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After saying a tough early morning goodbye at Edinburgh Airport, it seemed like the best plan was to get out for a run in the hills. So I headed up to Black Hill, and it turned out that this was also a day for saying goodbye to the last of the summer and welcoming back HH thermal tops, a bit of wind and rain and the exhilaration of being up high in less than perfect weather.
I've seen this hill so many times from journeys south over the FRB towards Edinburgh and the Borders, but only recently started to think about it as a destination. Harlaw car park was the obvious starting point, so I wasn't too surprised to find that the place was pretty busy when I arrived around 11.45 on a Sunday morning.
- Black Hill looming above the Harlaw car park
There were a few options for a circuit, so I decided to take the direct route SE, following a track through a field, and picking up the path that led over a small rise and down to the causeway across the eastern arm of Threipmuir Reservoir. I plodded SW up the Black Hill path, which was occasionally very muddy, and eventually spotted what I thought was a path slanting uphill towards the summit. After a short while, this path petered out, so it became a bit of a slog up heathery slopes, before they eased off as I reached the track that led to the top from the SE.
The top of Black Hill is a bit flat and featureless, and seriously boggy, and the summit cairn is way less impressive than I'd expected for a hill of this size so close to a large city.The views into the wild heart of the Pentlands are excellent, though, but as the weather was becoming pretty squally, I lingered only long enough to take a couple of photos.
- Scald Law and the Kips from the summit
- Towards Allermuir, Castlelaw and Glencorse reservoir
I carried on NE down a rough path, then branched NW down more steeply, though patches of burnt heather to rejoin the path above the causeway.
- The Threipmuir causeway
This time I turned left, and ran along the path, through a pleasant wooded area along the shoreline, and across the dam. Near the end, I turned right, to join the track up to Harlaw visitor centre (just about managing to ignore the temptations of the coffee shop) and eventually back to the car.
- The track from Threipmuir back towards Harlaw
Definitely looking forward to returning for more exploration in the Pentlands this winter!
