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I'm sat here waiting on my friend to arrive so we can go up the Ochils again so thought I'd start this topic on here seeing as there's loads of people on generally. Surely a few of you like hillwalking and I can pick your brains at a later date? :D

Does anyone else enjoy hillwalking? My friend took me up Ben Ledi last year and I hated every minute of it. :lol: However said "friend" later admits that Ledi was perhaps not the best hill to start me off so we've since been up Ben Venue in the Trossachs (didn't reach the top mind - ran out of time) and we've been trying to get the tallest peak in the Ochils (Ben Cleugh) done for a while now but something always went wrong.

I'm too unfit to get up a munro yet I think (though apparently Ben Ledi isn't far short of a munro) though I'm not as bothered about how high the hill is I'm only looking for good walks. I love taking photos from the top and obviously there's wildlife that you wouldn't normally see sometimes as well.

Here's a few choice photos taken from the Ben Ledi and Venue trip. As I say I hated Ledi as we did it on a really hot day and I was very unprepared (was climbing the hill in trainers that were falling to bits). Venue was fine until the lovely wide dirt track stopped at a marsh that you had to go across to continue. I put my foot in a hole three times and my friend had to pull me out. Wasn't keen on that though I expect it would have been better to do in the summer (we trie it in October). :lol:

From the top of Ben Ledi

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Ben Venue

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So what walks has everyone else done and how did you find them Do you have pictures or stories or anything to share?

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In my (much) younger days I used to hill walk in The Cheviot's. My best achievement was a 25 mile climb up Happy Valley (the steep ascent of The Cheviot), across the Horseshoe and up Hedgehope Hill before descending into Langlee Valley, carrying 50 lbs of equipment in my rucksack. What made it more 'interesting' was the 10 ft of ice covered snow we were walking on. There were icicles about a foot long sticking out sideways from the fence posts due to the wind strength. And my mate Phil managed to find the one unfrozen spot on the hill. 'Haw, look, there's some grass' Stands on the one grassy spot in the ice pack and sinks up to his thigh in a hidden burn :lol: You could see from the Solway Firth and across to the North Sea. Magical. :D

I also went up Goat Fell on Arran a few years back which was 'fun'. Lovely day on the way up but as soon as I reached the summit and peered over I saw a mass of black clouds headed my way. Getting down as quickly as possible, said raincloud burst and I ended up back in Brodick absolutely drookit! :(

Edit: Brodick from Goat Fell - only it was much wetter when I was there! :(

Edited by Kilt
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I love walking, just really took it up 2 summers ago. Our first hill was Ben Vrackie really good hill and great views from the top.

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Looking over to be Ben A Glo massive

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Looking down to Schiehallion and Ben Lawers, was a really clear day we could see back to perth and on to Edinburgh in the south and up to Glen coe and further to the north

We did not get out much last year just did a few low level walks. Hoping to do Ben Lomond, Lawers, Venue, Ledi, A'An, Chonzie ans Schiehallion among others this year

Here is a good website with a good forum Scottish hills

Edited by Shaggy Jenkins
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Ben Ledi and Ben Chappul (sp?), near Oban, are the only hills I've ever climbed, unless Arthur's Seat counts? :ph34r:

I absolutely detested it. :lol:

Bizarrely, the rest of my family love hillwalking, whereas If I need to chill out then a wee wander arond the West End of Glasgow does the job.

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Done the great wall of China walk a number of years ago

i took this pic at the start of our walk.....

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No you didn't. The photo comes from a public school in Massachusetts. :rolleyes:

I've done a fair bit in the past, keep threatening to take it up again.

Here's a photo I took once. My two walking companions after finishing Mount Everest. B)

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Oh well Cleugh can laugh at us no more we finally (after two failed attempts) made it to the top today. Not that we could actually see anything when we got up there mind, the clouds were far too low. Other than the mist it was a great day for hillwalking as there was no wind at all. I was walking up the hill in my T shirt and put my fleece on when we had lunch at the top. It's a nice easy walk Cleugh but then it's not even a Corbett I don't think. Managed to get away without even having blisters but then I was given a great pair of boots for Xmas!

The nice thing about the Ben Cleugh walk though is that for the first half 25mins your walking through a forest beside a stream coming down from the moutains so it's a lovely way to start a walk! :) It took us a wee while as we were trying to take photos (and failing) so it was 2.5 hours to get to the summit and another 2 hours for coming back down.

Shaggy thanks so much for the website link, I've been looking for a good website with a forum as the only one I came across required £10 a year to use. :(

Photos are all fantastic! I'll upload mine later on but then as I say we couldn't see much from the top.

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Been hill-walking for less than a year and am totally addicted.

Munros - Ben Vane, Ben Lomond, Ben Vorlich (Loch Lomond) & Beinn Narnain.

Corbetts - Goatfell, Cairnsmore of Carsphairn, Merrick & Corserine.

Favourite hill to date is undoubtedly Ben Vorlich.

A few of my pics (which I have put onto the munromagic site)

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Ben Vane - taken whilst climbing Ben Vorlich

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Cairnsmore of Carsphairn from Windy Standard (although I ascended on the other side).

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Me at the trig point on top of the Merrick.

Going to do a shitload more hills over the next few weeks now that my hols start on Friday. :)

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This innoffensive looking pic is taken from the summit of Corserine in Galloway. The hill in the background (which despite the pic is lower than Corserine) is Carlin's Cairn.

I climbed it on 27/12/06 (yes, two days after Xmas) and my wife's friend and I reached the summit (frosty all around) pretty easily. Came down in snow and completely missed the stile back to the forest road. We walked north along the fence (assuming we were heading toward the stile, when in fact it was behind us) and eventually came to a wall crossing through the fence. "Bugger", I thought - "we are off the map".

There followed a period of trudging through crappy long grass and potholes to follow this wall back to the forest road. Came very close to losing daylight in an almost featureless forest.

It didn't put her off coming with me again (taught me a lesson in navigation) and we have since done Beinn Narnain - that path up by the Cobbler is great, and it and Beinn Ime are on the "to do" list.

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and we've been trying to get the tallest peak in the Ochils (Ben Cleugh) done for a while now but something always went wrong.

It's spelt Ben Cleuch actually.

and I should know until they reshuffled the houses at school I was in "Cleuch"

I've never tried climbing myself but the one that many people say they've done and is easier than the rest is Dumyat (pronounced Dum-aye-at) which is just north of Blairlogie. If you're a mince hillwalker just starting, that might be ideal.

hth

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Guest bairnbabe

Al the pictures are really good, I've always been interested to know what is actually up the mountains, like any animals etc?

On the way to Stirling, I love looking at the hills, don't know why, I just do.

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damn I thought that didn't look right somehow. :ph34r: Funnily enough my friend climbed Dymyat the other day (not the friend that goes hillwalking with me. Well... the friend that puts up with me while he's hillwalking). Dynyat is about half the size of Cleuch though I think so lokking to do something a bit bigger after Ben Venue which is next on the list. At some point this year I'd like to do Ben Venue (unfinished from last year), Ben Vane, Ben Lomond, Ben Vorlich (Venechar) and Stuc A Chrion and the Cobbler. Need to think of some good Corbetts to do as well though.

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Al the pictures are really good, I've always been interested to know what is actually up the mountains, like any animals etc?

On the way to Stirling, I love looking at the hills, don't know why, I just do.

we saw and heard a lot of Sky larks today and there are meadow pippits too. You can also see ravens on some of the higher hills which obviously you don't get many of in the central belt any more (if any actually - dont think I've ever seen a raven in Stirlingshire). Added to them you get birds of prey like buzzards and peregrine falcons in the Ochils.

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