The Whangie, done properly this time

[wjshaw2]

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I came here last year, re-directed from Conic Hill as the path was shut, but I'd never heard of the Whangie and so just climbed Auchineden Hill for the view. And then went home and read the WalkHighlands walk on the Whangie and felt a bit silly. Having now seen how close we came to the star attraction, I feel a little more silly. Oh well, my feeling silly is hardly an unusual occurrence, so I suppose I don't need to dwell on it too much.

All set to go

This time I was walking with my nephew - having successfully conquered Conic with him at the beginning of the year, this was the next adventure we planned together.

We followed the muddy path along the bottom of the line of crags and enjoyed the views north over Loch Lomond and the rest of the Southern Highlands and east to the end of the Campsies. When you get to the corner of the crags and start heading south rather than west there are increasing numbers of boulders giving a hint of the joys to come...

A good example of making sure the sun isn't directly in the eyes of the person you're trying to take a photo of.

Western Campsies - Dumgoyne and Earl's Seat

Loch Lomond panorama

A rainbow between us and the Southern Highlands

A teaser for what's to come.

The Whangie itself (what a great name!) is quite wonderful. It's a full flowering of the Kilpatrick Hill's surprising tendency to intersperse its low rounded tops with steep, narrow gullies. I'd first encountered this heading for Duncolm, the Kilpatrick Hill's lumpy highpoint, the nice circular route I'd planned being rather re-directed around impassably steep, stream filled splits in the rock. In my imagination, there may even be hidden crevasses still to be discovered...

We skirted round the bottom of the Whangie's crags to start with and then, went back through the narrow gap in the crags themselves. It's a bit like Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli's entrance to the Paths of the Dead ...except there's a bit more graffiti (not runes, unfortunately).

A jumble of crags and boulders

Narrow

Entering the Paths of the Dead

Checking for green floaty dead warriors...and am I developing a bald patch?

My Nephew displayed his adventurous side, being helped up and down steeper parts, but definitely happier on more difficult terrain than had caused a few grumbles at Conic. A good sign for the next adventure .

We then carried on round the corner and had lunch on slopes looking over the Kilpatrick Hills moors - well, I had lunch, my nephew had a few haribo sweeties.

It was only a few hundred metres from the southern end of the Whangie's lovely rocks to the top of Auchineden Hill where the views open up to Glasgow and the south. It was quite different weather to the last trip, at about Easter last year. We didn't hang around long at the top as we were keen to get a hot chocolate somewhere on the way home and the wind was a wee bit chilly. The walk back towards the car along the top of the crags this time was an extremely wet one - I was starting to feel envious of my nephew's wellies... The slippiest bit of the walk was descending off the soggy summit plateau back down to the main path near the corner of the foresty, but that was safely negotiated and the car reached in no time at all.

Hazy Glasgow

The muddy way home

Somehow, despite doing the walk reasonably quickly, we managed to miss out on the hot chocolate this time - I think that means I owe him one. Two chot hocolates on the next adventure . A highly recommended excursion - maximum return for the work needed to get round the walk. It wasn't so friendly last year, but it was still fun.

Last year on Auchineden with smcm. Just after Easter - the Pirate egg didn't last much longer...

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