Over The Hill

Anyone who has walked the hills over the last few years will have noticed great changes as the large forest plantations planted 30, 40 and 50 years ago are now being heavily felled leaving huge swathes of open hillsides. The Carron Valley Forest is a fine example of these changes. Although I had climbed Meikle Bin in April 2024, this was from Queenzieburn in the south, a route that has only a short forest section to navigate. It was back in December 2017 that I had last climbed Meikle Bin from Todholes, in the north, a route which entailed a large section of track through the Carron Valley Forest, the bare hillside around the summit of Meikle Bin being the only “open” area of the walk. Today, seven years on, it was quite different.

Barely had we left the car park at Todholes when we could see just how much felling had taken place, so much so that a distant Meikle Bin came into view even before we had crossed the inflow of the River Carron to the main reservoir, and a beautiful sight it made, with it’s bare summit just visible above some distant treetops. A leisurely pace along the fine forest track brought more open areas, Bin Bairn having been stripped of all trees allowing fine views north and northwest as we left the forest track and took to the open, grassy hillside for the short, but quite steep climb to the trig point marking the 570m summit of Meikle Bin.

Among our group, Meikle Bin has a reputation for wind, mist and no visibility. Not today however, we were in beautiful sunshine, a light breeze and uninterrupted visibility, all one can ask for as we settled down around the grassy summit for a very relaxed lunch, during which we had the spectacle of the daily Emirates A380 fly overhead as it made it’s approach into Glasgow airport.

After a very pleasant break on the summit, we headed off down the south ridge of Meikle Bin and into the one section of forest through which no defined track or path runs leaving us with no alternative to but to wend our way through it by a series of short muddy sections between the trees, and at times over fallen trees and branches to reach the small burn in the grassy clearing which marks the low point of the south ridge. Here, the tree bashing ends, and is replaced by an up, down, zigging and zagging meander along the general course of the burn until a point, easily missed if you do not keep alert where you must make a short climb away from the burn to gain an old turning circle and the end of a now disused forest track, but at which point you are now back on good tracks, the short forest adventure is over.

A couple of kilometres along this track, which heads directly towards the Carron Valley Reservoir, we swing north onto yet another fine forest track, one which I had not been on before as it was heavily forested on each side with no open views, until today that is, where again there has been extensive felling which has opened up the views, with the Bins to the west and views over the reservoir to the east, a pleasant surprise and an ideal route back to our start point at Todholes.

Thanks Ian, a brilliant day in the hills, great company, and a fine coffee in the Fintry community centre to end the day.

John