Good idea - BUT

[Fife Flyer]

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With only 2 Sub 2000's left south of the Central belt I had a decision to make regarding which one to tackle on my way home from Englandshire. I opted for Craignell as it was slightly further west, I did my usual research and as usual there aren't many walk reports to help. Once again I studied McMole's route and loosely followed it (thanks).
I arrived at my designated parking area shortly after 11am and was soon on my way.


Parking layby, never saw a human being and the other 2 vehicles were still there when I returned


Clatteringshaw Loch in the background


The start of the walk looking back along the track


The way ahead, with the ridge containing the summit in the distance


Looking back at Clatteringshaw Loch


Huge area, could even be a car park. For those with a bike you could save a few minutes by bringing it


They don't have to travel far to get the stuff to make the track


The way ahead, not long before I depart and head off piste


Locked gate to negotiate


Time to leave the track, the ground looks like other walkers have been that way, not keen on descending at this time


The way ahead and there is a path albeit faint


Looking back I was heading WSW running parallel to the ridge


Looking back, the path was to the left of the trees


The way ahead, sooner or later I will have to turn right and go uphill


Here we go, time to start going up


Views opening up, the little loch that can be seen is Lillies Loch


Lillies loch and the end of the track is visible, I would be aiming for the clearing on my way down


Lillies loch and the firebreak is very clear


The way I am heading


Looking west and shows the angle of ascent


Cracking view now


A cairn on the summit area, I wondered east trying to ascertain if it really was the highest spot. My altimetre couldn't find a higher spot


Video taken on the summit area of Craignell


Looking across the ridge to the cairn - does it look higher?


A couple of small lochans on the summit ridge


I opted for the direct descent route, not my best idea as it got a bit tricky lower down


Looking back uphill to what I struggled down


Still got a bit of battle before I reach the better terrain


Looking back uphill


Reached the clearing now


Not far to the main track now


Plenty of future work?


Plenty of rotting timber, seems a terrible waste


Looking across to Cairnsmore, the hill behind the mast

I was back the car much earlier than I had anticipated so I made an executive decision which wasn't a good one. I would try and tackle Cairnsmore from the north, I had my route plotted on my phone and as the walk is only a total of 4km it shouldn't be that difficult - WRONG. Here are a few pictures of my attempt.


Nice large parking area, I wonder why there are no other vehicles parked


The rest of the layby with the A712 in the background


Looks OK at the moment, but the way ahead looks too familiar and not very friendly


Someone else must have been here before me, interesting bridge


Still doable


Hmmmm, the way ahead, now the going gets tough


Yes I battled through that, but it doesn't look like improving


It had already taken me about 20mins to do about 400m and that's when I decided to go back to my car. Not only was I being attacked by branches, twigs and other dangling bits, the underfoot conditions were awful too - soft spongy soggy stuff or tussocks


How inviting does this look, not very I can assure you

Cairnsmore isn't going anywhere and will still be there after the latest worldwide crisis is over, I will definitely have to plan a different route.

Yet another cracking day and I am glad I took the opportunity when I did as Covid 19 is now really starting to impact on every bit of our lives and who knows for how long. When I eventually get round to tackling Cairnsmore I will have climbed all the hills south of the Central Belt. One thing I won't miss is the Dumfries & Galloway roads, even the "A" class roads hardly have any straight bits, so you can imagine what the minor roads are like.
Stay safe everyone and let's all do as we are told by the 'experts'. The latest instruction regarding the great outdoors is stay local, so that is what I will be doing.

[McMole]

Well done on finding an even less inviting way up Cairnsmore that me! I too thought it would be an easy wander after Craignell and instead found myself taking far longer than I'd expected, but at least I managed to avoid your trees. Perhaps they did you a favour because after the trees I found the hillside was what inca described as "Horrible tussocky, wet, ground that felt like walking on a badly sprung trampoline" and that continued almost all the way to the summit. After reading other reports, however, I think my route might still be preferable, but I don't intent trying them all out to check!

I too have to return to Galloway to complete my goal of climbing all the mainland Marllyns south of the Highland Boundary Fault. I've three left - all in Galloway! I had been planning to complete by now, but with the current restrictions that could now be months away. Instead I'm obeying the rules and tramping the paths into the surrounding countryside between motorway, airport, and other infrastructure. I am discovering places and features that I'd not seen in the several decades I've lived here. A partially silver lining? I see there are a few Tumps within three kilometres of my house. Perhaps I should make visiting them my short-term goal? I suspect at least one of them is in someone's garden