Tinto Hill

Start of walk from Fallburn

Summit Cairn

The path from Fallburn to the north

Looking north to Lanarkshire

Looking west from the summit to the trig point

Scaut Hill from summit

South-east and the River Clyde

Monday,  29 October 2018

Tinto           711m      51mins 

Acent:        522 metres
Distance:    7 kilometres
Time:          1 hour 31 minutes

The first frost of winter also brought a cold but clear day. I have looked at Tinto Hill on dozens of occasions when passing but never attempted to climb it as I have usually been on a long journey to and from England with limited time. However, it is less than an hour away from Glasgow so we travelled down after the morning peak hour traffic. The Clyde Valley was resplendent with the fields still shimmering in the morning frost. We passed through Lanark, always a solid looking town, and the main street looked as if it had coped better than most small towns with the majority of shops still in business. It is only 7 miles further to the start of the path up Tinto from the A72 at Fallburn, where the excellent Tinto Hill Tearoom provides good homemade fare.

There were already a dozen cars in the car park and a few couples were on the lower slopes, usually accompanied by several dogs. The path was wide and set at an easy gradient on the lower slopes, it continued for almost a kilometre before veering to the right and becoming progressively steeper. By this time I had fallen into an easy rhythm and I used the walkers ahead as targets to maintain a good pace. There is then a narrower level path that skirts the side of a hill before climbing more steeply as the main path is rejoined. The visibility was good and the ground hard from the overnight frost. Nearer the summit, the path became stonier and it ramped up again but at no point does it require halts for a breather.

There is a viewing indicator mounted on the mortared cairn at the summit, the old trig point sits slightly below a fence to the west. I took a few photos before some other groups arrived and seated themselves at the cairn. Tinto is a very different hill than my usual staple in the highlands. The ground was dry, the grass short, the hills rounded, the valleys broad, the walkers less well equipped and the expedition a whole lot shorter. There were half a dozen couples on the hill who knew how to pace a walk, a young couple on a day off after working a weekend shift were shattered from the climb and a few gnarled hikers were reliving past memories. I am probably in the latter group and reflected that I had always intended to enter the annual hill race but never found the fortitude to make the 120-mile round trip for a race that would take well under an hour in those days. Well, that's my story!

Tinto is a fine viewpoint and on a really clear day would offer views to Glasgow, the Trossachs, the Border hills, England and the Ayrshire coast. Today, the views were good rather than excellent, with clouds in the east and a haze to the south, west and north. I began the descent and apart from the few icy sections of hard ground, it was an easy canter down the hill. I was back well ahead of the 2 hours that I had assumed and had to walk down the road to the tearoom to find Aileen who was reading a book and enjoying the quiet Monday morning ambience of the place. I ordered some soup at noon before we set off for New Lanark and the afternoon activity studying the roots of community munificence.