder website, I found to my amazement that it's actually Beinn Ruadh and Beinn Mhor on Cowal, a full 130km away(!) Is Beinn Mhor the most unexpectedly prominent hill in the country? Seems to show up on every viewfinder for some reason.
I kept trying to find Arran (and it's shown as visible on the viewfinder site) but don't think it ever showed up.
North Berwick Law and Bass Rock.
The Lomond Hills in Fife. This was basically a mirror image of the view from Blath Bhalg, just five days ago. The faint hills in the background are somewhere in the Grampians (the middle one will be Carn a' Gheoidh, 134km away).
Proof that I summited, because I am never coming back here again, so help me god.
After 10 minutes of photos I had to scarper, as it had left 9:45pm now. Sunset was imminent, but if I was careful on the descent I would hopefully be down about half an hour after sunset?
10:10pm. Ok, this is officially post-sunset now, and I'm over the brow of the hill heading East, so any remaining sunlight is also being hidden by the hill I'm on. Better keep the pace up here (but not too fast).
Oh, these again. I battled through the ferns and tried to cut a direct line down to the river crossing. Once that's out the way, it's a one-minute walk across the field to the car. We're nearly there.
"OOOIII!!!"
Wh...what?
"OOOOOOIIIIII!!!!!!"
I look around, puzzled. In my head I'm saying The Taxi Driver line ("You talkin' to me?") but in reality I'm saying nothing, 'cause I've got massive Social Anxiety Disorder.
"OOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!! GET AFF THE HILL!!!!!!!!!"
What do you think I'm doing, you cretin?
I looked around in all directions, as if to say "wow, whoever he's shouting at, they must have done something *seriously* wrong!" Then I shuffled down the last (really steep) part towards the river. Surely he's seen people do this before? This is the natural circuit of Windlestraw and Whitehope. Although, come to think of it, Whitehope doesn't have a path for love nor money, so maybe there is no natural circuit. But does he think I'm a burglar? Is he worried because it's after 10pm (I mean, I'm clearly a hillwalker, I'm not suddenly more likely to burgle his farm because it's dusk). How many burglars attack the property from the side of a horrible steep Donald across a river, rather than just from the roadside?
I quickly peered over at the farmhouse. He was still leaning out the window, staring at me like a massive creep. Does he know there's no traditional law of trespass in Scotland (as long as I don't go into his garden), and hasn't been for about a billion years? Does he own the whole of Whitehope Law? I hadn't passed a single gate / fence / wall etc. in the entire climb, so there was no evidence that he owned any land West of the river. He basically just seemed to like screaming at folk.
I panicked as I crossed the river (thankfully only a burn at this point), and had a thought. The tiny field that lies between me and my car...what if he owns that? There's absolutely nothing in it - no livestock, no plants, just a load of extra ferns. But he seems like a man possessed and I've got Avoidant Personality Disorder, so what choice do I have?
I shuffled awkwardly along the thin bank between the fence and river, heading slowly South. Then, gradually, the bank disappeared. The fence was now teetering above the river. The photos don't really do the darkness justice (iPhone cameras are weird for that) but it was genuinely getting dark by now. I had no choice but to cross back over the river I'd just crossed, to find better ground on the West bank. A few minutes later, I crossed over for a third time, and rounded the corner of the fence to head towards the road at long last.
A suitably blurry photo as I haul myself over a weird bit where the fence and the riverbank merged with a drystone wall.
Phew. Piece of cake, eh?
The time was 10:37pm when I finally arrived back at the car, so the detour - seemingly at the behest of the angry (and legally confused) farmer - had only cost me 10 minutes. It felt longer. I passed the farm as I drove off, but it looked like they had bedded down for the night, no doubt to have a range of dystopian nightmares about hillwalkers legally climbing mountains quite near their house...
I scarpered North on the B road, passing a million rabbits on the roadside. They kept running across the road just in front of it, and I had to slam on the brakes countless times to avoid hitting the poor wee things.
I arrived back the Wull Muir layby to gaze at Edinburgh again with some sheep.
There was time for one more bit of drama, as my tyre suffered a slow puncture somewhere near the Edinburgh bypass (I was already having to do a tour of South Edinburgh due to roadworks). I managed to find my way to Hermiston Gait, retracing my steps from two weeks ago after Craighlockhart, only to find the Tesco was shut. Luckily the car managed to haul itself to the petrol station near the airport, but the machine was playing up and the pressure miraculously managed to go down rather than up. I tried another machine and managed to stabilise it, then drove home *rather* slowly. I need to protect this thing for Sunday, as I'm supposed to be going up Corserine with my uncle for my last hillwalk before Jakarta. Hope there are no angry farmers there: one is enough to last a lifetime......
To Be Continued... #ThreeWeeksOfFreedom
Corserine? Course I Will!
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=120853