Pitfichie

A fine morning was followed by a slightly duller, but dry, afternoon as six of us headed over to Tilliefourie to start our walk up the Green Hill. Stewart, Jeb, Colin, Nigel, captain Ken and I all present and correct.

The Pitfichie trails are good quality but ebikes are essential for some of the climbs. It was, however, fairly easy walking with most of the slopes relatively gentle. We kept up a pretty healthy pace - somebody remarked that our Borders training must have done us some good.

The first point of interest was the Whitehill Stone Circle. Most of the upright stones had fallen over and the circle is fairly overgrown so it's not a "must do". Apparently it was constructed and probably used for ceremonial purposes in the 2nd and 3rd millennia B.C.

At the point where we left the wider trails and meandered up through a narrower track in the forest, there were no entry signs warning us of logging operations ongoing. We decided, however, that, the chances of any serious activity on a Friday afternoon were pretty remote and carried on regardless.

Through the forest and out in to the clearing we started to get some good views of the surrounding countryside before climbing to the top of the Green Hill, where we had wonderful 360 degree views and we played point out the mountains with our leader - Mount Keen, Lochnagar, Morven, Ben An, Buck of Cabrach, Ben Rinnes, Knock Hill, Hill of Foudland. Ken got pass marks.

It was pretty windy at the top and hoods were the order of the day for some:

Nowhere to prop the camera up for a timer shot, so I asked Ken to take one of me - plus onlookers:

On the descent, we apparently passed the Luath Stone, which allegedly marks the spot where Lulach, the stepson of King Macbeth of Scotland (1005-1057) was murdered. The evidence for this is thin, however and it was 150 metres away from the trail anyway and there was nothing really visible to mark the spot, so we marched on.

Eventually we came across a timber lorry which was loading up for probably its last delivery of the week to Cordiners Sawmills, Banchory. The area round there was seriously chewed up by the heavy vehicles and was properly muddy. We gingerly traversed this area without incident other than me losing one of my boots in the mud as I tried to skip through the quagmire. Much mirth all round as Nigel kindly retrieved the footwear.

The walk was a lot quicker than ViewRanger's website estimate of 3.5 hours. In fact, our actual walking time was only 2 hours 13 mins, although our elapsed time was probably half an hour more than this. The length of the walk was, however accurately assessed at 10 kms. Here's the full stats:

Time for coffee now and we decided to head to Alford and the bistro there. Very nice it was too - excellent carrot cake, but not cheap - but we probably could have headed to Monymusk which was a bit nearer.

That's walk 8 of 2019 completed so we're still playing a bit of catch up. Next walk is planned for Friday 25th October.