Smuggling into Alva Glen

[denfinella]

Shamefully a full 6 weeks (!) after our last Scottish walk, a half-day off coincided with a half-decent weather forecast enabling us to get out and explore the Ochils. We'd done this short circuit of Alva Glen before, on a dull winter's afternoon with fading light. It was similarly damp and overcast this time, but there was blue sky approaching from the west and plenty of hours of daylight left.

Smuggler's Cave Alva.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts

From the car park, the path immediately drops down to cross the Alva Burn on the first of several bridges:

Plenty of waterfalls on the burn, all with a healthy flow after overnight rain:

A long flight of steps leads past an old pipe which used to carry Alva's water supply:

The path then traverses the side of the gorge with the burn occasionally visible far below. At times the path is right on top of the old pipe:

Old sign:

For the middle section of the outward leg, the path runs closer to the burn:

Finally the path begins to zig-zag up the steep west side of the gorge, eventually revealing views into the Ochils and out to the Clackmannanshire plain:

A slug was busy feasting on a mushroom:

Suddenly, at a stile, Smuggler's Cave comes into view, far below on the valley floor. You can see the path descending to reach it on the left:

Into the jaws of the cave:

The path dead-ends here, so we scrambled back up out of the cave entrance. Sheep gazed down from above:

We detoured up the glen a little way, to this view looking upstream:

After returning to the stile, Walkhighlands suggests returning the same way. Instead, we followed the path which traverses the hillside high above the burn on its west side. Steep drops to the left but not too hazardous. The path was a little muddy in places but improved as the slopes got less steep, with great views down to Alva:

By the time we were descending back to the car park, the sun was out:

An exciting little circuit, even for the second time - with all the drama that we've come to expect from the south side of the Ochils

[alvason]

Ah Alva, Alva, I was born there a LONG time ago! Many thanks for the great report and all these grand pictures.

[alvason]

That water pipe - is/was there any sort of dam at the top to catch water to flow into the pipe?

[ancancha]

Some interesting cascades their denfinella