We were going to be heading up to Elgin for a do this weekend, and whilst poking around on hill-bagging.co.uk I spotted that I had two unbagged hills that were barely a stones’ throw off our route (if we took a slightly non-standard route).
I would have liked to have done this linear(ish) route in the opposite direction, but decided, for a couple of reasons, I’d be better starting off from where there was parking available, to the S. My thinking was that Mick could sit there until I was off the hills, whereupon I would message him to come and pick me up and he would be with me within five minutes. The spanner in the works was the weak and intermittent phone signal in that car park and the gamble that there would be a signal at my finish point.
The other off-putting element was the wind. As soon as we arrived I took a little stroll up the road to check that the path I’d seen on StreetView did exist, as I’d not spotted it as we’d driven past. It was there, clear as day, but it was a real effort walking back to Bertie against the wind, and as the path was at 45 degrees to it, I feared the ascent would be more arduous than I wanted.
Nevertheless, I stuck with the plan, and it turned out that the road lay in a wind funnel. It was still pretty breezy as I ascended, but nothing unmanageable.
The ‘path’ was an eroded line through the heather, but with only the odd slip on a plate of ball bearings, I made good progress up it and reached the first top in 25 minutes. I could see the sea from up there! (This shouldn’t have been surprising, considering my location!)
Trotting down the dip between the two hills, I could see that whilst the zig-zagging track up Little Conval, as shown on the map, existed, there was also a straight line option. I went for the steeper but shorter option and as there’s only a 165m drop between these two hills, it wasn’t too long before I was atop Little Conval (one hour after leaving Bertie).
Receiving a message from Mick saying that he’d be leaving the car park in 10 minutes’ time to move to somewhere with a better phone signal, I quickly sent one back saying to hold tight for 20 minutes, by which time he’d hopefully find me on the road waiting for him.
My descent was blighted by faffs, so I positively barrelled down the most runnable bits, and I was still on target to get to the road before Mick when the track suddenly ended. Faced with two options (and giving the map only the briefest glance) I made the wrong choice as to which side of a fence to go, and found myself crawling under and climbing over fallen trees before climbing a fence to get back on track. The road was then only just ahead of me and I arrived there at precisely my ETA. Bertie trundled along 30 seconds later.
A very pleasing couple of easy hills. If I was fussy, I would have liked less of a breeze and warmer hands, but neither were enough to spoil a fine little outing.
I've had to fight at length to get any photos onto this post and I've lost the will to try to get them into the right order.
Looks like fairly well trodden ground. If you relate these two to being on the edge pf the Cairngorms it is a bit like doing Wainwright's Outlying Fells pf Lakeland, and from what I see with similar attraction.
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