Over The Hill

Situated to the north of the Forth valley, the southern escarpments of the Ochil Hills tower above the old mill towns of Alva and Tillicoultry with the rolling plateau above dotted with a multitude of grassy tops, the highest point of which is Ben Cleuch, at 721m.

We set off from the upper car park at the Ochil Hills Woodland Park and skirted east along the lower edges of the woodland towards the footpath leading to the bridge over the Tillicoultry Burn before picking up the well defined path which climbs steeply up the east side of the burn high above Mill Glen. The hillside was ablaze with the bright yellow gorse which covered the lower hillsides, and which made a dramatic contrast to the bright blue sky above.

The escarpment is scarred by a number of deep ravines which run generally north to south along its southern face, therefore any progress through and across these ravines necessitates a steep descent to the floor of the ravine, and an equally steep ascent out the other side. As was the case as we descended to the stout wooden footbridge which crosses the upper reaches of the glen just above the intersection of the Gannell and Daiglen burns as we traversed from the east side of the glen onto the southern slope of The Law, the 638m top over which we would pass en route to Ben Cleuch.

It's a steep ascent over broad grassy slopes from the river crossing to the summit of The Law, which is unmarked, and quite undistinguished, as on arrival, given a clear day such as we had, your eye is drawn to the summits of Andrew Gannel Hill (670m), to the north east, and Ben Cleuch (721m), to the north west. With the hard climb over, we took the opportunity for a leisurely break and time to take in some distant views over the Forth, with both the road and railway bridges visible and beyond to a hazy humpback that we believe could only be the Bass Rock.

Break over, it was a short walk along the fenceline and up the gentle slopes to the Trig Point and View Point on the summit of our main objective for the day, Ben Cleuch (721m). Once again, the views from here were extensive, providing you look beyond the wind farm which lurks on the hillside just below the summit. To the north we could see the distant Cairngorms, with quite a distinctive covering of snow across the tops, while, to the west, we could easily identify Ben Lomond and beyond to The Cobbler and Beinn Ime.

There are five grassy tops radiating out from the summit of Ben Cleuch; our choice was Ben Ever, lying to the southwest of the summit and easily reached via a descent to a shallow bealach and a short ascent to the broad summit area. Once on the summit, we found it to contain two small cairns, the east most one being at a slightly higher point than the one to the west, and so it was to the eastern edge of the plateau that we migrated towards for the obligatory summit photo call.

There is an obvious track leaving the summit of Ben Ever which heads south for a short distance before turning south west down the grassy slopes to met a hard surfaced track which takes you down a series of zigzags into Glen Silver from which we merged with a good footpath through the woodlands and hence back to our start point at the car park.

This is a very enjoyable walk which, on a beautiful day as we had, offers some wonderful views over the winding Forth valley - Thanks David