Just beyond the western fringes of Aberdeen - between Cults and Kingswells - several small areas of forestry provide for short, pleasant walks. This route combines several of the waymarked paths in Countesswells Forest.
Bog Factor
Waymarked forest paths and tracks.
Countesswells Forest car park (charge).
None to start.
NJ870045
The route begins from the Countesswells forestry car park; there is a parking charge. There is an information board here with a map depicting three waymarked routes; our description combines them to make a slightly longer circuit. The forest was devastated by Storm Arwen in 2021 and the walk begins through a felled area. Ignore the path off left and keep ahead towards a stand of surviving trees. Stay on the main track when it curves right (ignoring a path ahead).
When a pylon is reached ignore a path off right, again continuing ahead. Soon a four-way junction is reached; you'll return to this point later in the walk, but for now turn right (red and green markers). At the next t-junction turn left. Further on is another junction, where the green route turns left; keep ahead on the red route. On the right are views over a more open area. Ignore another path off left and follow the marked trail as it curves right.
At the edge of the trees is another junction; turn left here, following the red markers. Go left at a wide junction back into the trees. When a track is reached go straight across, marked in red. The path comes close to the edge of the forest, giving views over the new bypass road towards Deeside and the distant Cairngorms. Ignore a path off left, and later on turn left at a track (still waymarked red). When the path meets a wall near the edge of the forest, turn left alongside it, then turn right at the junction, and finally right again at a t-junction with a track.
You'll arrive back at four way junction visited on the outward route; this time turn right onto the yellow route (first marker is mssing). This leads through mixed woodland, with some oaks and other hardwoods as well as the felled areas. The path briefly curves right alongside a tumbledown stone wall before swinging back left through a gap. Keep right at a four-way junction. Eventually the path returns to the main outward route close to the start; turn right to return to the car park.
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