East Cairn Hill

It was a beautiful, cold, crisp and still winter’s day after a light overnight snowfall. We decided to go up East Cairn Hill in the Pentlands, the highest point in the City of Edinburgh. The drive up through Balerno was amazing with snow balanced on all the branches and the sun shining; amazingly it remained cold enough that it was still like it late afternoon. We started at the Little Vantage carpark (just over the border in West Lothian); it was well snow covered. It was decidedly Baltic but with no wind it was warm enough as we went up the Thieves Road until a set of tracks led up the hill. The snow was about 5 cms deep until a little bit up the hill when it became much deeper up to 60 cms or more and the guy breaking the trail must have got tired. We were grateful for his efforts. The views opened out in all directions and from the top we could see Arran to the west, the hills around Loch Lomond to the north west and the southern Cairngorms to the north east. The descent was much easier with gravity on our side. When we got back a car was just leaving but couldn’t get up the wee slope onto the main road. It was an automatic with wide tyres so was stuffed until a Land Rover arrived and towed them out. We aimed a bit right of their track at a higher speed and just managed to get out, so that was good. The blip is the view from the top looking south west to the Borders hills and the extra a collage of sights during the day.

Best on black.