by HikerMum83 » Sun Apr 22, 2018 4:18 pm
Sub 2000' hills included on this walk: West Lomond
Date walked: 22/04/2018
Time taken: 2.5 hours
Distance: 8 km
Ascent: 271m
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When I was a child, we spent most Sundays in the lomond hills. We used to dread it and I'm sure we complained 50% of the time (the other 50% was us coming back down a hill and heading towards the car, so we were enthusiastic then!)
Fast forward 20+ years later and I find myself parking up at Craigmead, with my son and brother in tow, with a completely different opinion of our surroundings.
We had been unsure of which hill to do, but we decided on West Lomond, thinking that if it was too much, we would turn round and go back.
It was a fairly comfortable walk to the base of the hill.
The path way is pretty much flattened grass, a few rocky patches now and again but the footing was generally fantastic.
The path rises and falls occasionally, but again, it was gentle and the boys (12 & 16) managed it well.
When we got to the "tough bit", we followed the path that sweeps round to the right of the hill. It rises and levels most of the way making it a more gentle climb, it gets quite steep towards the top, however, we took our time and when we got to the top, we were rewarded with blustery winds, a lot of cloud and a massive sense of triumph!
On our descent, I decided to follow the advice of a reporter on this website. We took the path going south, which starts off ok but gets a bit steeper. The guide had said the path has "slight erosion" but to be honest, the path was horrendous. This was easily the toughest part of our walk. We had our trusty walking poles for extra support while clambering down, however, felt that sometimes sliding down grassy patches on our backsides was a lot safer!
At the bottom of that part, there is a path that runs between all the heather, it was a lot easier and we could restart our hearts and lungs again!
We walked down as far as a wall, that had a stile we could use to climb over. Turning left, the path continued alongside the wall, then headed diagonally down a field - crossing some very muddy patches - until we came across another gate. This one without a stile. So we had to clambering over the gate instead.
It was at that point we had to follow the path over another field - which was full of sheep and tiny lambs. I felt quite nervous about walking through them, but we avoided getting too close to little babies, those we came unavoidably close to moved to their mums fairly quickly. We climbed over another stile at the far bottom end of the field and joined a farm track. This joins the main drive for the farm, but just turn left and it eventually brings you to the main road. You can see the car park at this point off to your left.
I would happily climb this hill again, however, I would maybe find another path going down from the top of the hill