Dumyat with a shower

[McMole]

A reasonable forecast and lack of hills for several months saw Jaywizz encouraging me out to the nearby Dumyat. Certainly much nearer than the Galloway hills that are top of my to-do list. Last time I'd climbed Dumyati from the car park at Blairlogie while Jaywizz had planned the less vertical approach from an alternative car park further west and about 150m higher. She was driving so no prizes guessing our starting point. Almost the most exciting part of the day was the final half mile up the narrow twisty single track road. We joined a convoy on the way up and met another on the way down at a right angle bend. There was, it turned out, just enough width for us all to squeeze past each another one at a time. We arrived at the car parking to find just one empty space for Jaywizz to park.

In bright sunshine we followed the main track to the summit. This has a couple of improved sections with flights of boulder steps and a well drained track separated by sections where the continual trampling of very many feet are gradually widening the churned up muddy trail.

The path to the summit - ripe for improvement?

Nearing the top and looking back towards Stirling we could see a shower approaching.

Looking back towards Stirling and the approaching shower

Our arrival at the summit coincided with the one heavy shower of our walk. The high speed horizontal rain felt as though it contained a helping of hail in it. Jaywizz didn't seem keen to pose by the memorial for a photo.

The memorial at the summit and Jaywizz heading for shelter from the rain

Instead we started back along a path to the east of the summit ridge to shelter from the wind and stopped for a snack after we'd descended a few metres. The rain soon stopped and we continued back along a succesion of paths meeting the herd of cattle that had no doubt been resposible for the deposits we'd noticed and avoided on the path up.

Safely navigating through the cattle

There were only a few walkers visible when we regained the main path and the car park was almost empty. Apart from the shower a fine walk and, for me, a new route.