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First trip into the Sidlaws

First trip into the Sidlaws


Postby KatTai » Sun Apr 10, 2016 4:32 pm

Route description: Sidlaws: Craigowl and Auchterhouse hill

Sub 2000' hills included on this walk: Craigowl Hill

Date walked: 10/04/2016

Distance: 7.5 km

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Pretty shocking really, I've lived in Angus for 10 years and this was my first trip into the Sidlaws. The car park was easy to find and we set off following the WH directions. There are paths EVERYWHERE so it was certainly handy to have the route description to hand! Soon we reached the wall, which in all honesty wasn't the easiest for my older collie Millie to get across.

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She did manage though, but something to note if you have a dog that can't jump well that is too big to lift over you may well have difficulty here. Moss being nearly 10 years younger had no problem despite carrying an extra kilo or so of weight in her rucksack! From there it was uphill to the summit of Auchterhouse Hill. It was a little bit muddy...

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There were nice views from the top towards distant hills that still had a bit of snow them, even if there were windfarms in the way.

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It started raining, so we soon started heading back down the trail easily finding the turning for the next hill. It stopped raining on the descent before the climb up to Balluderon hill, but there were grey clouds hanging around. We reached the summit and Millie did her usual posing with the summit marker.

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Moss still hasn't got the hang of sitting where I would like her to and it started raining so we soon continued on our way. From here we could see the final, mast-topped Craigowl Hill and our route to reach it.

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Of course, we had to navigate around more pools of mud to reach it...

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This is not a walk where you can expect to go home with clean clothes or clean dogs! Moss was in her element, she loves the mud, just as well it doesn't stick to her too well!

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We could see the summit ahead of us, it was hard to miss in good visibility...

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But then the cloud came rolling over as we reached the summit so we couldn't see anything from the top when we got there. But at least it wasn't raining! We didn't bother hanging around to see if it would clear again and started heading down. I got a bit confused looking for the stile (which was actually a gate) but we made it back onto the main track and followed the waymarkers back to the car park. It was muddy going most of the way back to the car park and I was glad I'd put on my proper walking boots!

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KatTai
Wanderer
 
Posts: 1135
Munros:52   Corbetts:16
Fionas:12   Donalds:2
Sub 2000:52   
Islands:32
Joined: Feb 12, 2015
Location: Angus

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