free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
A beautiful Friday evening – looked like the perfect opportunity to get out. Malcy had been wanting to get up Duncolm for ages. I’d been up a couple of times the usual way so Malcy suggested taking it from behind – obviously with the use of bikes - a nice easy 33km cycle
We managed to get all the way up the hill to the gate into the Cochno woods, although I’d needed to push my less sturdy road bike for the last wee section as the road surface was non-existant
Looking back to Glasgow
A few bugs were out so we quickly locked the bikes and set off
It was a good track all the way to the dam making it an easy start to the walk
As we gained easy height we were able to get great views back….to Glasgow
As we got further up the path the scenery improved and the final stroll to the dam was quite striking with the burn trickling down waterfalls in the evening sunlight
Reaching the dam we were blinded by the sun hitting the Greenside Reservoir
We easily crossing the dam and were pleasantly surprised (and then realised we shouldn’t really have been surprised) that there was a path up towards the Slacks….
The Loch Lomond hills in the distance
Reaching the trig point on the Slacks I realised that as I’d always been here alone and without anywhere to balance the camera, I hadn’t posed on the trig yet
Towards Duncolm
Continuing along the path a short distance
We carried on a short distance before deciding to take a short cut – usually a terrible idea but on this occasion it worked out fairly nicely as the ground was dry and we could see where we were going
Our shortcut dropped us conveniently onto the track which was a few minutes wander from Loch Humphrey
From here we headed up the grassy boggy path towards Duncolm, except….it wasn’t boggy
Every time I’d been here previously I’d been over my ankles and I’d heard reports of worse, so could hardly believe it when we made it onto the ridge with dry feet, in trainers no less
Looking ahead to Middle Duncolm
Loch Lomond with Ben Lomond prominent on the right
We decided to skirt around Middle Duncolm – I’d been up there twice before and Malcy was being lazy (he’ll probably regret that when he starts bagging Humps or something…
) and before long we were on top of Duncolm itself
Views to the Campsies
Malcy’s happy face…
The great thing about walking with Malcy is that I never need to carry food – he always has so much that I can just scrounge a few cheeses or a bag of crisps, and this occasion was no different. I can’t see it changing as he can barely survive half an hour without getting the munchies
Sadly the sun was in the wrong place for a good photo of this
We sat and enjoyed the views for a while before deciding to get going – we had a fair way to go afterall….we headed off Duncolm along the fenceline in a vaguely south-ish direction.
The Campsies still looked great!
Is he falling over or trying to do a Jaxter?
It was easy walking and although there were a couple of boggy sections we were able to hop over or around them easily enough and we were back at the Greenside reservoir again
We had to walk all the way around it which was probably the most awkward bit of the walk
Back at the loch we think we may have disturbed an amorous couple before hitting our outward track at the dam
From here it was an easy wander back down to the bikes and a downhill-on-average cycle home, making it back before dark
