Hill Climbing (Gentle) - The Lomonds, Scotland

[Dave KG]

Well, this evening a colleague and I decided to take a short drive to the Lomond Hills in Fife (near Glenrothes, about 30 mins north of Edinburgh) for a spot of hill walking...

I dont pretend to be any good at hill walking, that is very much Diane's skill. Diane is currently on a 50-day training course in the Purple Mountains in North Carolina with Outward Bound, training to become an Outward Bound instructor... so these two little bumps in the ground we climbed today would be absolutely nothing to her, but as she will certainly enjoy hill climbing I have decided to start getting a little fitter again and see if I can atleast be able to keep up on some of her more gentle strolls!! :

Anyway, the summits concerened:

West Lomond:


East Lomond:


We started out with West Lomond, the higher of the two hills at 522m.





Looks easy enough... and indeed, it pretty much was even for a completely unskilled walker like myself. Took time for some pics on the way up:



























Not far past this picture, we decided to veer off the main track and make a dash up the side of the hill for the summit:



Fairly easy going this incline and the path, although not the main one, was still pretty well walked:







The trig-point in sight:



And the view from the top - pity about the cloud cover, but still made it quite atmospheric...















And to prove I made it (excuse the pose)...

[Dave KG]

And some pics from on the way back to the car park:















The next hill in sight...




So, a quick 5 min breather, and then time to go up East Lomond:



Alas, the weather was beginning to set in on us by the time we headed off...









Looking back on the first hill...



Onwards...



Then, again, we decided to veer off and make a climb for the summit... despite being the lower of the two hills at 448m, this ascent was the steepest and trickiest... no photoshop here, this was the climb (easy for the experienced, significant for a novice like me!!)







But made it to the top...



And the view - despite the weather, still worth it!















Not bad for an evening stroll...

[jbone]

wow awesome pics. I would love to go to scotland

[Eliot Ness]

Wow, absolutely beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing, and I too would love to visit Scotland.

Do you have any idea what the abandoned building is in picture DSCF1924.jpg? Sort of looks like an old church.

[Dave KG]

Originally Posted by Eliot Ness

Wow, absolutely beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing, and I too would love to visit Scotland.

Do you have any idea what the abandoned building is in picture DSCF1924.jpg? Sort of looks like an old church.

I think it is an old church, but I'm not 100% sure... I'll check my OS map

[George@DetailedImage]

Wow, what a great read with amazing photography. What type of camera equipment did you use? I really enjoyed this shot DSCF1933.jpg . Catching the sheep in the foreground really gives you perspective on how far up you were and how far you could see from your spot! Pleasure to read, congrats on the climb.

George

[John Styrnol]

Nice scenery. Funny, I live 3x higher than that. The foothills in the SLC area are about 6-7,000 ft. I would say the peaks start around 8,000 up to about 12,000. About 20+ peaks in the Uintas are in 13,000 ft. range, many take about 15+miles one way to get to them. So most likely a backpack in. I know some people that do it in a dayhike. I've done it as a backpack in a 24 hour span. CO is awesome, lots and lots of peaks in the 14,000 ft. range.

[Dave KG]

Originally Posted by George@DetailedImage

Wow, what a great read with amazing photography. What type of camera equipment did you use? I really enjoyed this shot DSCF1933.jpg . Catching the sheep in the foreground really gives you perspective on how far up you were and how far you could see from your spot! Pleasure to read, congrats on the climb.

George

Just had my camera with me, no filters or tripod - camera was a Fiji Finepix S5700.

[EisenHulk]

Unreal, Dave!

Thanks for sharing. Ireland or Scotland will be next on my list.

[George@DetailedImage]

Originally Posted by Dave KG

Just had my camera with me, no filters or tripod - camera was a Fiji Finepix S5700.

Pretty impressive, I would have guessed it was from a d-SLR. Nice shots.

[Dave KG]

Originally Posted by George@DetailedImage

Pretty impressive, I would have guessed it was from a d-SLR. Nice shots.

When my skill level warrants it, I'll be investing in a good d-SLR... but for the time being I'm learning with the little Fuji.