Saturday 11 May 2013

An Afternoon Wander up Tinto

Saturday 11th May 2013

A quick nip up Tinto on my way north to the highlands 

Distance: 7.5km; Ascent: 470m; Windy with showers of rain & hail; Solo

Unfortunately I didn’t make it through the draw for this year’s TGO Challenge; however I decided to still head up to the highlands for a week of hill bagging and walking during the first week of the challenge.  As I didn’t set off from Stockport until this morning, it was always going to have to be a short hill today, and I fancied climbing Tinto above the Clyde valley.

The path to Tinto
Therefore at around quarter past one I set off walking from the car park on the edge of Fallburn following a broad track.  A shower had just finished passing so the cloud was gradually lifting off the upper slopes of the hill as I ascended.  In fact when I got a bit higher there was even some blue sky!

A Rare Bit of Blue Sky over Tinto
However it was not to last as the wind soon picked up and, as I was within a few hundred metres of the summit, a hail storm broke!  Therefore I didn’t linger long on the summit of Tinto (Graham, Marilyn, Donald) after visiting the viewfinder on the summit cairn and the nearby trigpoint.  Apparently on a clear day you can see Lochnagar from here according to the viewfinder; today however I could only just about see the trigpoint from the viewfinder!

Viewfinder on the summit of Tinto
Summit cairn and trigpoint on Tinto
I had originally considered descending by a different route so as to make a circular walk; however due to the hail storm I wasn’t overly inspired by this idea and instead choose to return the way I ascended with a slight variation around Maurice’s Cleuch.  I returned to the car shortly after 3:15pm after a good couple of hours walking.  Now it was time to drive north to the highlands :-)

See here for my Social Hiking map from the day's walk. 

N.B. 16/06/13 - Post date updated to actual date of walk, i.e. 11/05/13 (from 12/05/13).  Links to social hiking, hill-bagging and trigpoint also added.

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