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.
