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Of all the hills waiting on my list for me to get to them, this one has been hanging round the longest - it's nearly six and a half years since I walked the Cauldstane Slap and failed to climb the hills on both sides of it, and I think 'do the last x Pentland Marilyns' has been on my todo list every year since.
After that first failure I was determined to walk the full ridge, but although I liked the idea that became part of the problem - too big a walk for a bad day and too local and unexciting for a good day, while the long walk out at the Balerno side is an ending depressing enough to put you off the whole thing.
But I now had a plan for walking back out to Carlops, and I had a day neither too good nor too bad, and I had enough daylight to walk until about an hour before the evening bus and then go to the pub, and essentially I had no more excuses.
I have a very bad hit rate for the Sunday morning Biggar bus - I think I've missed it and gone off somewhere else more often than I've caught it - but I was being careful this time! As far as I can tell, no one ever goes to Biggar on it - it's just a mechanism for depositing hillwalkers at intervals down the south east side of the Pentlands, although it does that very well - plenty of them on this sunny morning, but mostly for Flotterstone or the Kips.
My path started more or less opposite the bus stop at the Gordon Arms - a straight uphill road running between gateposts and big houses at first and then just between trees.
- Road through the trees
Further up the view starts to open out - gentle hills, but a nice feeling of space. It was a lovely day, and I was dawdling along a bit, worried that if I didn't waste a bit of time I would be far too early for the evening bus, although being early is never my problem!
- An open view
The track joins the Roman road, which isn't particularly straight, and then another track turns off through an apparently abandoned farm at Stonypath and becomes a grassy way through the hills. This is the route of the Cross-Borders Drove Road, although it isn't signposted, and there were a few people out walking along it - once I left it I didn't meet anyone for the rest of the day.
- The track carrying on
Instead of sticking to the track I went though a gate and up across a bumpy sheep field to the little summit of Faw Mount.
- Faw Mount summit
The next bit wasn't particularly pleasant - wet ground made of bumps of moss all across the dip, and then a long slow toil upwards. The only really good thing about was the view back to the hills behind, curves vanishing into the distance - Mendick Hill and the Black Mount and Tinto all in a line, and the hills around Broughton beyond them.
- Hills into the distance
The trig point on Mount Maw was on the other side of the wall - no stile, a bit unexpectedly, but new fence built into the crumbling wall at the corner, which did make it a bit easier to get over.
- An awkward crossing
This is the only trig point on the ridge, and I sat down against it to eat my lunch. It's also the highest point for a while, and I had a view north now, over to the two Cairn Hills and the pass in between.
- Mount Maw summit
The sun had gone in and I got a bit cold sitting, but it was still a pretty good day for the time of year.
The next bit is all pretty much on one level - by Mount Maw you've got up, and stay up. So I wandered on along a faint track, with views down to Baddinsgill reservoir on one side and over to the main Pentland hills on the other.
- Baddinsgill reservoir
I did make detours to most of the little summits along the way, but none of them were particularly exciting.
- The Mount summit
The hills to the east kept changing shape as I walked on past them - from here I had a lovely view up the central valley, with occasional patches of trees, and the Kips were looking surprisingly separate from Scald Law behind.
- Into the Pentlands
Beyond The Mount the hills become more separate again - a descent to a boggy place which separates it from Wether Law on the other side.
- Down and up
From Wether Law I had a real view north to the Forth for the first time, although it was all fading into a haze.
- Wether Law summit
There's quite a dip again beyond Wether Law - East Cairn Hill from here looked far more like a real hill than anything else I'd passed, which probably just meant that there was visible rock on it, a nice change from all the grass.
- Up East Cairn Hill
A slimy green pool at the dip meant that I had to cross to the right hand side of the fence to avoid it, and then found that the path had crossed over too, and stayed there. The fence carries on but is joined by a far more attractive stone wall, and it was all quite pretty.
- Wall and rocks
This little rocky tor on the first rise isn't the summit, but really should be - it can only be a few metres lower, and would make a far better job of it if it could just grow a bit more.
- Alternative summit
The wall veers off to the right for an unknown reason and the fence carries straight on, but they both meet a wall of reddish stone blocks which leads on over the summit.
- Along the wall
Once I was standing next to it the highest ground proved to be somewhere over on the other side of the wall, although it was impossible to say exactly where. The wall seemed solid enough but had maybe bulged a bit in places, and I chose a spot to climb over quite carefully.
The summit is definitely an anticlimax - it's a nice hill taken as a whole, but really deserves a better top.
- East Cairn Hill summit
I was pleased to discover that I didn't have to cross back over the wall - the eponymous cairn was on this side of the wall, and a wet kind of track led on towards it. This was definitely a better spot, although I still liked the little tor best, but the sun had gone behind the clouds for the last time as I headed over, and it was suddenly a quite chilly wintry day, with the wind getting up a bit.
- The cairn
The cairn is a wind shelter on the inside, so I could hide for a bit and have a snack, but I didn't linger long - the sun was still well above the horizon, but the dull light was hinting at early evening.
To the north was a hazy view over Harperrig, and a low lying mist seemed to be crawling up the river - no Highland views today, or even bridges any more.
- Mist on the Forth
I had to retrace my steps along the boggy path to the summit to come down on the Bore Stane side, then pick up a path leading down by the fence - more of a path than I thought there might be, since there hadn't been any side of it by the summit. The plume of smoke from earlier now included visible fire, but it didn't seem to be spreading particularly, so hopefully someone meant to do it.
- The path down
Further down I met a surprisingly nice track where I didn't really expect it, by a clump of twisty trees - a proper solid one, although it did seem to be hurrying me off to the north rather than the south.
- Joining a track
Down below a little path led off uphill with a sign for Carlops, and soon brought me to the signpost at the boundary - Edinburgh to the north and Midlothian to the south, I think, although the boundaries tangle together here and I'd been in the Borders for most of the day and briefly in West Lothian by the cairn.
- Bore Stane signposts
It was just after 5 and felt quite late to be turning back through the hills, but although the northern side looks nearer and gentler, Buteland is as far as away as Carlops, and Balerno at least half as far again, the only advantage being a better track.
But the path towards Carlops isn't bad at all - it's a narrow trod, but clear and fairly flat and only occasionally muddy, and a nice route winding between the hills until the reservoir came into view.
- Path to the reservoir
Another signpost before the reservoir gave three choices - back the way I'd come for Buteland, down by the water for Ninemileburn, and uphill where no path was shown on my map for Carlops.
I almost kept to the track on the map, turning off the Ninemileburn route at the southern end of the water, and further on I really wished I had, because the signposted route was first a great expanse of mud, not so much a sea as a gluepot which I stuck in, and then a bare field with no markings at all, so that you could only walk straight forward and hope to find a path again somewhere. But at the other side, to my relief, I picked up the good track which I could have been on earlier, and could get on with hurrying down towards Carlops.
- Mud and the final track
I'd obviously dawdled too much earlier on, because I'd expected to be in the pub by 6 at the latest and it was nearly quarter past when I reached it, but I had time to eat, and all the good beer was off so there was no temptation to linger!
