Mount Battock

The route up is by the lower track and Mount Battock top right

Mount Buttock is not quite as boring as it looks

Frog, one of dozens

Looking back down the ascent route from Mount Battock

Mount Battock summit paraphernalia

Looking east during the descent

New track up to Hill of Saughs

Thursday, 19 March 2015
Ascent:     720 metres
Distance:  14 kilometres
Time:        3hours 35 minutes

c  Mount Battock     775m   1hr 56mins

I had to travel to Aberdeen for some work on Thursday evening and Friday so I left early to give myself some much-needed exercise and the chance to climb the most easterly Corbett. Mount Battock lies north of Glen Esk, a glorious Angus Glen that abounds in Scotland's wildlife. I drove into Edzell at 11:27am, exactly the time that Eva was born thirty-odd years ago, so stopped and sent her a text to coincide with her birth minute. Then up Glen Esk, which looked a bit bedraggled and faded on a dull March day. The mosses and lichens were a vibrant green carpet beneath the pines, birches, and beech hedging that lined the road. A pheasant's revolt had me breaking around every corner as they scampered across the road, there was no other traffic. I found a parking spot over the bridge at Milden. It was occupied by a new VW camper van with blacked-out windows and a bike rack. Undoubtedly the owner was up the hill and I suspected that they were on a mission to climb the hills by mountain bike.

The walk would mainly be along Land Rover tracks and it looked as if it would stay dry so I left my crampons and ice axe behind, the snow on the summits looked only patchy. I set out up the road from Milden to Mill of Aucheen and, after passing the mill, I headed for a holiday cottage and then along a track that took me to the Burn of Turret. From here a track climbs all the way to the Western Cairn of Mount Battock. After passing a couple of dead rats, the range and volume of wildlife exploded; this part of the world is well endowed with game and echoes to the sound of gunshot in season. There were dozens of rabbits burrowing in the sandy banks of the burn, then lapwings circling and calling on the moors. I watched a badger make its way along the other side of the burn. By the time I left the burn and the track began to climb, there were dozens of grouse whirring and squawking as they took to the air as I passed. The track was littered with gun cartridges.

On the upper slopes of Mount Een patches of heather were being burnt and plumes of smoke rose vertically in the still air.  The track to Mount Battock skirts around the base of Allrey Hill, I resisted the temptation to follow the more prominent track that climbs steeply to the summit and presumably gives access to the dozens of shooting butts that litter these hills. After crossing the Black Burn I came across a pool of water that was alive with a cavalcade of frogs, they all scattered and burrowed below the moss covering the pool as I approached. Above a stable, at 500 metres the track steepened and more shooting butts were scattered every 30 or 40 metres along the track. A lone hen harrier was patrolling the skies and no doubt seeking red grouse. Several white mountain hares scooted up the hill, their coats in stark contrast with the brown/grey heathers making them easy prey for birds of prey.

Only the last kilometre from the western cairn to the summit is free of gravel tracks and even on this section, there were muddied wheel marks from quad bikes and the tracks of a mountain bike that looked fresh. I emerged on the flattish summit, which was decorated with a couple of shelter cairns, a trig point and a stile. The views were just wavy lines of rounded hills dissected with tracks running to their summits. Given that I had done very little exercise in the last month, I was pleased to have made it in less than two hours so rewarded myself with a 10-minute break for some water, tomatoes and nuts.

I decided to take a different route back and crossed the stile to head over to the Hill of Saughs. There was a faint path but it was mainly bashing through the heathers and schussing down a couple of patches of hard snow. From the Hill of Saughs, there is another newish track of orange/pink gravel that descends to the Hill of Turret. How do they afford to construct so many hill tracks that only serve the shooting butts? I forded the Burn of Turret and then another kilometre down the track recrossed it by a footbridge to take a path down the eastern bank that led down to the headkeeper's cottage in Milden. The VW van had disappeared.

It had been a good recovery walk although my right leg was aching from the effort of some decent exercise. I drove through Fettercairn and then onto Aberdeen by the A90. It took 40 minutes to reach the outskirts of Aberdeen and then the same again to get to the Bridge of Dee, despite the decline of oil Aberdeen was still humming with expensive cars and Friday evening shoppers.