| Date | 22 Feb 2026 |
| Route | Link to Route |
| Distance | 14.93km / 9.28miles |
| Enjoyable | |
| Difficulty | |
| Conditions | Dry clear day, cold at the top and very windy on the descent |
| Summits | ✔ (C) Mount Battock |
Just myself out for a hike today, Ailidh swamped with homework. Nice drive down to the starting point arriving around 9am, luckily still some space available to park.
Headed up the road, past a few buildings before taking the right turn and the track in front of Muir Cottage which heads into a small section of trees. Soon it drops down to a ford over quite a wide stream, but there is a small footbridge to the left.
Keeping to the main track, after around 3/4km the track splits. I had been in two minds which direction to take, but seeing the Burn of Turret looking in partial spate, decided to leave that to the end of the hike, so took the track to the left. From here the track slowly works it way north west then north east gently heading up the small hill of Allrey. At around 330m, the track splits, it would be easy to keep climbing upwards, but instead the route wraps around the hill to the right.
As you work your way up the valley, Mount Battock soon appears before you nestled between two other hills. At the point marked ford, which seems to be no more, you keep straight on and then head west then north up the slope of the ridge of Black Craig. Arriving at the gate I found the track covered in snow, but patchy enough to easy follow the track for a short while. As the snow cover increased, I instead made a bee line north east towards the very obvious cairn to the west of the real summit of Wester Cairn, which from my gps was just a few small rocks.
From the minor summit there was a small dip before ascending up to the left of the fence line, here the snow was very deep, at times reaching the top of the fence itself. Once over the rise the trig point of Mount Battock was just a short distance away. The views today really good in all directions, however the wind had started to really pick up, but fortunately the small shelter cairn was a good place to have an early lunch.
Heading south south east, the descent along the fence line towards the Hill of Saughs was quick due to the snow being much softer on this aspect, however the wind on top of Saughs was quite fierce, with my hiking poles acting as small sails due to having snow baskets today. Keeping south I picked up a good track and made great time down towards the hill of Turret where I turned off to the right down a more indistinct path that wound down through some stone built grouse butts before reaching the ford, which was pretty high today.
Rejoining the track from earlier in the day, it wasn't long before I was back at the car brewing up before the drive home.
