mash tun wrote:Perhaps something like this ?
Yes, thanks - that's good. Only slight tweak might be that on arriving in Dollar from the glen if you go along the back road this continues as a path to join the A91 further west than the map shows. There are then a few minutes along the pavement before the cycleway can be joined at the big layby, but it's shorter than cutting down to join it in Dollar itself. You could also shorten it, at least effortwise, by missing out Torry/Mid Cairn/Bengengie and heading all the way up the Alva Glen track to near the sheepfold and then aiming for Blairdenon from there, but that would miss out possibly the best bit and wouldn't save heaps of time anyway.
Overall, my thinking is to use good ground/paths where possible, hence the Innerdownie descent to the Quey pass. As/when I give it a go (once the recent soggy stuff has had chance to dry out), I'm reckoning about 8hr for the circuit, without any rush and with a couple of proper food/lounging stops. Maybe 8hr30. When my pals Ken and Mike and I did the 23 tops thing (August 2009, and all the 600m tops rather than the 2000ft ones as earlier stated), we did it as a linear Sheriffmuir-Castlehill traverse and took just over 8hr of which 7hr was spent walking.
There's also the thought that doing it from the north, starting at the Frandy road-end, might be quite an efficient way to visit all nine tops, given that the main spine curves that way. Might well experiment with both options, and will report back if so. I've done various sixes and sevens and the occasional eight, as per rockhopper, but just that one nine, so it feels overdue - especially as the overall tally for all nine currently stands at 3731.
RTC wrote:You'll be wearing a dress, of course. I hear that this is now de rigueur for Ochils wanderers.
You've lost me - have those Beinn Fhionnlaidh punters been in the Ochils as well? The Hasidic Jews with their old-style hats and coats and retro pushchairs tend not to roll up until August.