Many years ago, somebody bought me “The Big Walks” edited by Richard Gilbert and Ken Wilson, a coffee-table glossy pics type of thing which was very popular at the time and came in a series – including Classic Walks, Classic Climbs, The Big Climbs and so on.
Any road up, in this “Big Walks” book, there are some ridiculously long routes such as all the Fannichs in one go , The Ben Nevis and Lochaber Traverse and Marsden to Edale. Typically, many of the Scottish walks start and/or end in the middle of nowhere so you have to walk to the start and/or finish as well. They were tuff in them days, so they were….
And so, I’ve had one of these walks slowly braising in the back of my mind for many years and it is – The classic Big Walk from Peebles to Moffat. Or from Moffat to Peebles.
So I asked a few people who I thought might be interested and we have a kind of provisional arrangement to have a go at this at Easter this year. We won’t be doing this in a day, though, not on your muddy-booted nelly. No, we’ll take two and a half days. And then, some people wanted to walk back again – another two and a half days.
Final arrangements still have to be arranged finally but watch this space for further developments.
Here are the two routes: (apols for the poor quality of the maps, but I had to get the whole route on and not much space. Have a look at it in conjunction with a road map and you’ll get the idea)
Maps not to be used for navigation!
The total distance is around 73 Miles and the first part includes 3 Corbetts and a multitude of Donalds (‘Course, I’ve done all of these hills before ‘cos I’m a Donaldist intye?)
The walk, describes as starting at Peebles just for descriptive purposes goes from Peebles via Kirkhope Law 537metres – Dun Rig 742m – Black Law 698m - Fifescar Knowe 811m – Cramalt Craig 831m Broad Law 840m Hart Fell 808m – Moffat (with some interveining hills between the above) – Southern Upland Way to Ettrick Head – The Western part of the Ettrick Hills including 13 tops from 557m to 677m, Tibbie Shiels Inn, SUW again to Blackhouse, Dun Rig (again) 742m and Glenrath heights 732m – Glen sax to Peebles.
Phew.
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4 comments:
Sounds very interesting - although it would take me longer than 2 and a half days to do 73 miles or is that for the 5 days?
Laura - Its two and a half days for an outward walk at a high level, and two and a half days back again at a slightly less high level. Its walking on six days, but two days are only halves...
If you want to join, send me an email and I'll send you a bit more info (but not much more!)
It'll be a relatively gentle pace, though, there'll be none of this rushing about nonsense.
It is a grand walk Mike. I did it many years ago with a DofE group and we had to hang it out for three days but did thoroughly enjoy it. Odd thing was we never saw any other walkers while on the hills!
Grumpy.
We did the round of Cappelgill a couple of years ago - a grand walk with biggish hills - on an Auguct bank Holiday, and we only saw two other walkers. I've been all ove rthese hills (like a rash!) and hardly ever meet anybody else
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