Dumglow under the cloud

[nigheandonn]

I was a bit slow getting started on little hills this year - the only hill I climbed in the holidays between new year and my birthday was Kinnoull, which had a lovely view but didn't really count for anything, and between Celtic Connections and storms and other distractions it was the start of February before I headed out to another one. Dumglow is almost in Fife but not quite, and has been sitting on my map looking neglected for a while - it looks a bit in the middle of nowhere, but turned out to be quite easily accessible from the Perth bus.

The first Sunday bus didn't get me there until almost 12, but that was fine. I got off the bus near an imposing monument to one of the various church schisms and crossed the M90 on a little footbridge, which gave me a good view of the steep side of Benarty Hill looking dramatic behind me.

Benarty Hill

It was a grey day, but a nice little landscape of stone houses and fields, and I joined a proper road and followed it along for a mile or so, until little crags rose up to my left.

Nivingston Crags

Beyond a cluster of houses I reached one of those confusing junctions where the main road goes off at an angle and the road straight on becomes something else - in this case a tiny back road to Cleish and another collection of farms. But I was barely onto that road before I turned off again, onto a road climbing steeply to the left.

Junctions

After the first climb between houses this was lovely - a real hill road of the kind that I had no idea existed in this part of the world, and with views of quite shapely little hills ahead to the left.

Hill road

Just before the fourth big bend I reached the point which was the start of the WH route (or the end, because as often happens for some reason I was following it backwards) and headed off onto a forest track - it was after one now, and I found a spot with a nice view of the Lomond hills to stop and eat my lunch.

Lunch stop

From the map the track should have bent to the left, then right, left, right again before I reached a junction and turned off, but the first bends must have been gentler than they looked, because I reached the junction after only counting one set.

Forest track

From the next track I had views back over the little tops from the other end, but none of them were where I was heading for the moment. At the top of this track a signpost pointed back the way I'd come to Kirkhill common, where I didn't think I'd been, but the other side had lost its Dumglow sign.

Signpost

There was a warning in the instructions that trees had fallen across the path - it looked like more trees might have fallen since then, but at first they were quite easy to bypass.

Messy path

Further up I was inside the trees, and it was here that I found the place that was properly blocked - it wasn't too difficult to find a way around, but I got myself a bit tangled up trying to keep close to the original path, going over and under to finally come out at the top, with a view over Loch Glow to the Forth.

Loch Glow

It was very grey here, but somewhere on the other side of the water the Pentlands seemed to be having a lovely sunny day, which I was a bit jealous of!

Pentland lightshow

The trig point was on a little bump ahead - some people coming through the woods behind me had found a different way, and headed on the the top while I was having a break to admire the view and recover from the trees.

Approaching the summit

The moved on before long and I got my own turn of the summit, with its trig point and little cairn.

Dumglow summit

Little hills led on to the west, and the three parts of the Knock Hill range stood up to the west, but anything which should have been in view to the north was under the lid of cloud.

Little hills

The best part of the view was now over to the east, with Loch Leven lit up.

Loch Leven lightshow

This time I found a better way through the forest - the path let to it from above - although it did leave me on a fenceline rather than properly back on the path. At the signpost I kept straight on down a path to a little bridge, with the strange shapes of the Inneans in front of me.

The Inneans

I found the name even odder than the shape - I knew it as a south Kintyre name and therefore possibly more Ulster Irish even than Gaelic, so I wasn't very sure what it was doing in Fife. But there they were, and the path led on between them more easily than it looked like at first, to show two little lochs ahead.

Two lochs

The tiny top of Dummiefarline was a little detour, but worth it just for the name!

Dummiefarline summit

The Lomond hills were in the cloud ahead of me now, even that bit of light gone. The path led down to the road slightly above where I'd left it, and I had about 50 minutes to get back to the other side of the M90, roughly 3 miles away, to catch the 3:30 bus back to Edinburgh, so no time to waste.

It wouldn't have been the end of the world if I'd missed it, as I could have got a bus up to Kinross slightly later and gone for a drink of some kind there, but I made it back just in time.

Back at the bridge

Not the most exciting of summits, but some nice points on the walk, and I was impressed by the view of Benarty Hill from the north - I hadn't realised there was anything quite so dramatic in the area, a little reflection of the Ochil scarp to the north.