I've been looking for some closer hills to fill in the time between Munros and keep the fitness in check. After Beinn Luibhean I'd given myself a nasty ankle twist which was runnable on, but I took a week off to let it rest. Last weekend I was in the Kilpatricks and it was mostly recovered, so I figured I'd head out further afield this weekend.
I left Glasgow in bright sun just after 0900, got some diesel for the van, and headed south on the M74 for Moffat. It was a short drive from Moffat to the car park at Blackshope. I got ready and headed out from the van into more sunshine with a brutally cold wind at 1039. I got about 200m up the road before I remembered that I'd left my gloves in the van so had to head back and get them.
The first part is up the side of a lovely big gully carved into the side of the hill, and it has a burn and a few waterfalls. Very steep but I made good progress quite quickly.
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| Hang Gill |
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| Waterfall |
From the waterfall, I just followed a path up the side of the Hang Burn, and onto the high point at Black Craig. As I got closer to the 700m contour, the snow was starting to get a bit deeper, but it was all quite new, so was fairly soft.
Up on the ridgeline, the views started to really open up.
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| View across the Horseshoe |
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View over to Hart Fell
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It was quite flat for a couple of kms now and I had the wind behind me which pushed me along a bit. I passed the summit of Falcon Craig, then dropped a bit of height, the snow here being especially deep by virtue of being wind-blown. I turned NW and had to gain another 80m ascent, but the wind was hitting me so I stopped to add some layers, clipping my rucksack to a fence to stop it blowing away from me.
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| Taking in the views |
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| Snowy landscape |
I was on the summit at 1222 but it was very windy so I didn't really hang about. The next leg across to Hartfell Rig was the windiest so far, I was leaning hard but it wasn't strong enough to blow me over.
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| Hart Fell |
I met a couple of walkers going the other way up Hartfell Rig, but it was hard to speak in the wind. I debated heading down into the glen to get out of the wind but I don't really think it would have made much difference.
I decided to just go for Under Saddle Yoke and it was fine - a bit windy on the top, but the descent was nice. I passed a huge party of about 10 people (explained all the cars at the car park) on the way down and when I hit the 500m mark, I just took the steep slope down into the valley. A stronger fell runner might have just blasted down, but I was a bit cautious, especially given the ankle injury from before.
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| View across the Horseshoe |
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| Saddle Yoke from Under Saddle Yoke |
I made it down to the valley and saw lots of very cute lambs, but the rain was starting to come on and I didn't want to hang about
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| Almost done. All this time outside is not making my face age well. |
Run Distance: 15.05km
Run Time: 3h 7m
Ascent: 1060m
Corbetts Completed: 17
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