8.1 miles 4h 24m ascent 688m
Tourist Route
It is a few years since I climbed Cairnsmore from the SW, and I am pretty sure there was a car park back then. I recall a couple of old codgers, probably not much older than I am now, had parked their van next to my car and mocked me lightheartedly for walking so slowly. But there is now no place that two cars could park side by side. The parking is beside a small track, helpfully marked with a big “P”.
We set off in sunshine beneath a blue sky, though when driving along the A75 we had seen that the hill was crowned in cloud. There was a mild chill in the air but we were confident that the sun would soon burn off the cloud. Misplaced confidence as it turned out.
The first kilometre of our walk was along an estate road beside the Cairnsmore Burn. The rhododendrons still had a few flowers but the trees were definitely in autumn livery. The road turned right at an entrance to Cairnsmore House and a little after that a sign invited us to leave the road for a woodland path with more rhododendrons, a few pheasants and some big blue feeders. Eddie was on his lead here but found the undergrowth very interesting, and even more so the fluttering we could hear in the wood.
We were then back on a farm/estate track again, passing Cairnsmore Farm. I suspect my car park from years back had been around here. The outbuildings here looked disused but not dilapidated.
The track ended at a gate with a warning “Caution: cows with calves can be aggressive”. I wouldn’t argue with that. There were some calves but luckily they were at the far side of the field so we were able to walk across and escape back into woodland, passing first a metal gate and then a wooden one. The lower woodland here looks to have been felled and replanted, but we were soon back in mature forestry where Eddie could burn off energy running through the trees.
A grassy path climbed gently up a forest break, not especially steeply but enough to chase away the chill and warm me enough to put pack away my fleece. The path crossed a forestry track at about 200m and we found a stone seat dedicated to Rosemary Pilkington. A good place to get one’s breath back and have a drink.
Looking back down the path we could see the plain stretching west and a conical hill standing proud. My book “Twenty walks in Dumfries and Galloway” says this is Craigeach Fell but I disagree. In my opinion it is Knock Fell, one of those twice named hills, cnoc (hill, gaelic), and fjall (hill, norse).
The stone seat bears the inscription: In Memory of Rosemary Pilkington 1911 – 1995, Who did much to establish Glenure Forest. I’m afraid my google-fu has failed me in finding out any more about Rosemary Pilkington.
A small tree with red berries stands behind the seat, but neither of us could identify it at the time. Audrey has since found it to be Cornubia Cotoneaster. The berries didn’t taste particularly pleasant, having quite a dry texture.
The path steepened a little after this but after bearing left the climb became more gentle. We left the trees to cross the moorland of Crammery Hill with the path ahead of us zig-zagging up the hill. A fence, with a metal gate, crosses the path at about 400m and was a good place to pause for a slug of coffee before the steeper section ahead of us.
Eddie is not one for stopping and made his impatience known with whining and barking. The sun had by now hidden behind clouds so at least he didn’t have shadows to worry.
Cairnsmore of Fleet, Crammery Hill behind Eddie
On we trudged, climbing gently until the remains of a stone dyke and a little more steeply thereafter. As we walked, and gained height, wisps of mist began to blow by us and eventually formed more complete cloud. Photographs tend to make the view look clearer than reality and visibility had dropped significantly by the time we reached the summit plateau.
As we climbed, the cold east wind strengthened and the temperature dropped. I put my fleece back on and seriously considered adding hat and gloves. The path became less well defined but we were kept right by following a series of cairns. We heard a distant whooping at one point, which could have been human or avian, and soon enough three people walked out of the mist re-calibrating my distance assessments. I had seen an irregularity in the horizon where the path looked to pass through a deep dyke, but when the walkers appeared, looking like giants, it was obvious that the horizon was in fact very much closer. The deeper ground either side of the path was in fact just grass no more than a few inches tall.
As we walked on we could make out an indistinct shadow which was the large cairn about 150m west of the true summit. I wasn’t sure at the time if it was the actual summit cairn and was considering leaving our cairn-led route when the Aircraft Monument came into view directly ahead.
Cairnsmore of Fleet Aircraft Monument, summit cairn in the distance
The monument gives details of the airmen who have been killed in eight crashes between 1940 and 1979 and is inscribed:
Memorial to Airmen killed on Cairnsmore
Once at the monument we could just make out the summit cairn which, because of the mist, looked much larger than it actually was. My plan had been to admire the views from the summit, but that wasn’t going to happen on a day like this. So we decided to hunker down for lunch in in the climber’s shelter near the trig pillar.
Cairnsmore of Fleet summit cairn
This didn’t work out as I might have hoped. I climbed into the shelter, chose a nice stone to sit on and hunkered down. As soon as I dropped below the level of the wall the wind lost some of its bite, but unfortunately it was still unpleasantly cold since it was blowing directly through the gap in the wall.
So we stood up in the wind and headed back the way we had come. We had expected the descent to be a bit tricky, with wet stones on the steep path, but it was easier than expected. Eddie did fall over once, but I stayed upright on the descent (having fallen over after stepping in a hidden hole on the ascent).
Having been robbed of our views at the top we had to make the most of the scenery on the descent. We could see Largs Hill, Lamachan Hill, Curleywee, the Isle of Man, Wigton Bay, and the River Cree. There were quite a few folk on their ascent as we headed down, including a couple pushing mountain bikes up the hill.
We kept an eye out for a place to have our sandwiches but didn’t find anywhere sheltered enough with adequate seating and decided we would use the stone seat once we reached that.
Unfortunately that seat was taken, and despite scowling at the couple who were occupying it they stayed put. The sandwiches had to wait until we were back at the car.
Autumn beech at Cairnsmore estate
Though autumn was well underway there were a few hardy flowers hanging on: buttercups, tormentil, scabious, creeping thistle, prickly sow thistle, and red campion.
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