Campsie Fells

Having not even made it into the car to head north to support the West Highland Way race, let alone on foot into the great outdoors, I was keen to find a hill run to offer some replacement therapy. While I’ve been up and Dumgoyne a few times recently I have not done so with Mr Outdoors for ages, so this is where we headed.

Mr Outdoors is keen to rediscover his hill walking legs for a forthcoming trip to the Cuillin Ridge so he suggested the idea of running up and down “our hill” (remember, this is where we were married in 2006) twice . This seemed like a good challenge until we reached the summit (in a great time) and looked over to the next summit in the Campsie Fells. Strangely we’ve never ventured over to this hill called (I think) Earl’s Seat (578m). (See here for info about these hills). So two hills in one outing rather than one hill twice became our new goal.

We found the trail was easy to identify and while there was a reasonable ascent it was very easy-going compared to the steep side of Dumgoyne. The views from Earl’s Seat (the highest summit in this string of hills) were every bit as gorgeous although I’m still pleased we chose Dumgoyne for the wedding.

The route back would have been oh-so-simple if we’d just retraced our steps but this is so not the way of Mr Outdoors. He likes to try new routes. Instead he decided to navigate us off the hill by another route he swore he could see from the top of Earl’s Seat. Only, it turns out, that this trail didn’t quite go where he’d expected and we ended up spending 20 minutes traipsing through tedious ankle twisting heather. (Apparently I was also to blame as this route had been a “joint” decision. Hmmm!).

Finally, though, we picked up a trail at the bottom of the hills running back towards the Strathblane Valley. I believe this is called the “pipe trail” or similar. It did offer a lovely final mile or so to our run and meant that we arrived back at Glengoyne Distillery (and the car) with smiles back on our faces.