If you’ve spent any time at all reading The Oikofuge, you’ll have gathered that I’m quite interested in hills—climbing them, looking at other hills from their summits, understanding their names and their place in history, landscape and land-use. What you won’t have seen me mention very often is the plethora of classifications that have been … Continue reading Scottish Hill Lists: The Classics
The Cairngorms lay beneath what was now a local bonnet of cloud. Everything else was in sunshine and dazzling with colours, cobalts and browns and bright greens, all the peaks around glowing with the pristine pigments of an illuminated manuscript, as far as distant Lochnagar and Beinn a’ Ghlo. Then even the interior gloom began to … Continue reading Sydney Scroggie: The Cairngorms Scene & Unseen
East Lomond (NO 243061, 434m)West Lomond (NO 197066, 522m)Bishop Hill (NO 185043,461m) 20 kilometres710 metres of ascent Having previously climbed West Lomond and East Lomond from the Craigmead car park, and having made a more recent traverse of Bishop Hill from the Holl Reservoir car park, I decided it was time to chain all three … Continue reading Lomond Reservoirs Circuit
Bishop Hill (NO 185043, 461m) 13.5 kilometres370 metres of ascent Bishop Hill is a prominent ridge on the far side of Loch Leven for anyone driving on the M90. Together with West and East Lomond, it encloses an area of tilted terrain, dotted with reservoirs, northwest of Glenrothes. I parked at the Holl Reservoir car … Continue reading Bishop Hill Circuit
The Goal (NO 361639, 459m)Hill of Couternach (NO 356659, 512m) 13.7 kilometres470 metres of ascent The Airlie Memorial stands on the shoulder of Tulloch Hill, which is the prow of a long ridge separating Glen Prosen to the west from Glen Clova in the east. It’s another of those places conjured into legendary status in … Continue reading Prosen-Clova: Airlie Memorial To Hill Of Couternach
[…] I toiled up the last slope and came out above Glen Einich. Then I gulped the frosty air—I could not contain myself, I jumped up and down, I laughed and shouted. There was the whole plateau, glittering white, within reach of my fingers, an immaculate vision, sun-struck, lifting against a sky of dazzling blue. … Continue reading Nan Shepherd: The Living Mountain
Tinto (NS 953343, 711m) 8.3 kilometres510 metres of ascent I feel vaguely embarrassed to be writing about an ascent of a popular hill by a popular route, but sometimes ingenuity escapes me. Tinto is the site of a great missed pun opportunity for me. Decades ago, I was invited to climb it along with an … Continue reading Tinto
Ben Shee (NN 952039, 516m)Cairnmorris Hill (NN 933016, 606m)Skythorn Hill (NN 926013, 601m)Andrew Gannel Hill (NN 918006, 670m)Ben Cleuch (NN 902006, 721m)Ben Buck (NN 896014, 679m)Ben Buck NE Top (NN 904024, 583m) 20 kilometres790 metres of ascent Most of the foot traffic on Ben Cleuch, the highest point in the Ochil Hills, comes up the … Continue reading Ochils: Ben Cleuch From The North
Tom Buidhe (NO 214787, 957m)Tolmount (NO 210800, 958m)Crow Craigies (NO 221798, 920m) 21 kilometres910 metres of ascent These three rounded summits form a horseshoe around the headwaters of the White Water, which flows down Glen Doll to join the South Esk in Glen Clova. I’ve visited them all before, but never linked them up into … Continue reading Glen Doll: White Water Circuit
Ben Vrackie (NN 950632, 841m)Meall na h-Aodainn Moire (NN 941622, 633m) 14 kilometres900 metres of ascent This one is much less eccentric than most of my “familiar hills from an unusual direction” reports—the route to Vrackie from the west is well-documented, but considerably less-travelled than the tourist route from the south. There’s even the potential … Continue reading Ben Vrackie From The West