Not the West Highland Way. Ronald Turnbull
and small shop.
Descending from Garloch Hill towards Dumgoyne
Turn right to the A81, and left to Kirkhouse Inn. Here turn right to take A891 towards Campsie Glen. Pass a church on the left and its car park on the right. After 1km, look up left to glimpse a waterfall, way up in Ballagan Burn. To right of the road is the small steep volcanic plug Dunglass. The road passes the woods of Ballagan House.
At 1.2km from Strathblane, at the end of the wood on the left, go through a gate on the left and up onto open hill. Pass a fence corner on your right and slant up to the right to meet a grassy track. Follow this up left at first, then in zigzags.
After a gate, the track forks: take the right branch, soon forking right again on a faint path that joins the ridgeline fence that’s the boundary between Stirling and East Dunbartonshire Councils. The grassy path left of the fence leads to the trig point on Dumbreck. The path and fence continue north, through a damp col and then a rather peaty one, to the trig point on Earl’s Seat.
Take a path northwest, over a bent fence, to the top of the northern scarp. The path follows this edge southwest, as it rises to a viewpoint cairn, then dips and rises again to Garloch Hill. Then it wanders down to the col at the back of Dumgoyne.
The Campsies are made of volcanic basalt. It’s the flat-topped lava flows, one on top of the other, that give these hills their grassy tops and sudden small crags. But Dumgoyne is the actual vent of one of the volcanoes. It’s one of the most sudden and steep-sided hills in all Scotland. At the start I compared the Campsies somewhat mockingly with the Cuillin of Skye. Steep grass and a bit of basalt aren’t at all the same as black bare rock. But in terms of pointiness at the top, Dumgoyne is up there with Sgurr nan Gillean and Am Basteir.
So while there’s a bypass path on the right, it’s worth taking the small, very steep, path that zigzags up ahead to the summit of Dumgoyne. The views may not be quite so stunning as on Sgurr nan Gillean but they’re still pretty grand, and the grassy hollows are more tempting to rest among than Gillean’s black ledges.
Take a path just south of west, down a grassy spur. As it steepens, avoid a steep and eroded direct descent to the right. Keep on down the spur path a bit further, until it turns sharp right, to contour across the steep northwestern face. It crosses the eroded straight-down path, then passes below some columnar basalt, to reach gentler slopes below.
Various paths descend westwards towards GlengoyneDistillery, converging on a stile. Across this, fork left down a dip in a field between two ash trees to another stile. The path runs down a final field to the roadside just south of the distillery.
Turn right to the distillery, and cross the road to a track between whisky warehouses, the distillery’s parking area. Through a gate the track becomes a rough field track, bending right, then reaching the WHWay. Turn right – you’ve still got 10km to do to Drymen.
DRYMEN TO ROWARDENNAN
This short stage finishes crossing the Lowland plain and arrives at Loch Lomond. It’s the only section without a mountain alternative – unless we count 361m Conic Hill as a mountain.
Maybe we should. Conic offers a stiff steep climb, a sudden panorama, and a whole lot of rock on top. That stiff, steep climb is, though, a mere 50m above the WH Way path. This is scarcely enough for a subheading and a little blue route box with distances and times. And why should Conic require a little blue route box, when it’s got the huge blue expanse of Loch Lomond?
WH WAY: DRYMEN TO ROWARDENNAN
| Distance | 24km (15 miles) |
| Approximate time | 7hr |
Conic Hill from south of Luss
Loch Lomond from Conic Hill
After the rail-and-road travel of the previous section, today starts with something even less exciting: a wood-pulp plantation. Leave Drymen on the main A811 for a path on the left up into Garadhban Forest.
The forest track contours northwest, through a car park and past various side-tracks. Emerge into a patch of clear-fell, and the official Way’s first view of Loch Lomond lies below the brushwood. Here I met two Germans encamped in what had been, before the trees fell, a clearing: a point marked on Harvey’s strip map as a wild campsite. I was pleased to tell them that, since the Land Reform Act of 2003, the whole of Scotland is a wild campsite. For myself, I continued into the darkness to a comfortable heather bed on the slopes of Conic Hill.
After the gate onto open moorland, the path becomes surprisingly rough, and not even very distinct at first. It tends uphill then bends round left onto the end of Conic Hill.
Small hill side-trip: Conic Hill
Conic is the final leaping-upwards of the Lowlands. It’s a slice of pebbly conglomerate, tipped on edge to form a spiky spine right down to Balmaha. The hill could be (but isn’t) nicknamed as Conic the Hedgehog.
Leave the WH Way as it starts to slant round onto the right-hand slope of the hill, to ascend grassy heather to the summit; or else from the WH Way’s high point, a small path leads back sharp left up to a col and the summit just beyond.
The summit features in the hill list of Marilyns: though only 361m high, it has the required 150m of drop all around it. Most Marilyns have fine views, and Conic’s is a panorama of Loch Lomond. Ahead and below, the hill spine continues as a line of islands across the loch. Conic Hill and its islands are taken as marking the boundary between Lowlands and Highlands. On a clear day, that line can be extended beyond Loch Lomond to the distant Isle of Arran, also split into Lowland and Highland halves.
Descend southwest to the first col. Here the path leads down to the right to rejoin the WH Way; but for the full Conic tonic, continue down the hill spine, enjoying the views and being disconcerted by the bare conglomerate rocks on the steeper descents. The water-smooth cobbles embedded in the rock are of pale quartzite and dark lava. They were washed by flash floods out of a mountain range to the north that no longer exists. The quartzite cobbles are particularly slippery.
After 1km, slant down to the right to rejoin the WH Way, just as it bends back to the left to slant through a grassy col in the spine ridge.
The descent to Balmaha is not the Way’s longest one – that distinction goes to the descent from the Devil’s Staircase to Kinlochleven (see page 94). But it is the second longest, and the steepest, and coming so early on is undoubtedly the toughest. Even those planning all the ambitious big-hill byways for later on may find this downhill section bringing their knees (as it were) to their knees.
After bypassing the summit, the wide WH Way path continues down just to right of Conic’s summit ridge. It is muddy and sometimes on bare conglomerate (or ‘puddingstone’) rock. It passes down leftwards through a grassy col and then into woods. Cross Balmaha car park, whose visitor centre has a sculpture symbolising the Highland Line in just two large stones, one of the Lowland Old Red Sandstone and the other of Highland schist.
From the lane to Balmaha pier, the path climbs over Craigie Fort, a fine viewpoint. And now we’re in the Highlands. Specifically we’re on Loch Lomond side, as rampaged over by Rob Roy Macgregor. But the woodland paths are well laid, the wild wolves extinct. Nothing lurks among the oaks but a sudden glimpse of Loch Lomond; and even the plumpest and most affluent West Highland walker probably won’t be molested by any cattle-reiving bandit. Reiving (Scots): snatching away, thieving, especially of livestock. The victim is ‘bereived’, and may well over the coming winter be dying of hunger.
North