Always have a Plan B - White Top of Culreoch

[McMole]

The B&B near the foot of Cairnsmore of Carsphairn had been booked well in advance for plan A; the gentle ascent of that Corbett/Donald with its description promising excellent views of the highest peaks in all surrounding nations from the summit. Driving down from Edinburgh on the day, however, the fine weather of earlier in the month was gone and the wettest summer's day for some years was developing behind us. When we reached our start point near Carsphairn the cloud level wasn't quite at ground level, but the rain certainly was. Time for a change of plan.

The forecast was for better weather to develop later in the day from the south, so we continued to Dalry, and enjoyed a fine lunch in the Clachan Inn while we decided on a lower and hopefully below cloud level and drier objective for the day's walk. I had a prepared map for White Top of Culreoch with me, though not a route. This Marilyn is not far north of Gatehouse of Fleet and seemed a good choice for our plan B.

When we arrived at half past three the track to it was being used by forestry vehicles and was also marked as no entry without authorisation. I therefore parked on the wide roadside verge about 100m south of the junction.

No entry to unauthorised vehicles

It was still raining slightly so we started with overtrousers and kagools, but within a few minutes it stopped and remained dry for the duration of our walk. Though the hill is shown as forested on the OS map most of the trees have been felled. We hoped to find a track heading up the hillside to the east of the forest, but saw nothing obvious, just unbroken masses of tall bracken as we walked along the track. We arrived at the forest boundary where a small stream descends, with still no sign of a path. Deciding that the now deforested hillside looked better than the masses of bracken to the east of the stream we tackled our first obstacle - a triple of new fence, old fence and dry stone dyke.

Jaywizz tackles the triple

Ten metres of bracken then led to relatively open hillside.

Before continuing this account I do advise readers not to take this route. Use our descent route instead - it is much better! From the track it was only about one kilometre to the top, but it was hard won. Piles of brashings and trunks kept appearing and had to be avoided or defeated.

Looking for a better way we headed towards the stream and switched to walking beside the boundary wall and fence for a while.

Nearing the summit we started heading towards it and encountered more obstacles,

Still smiling - or is that a grimace?

but eventually surmounted all to gain a wind-swept top graced with a small cairn and an uprooted tree.

Jaywizz at the summit

McMole

It was below the clouds so we did have views of the surrounding peaks - or those parts of them that were below cloud level.

Cairnharrow

Cairnsmore of Fleet lost in the clouds

During the final part of the climb we had noticed a track on the other side of the stream and immediately decided that that would be our descent route. We took the direct route from the summit to the boundary fence, stream and wall to gain a most welcome ATV track back down to the road.

The ATV track with Fleet Bay and Islands of Fleet in the distance

There was a final barrier to cross because the gate at the bottom now appeared disused.

We climbed the wall and forged through the shoulder-high bracken down to the track.

As we returned to the car we did see a couple of places where paths might head uphill through the bracken and one place where a track might run beneath Corbie Craig to join our descent route. The investigation of those possibilities is open to whoever is inspired to tackle this wee Marilyn next. Afterwards a little searching on-line revealed several descriptions recommending our descent route and others warning against our choice of ascent.

At the summit I had wondered about the name since it was well vegetated with little exposed rock and certainly didn't appear white to me. The 1849 Ordnance Survey Name book in scotlandsplaces.gov.uk remarked that it is - A large rocky hill on the farm of "Culreoch" which seems of a whitish appearance when viewed from a distance, hence the prefix "White Top". Perhaps it has become more vegetated in the last century and a half.

Nearing the road we came across a car parked with its engine running and a single hi-vis jacketed occupant. We exchanged friendly waves and wondered if he might be a night watchman for whatever forestry equipment was further along the track.

We followed our conquest by driving back to our B&B in Carsphairn where Plan A was resurrected the following morning, but that is another story.

[Dawid1983]

nice