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There really isn't a lot to Creigh Hill. My original plan (to mark the final full day of the school year before the summer holidays, and not having classes on a Wednesday afternoon) had been to head up to the Backwater Reservoir and take in Hare Cairn, or possibly Hare Cairn and Creigh Hill. As it was, I was (typically) a little later out of the blocks than anticipated and had to settle for one of them. As I had to be back home reasonably sharpish, Creigh Hill looked like the more straightforward (on paper at least) proposition, and I could pretty much see the whole route from the car park by the dam.
Sadly, the wall to wall blue skies in Perth at 7 o'clock this morning had by this stage been replaced by a more cloudy looking affair, although there looked to be no risk of rain and there was a nice little breeze which promised to keep those pesky flying insects in check.
I spoke briefly to two older fellas who had been walking along the track on the western side of the reservoir because they'd "always wondered where that track went to" and sounded like they had been up on Hare Cairn. I bade them farewell after scoffing a sandwich for lunch and set off along the road across the top of the dam wall.
I took a pretty straight line up the rough but not too steep slopes by the side of the forestry and onto the southernmost 497m spot, shown on the map as Cairn Plew, before following the fence line and a very old and long since unused landrover track to the northernmost 497m spot of Cairn Motherie. The views from both were dominated to the east by the Graham of Cat Law, with Mount Blair prominent to the west and the jumble of higher hills around Glens Clova and Shee also making their brooding presence felt.
From the large, sprawling mass of stones making up the summit cairn, I angled down towards the prominent stream bed to the north west before negotiating a rather unpleasant marshy area immediately before the road which I rejoined for the short walk back to the dam and the car.
- Creigh Hill from the road across the dam
- Looking back down on the start from early on in the ascent, Mount Blair prominent
- Hare Cairn across Backwater Reservoir
- Cat Law from the southernmost 497m spot
- Loch of Lintrathen
- Heading for Cairn Motherie
- Pretty much still where it fell, clearly some time ago
- Most of Backwater Reservoir
- On the "track" approaching Cairn Motherie
- Back to Cairn Plew
- Amidst the stones of Cairn Motherie, Cat Law peeking up in the background
- Back down on the hard stuff
- Info plaque by the dam wall
- One final glance back
