An Ochil Hills Walk

We are visiting Kirsty and David in Bridge of Allan for a few days and this morning they took us for a walk in the western end of the Ochil Hills, north of Dumyat.

This was our 6.1 mile route.

or, to out it into context, we were still quite close to Bridge of Allan and Dunblane.

It was quite chilly but the threatened snow showers didn't arrive.

Here are some of my photos.

We started at a small car park just up the road from the old Sheriffmuir Inn, by the Wharry Burn. We crossed the bridge and followed the Sheriffmuir road for a mile or so until we came to the path marked "Hill Path".

Along the way we had some views to the south-west of the wind turbines on the hills with the snowy hilltops of the Campsies beyond.

We liked this lichen hanging from the trees.

The path along the glen between Dumyat and Loss Hill was good.

We passed by the end of Lossburn reservoir.

Over the other side of the burn we could see a ruined farmstead. We would be passing it later.

We had now joined the Jerah Trail which comes up from Menstrie.

We descended to Loss Burn crossing on this footbridge.

Now we had about 1000' of climbing to do.

This is the remains of Jerah farmstead. A tragic death of a shepherd took place here in 1869. Read all about it here.

I continued up the hill to get better views while Kirsty stayed with Dawn who was taking a bit of rest. We don't have hills like this in Suffolk!

Off to our right, there was patchy snow on the higher hills.

Looking down along the course of Menstrie burn running between Dumyat (on the right) and Myreton Hill (on the left) we got a good view of the Forth river.

Way in the distance were some more wind turbines.

We could see the Kincardine bridge across the River Forth in the distance towards the south-east.

We were back on a  stone and gravel track again now.

Eventually we reached the top (see photo at the top of the post) and got a view down the other side with the snow-covered Trossachs in the distance.

We could see the former Sheriffmuir Inn as we descended.

We could also see the cliffs behind Kippen which we visited when we were here before on our way back from a cruise of Loch Katrine (see here)....

...and the wind turbines again.

We were soon back at the car.

A lovely walk with some great views. Thank-you Kirsty and David for leading us round.

You can find more details of our 6.1 mile route here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here) and see more of my photos here on Flickr.