Hill: Brown Muir
Date: 31st December 2009
Company: Myself and Beinn
Time: 1Hr 50Mins
Dog friendly: Yes

For my final hillwalk of the year, it was a shame the weather wasn't a bit better but I am not complaining as I have had a good year and a superb decade. I parked and set off from 262567 at the end of the track past Logieburn. The main gate to the right in the next photo was padlocked, however, fortunately we were able to go through the gate to the left to get onto the track.

Gates at end of track past Logieburn:


We followed the initial section of track towards Humbreck, passing some sheep en-route.

Looking up Brown Muir:


Sheep heading for Humbreck:


The track from then on was seriously overgrown with high, really spiky gorse bushes - quite impassable. To avoid the gorse we walked below the track and gorse alongside the edge of the field until we came to a gate with a small fence either side of it - which Beinn was able to jump over. We then took to the hillside having to wade through about 12 feet of low gorse to get there.

Looking back towards start:


The ascent of the hill from here on would under normal circumstances be very straight-forward. Today however involved breaking trail through snow in excess of knee-deep most of the way. Before long, Beinn began to accumulate snowballs.

Beinn's accumulating snowball collection::


Until now the weather was reasonable. For the rest of the walk the sna wiz fair dingin' doon. As we approached the summit, the snow was even deeper.

Approaching the summit transmitter:


Beinn taking at a turn at trail-breaking (the snowballs are getting bigger):


Transmitter:


At the summit I removed most of Beinn's snowballs but it wouldn't be long before they were back.

Summit trig point:


On the way back visibility was really poor and it got quite dark. We returned via the same route.

Beinn:


Massive snowballs:


Was great to get back to the car which had two inches of snow on it, which had accumulated in the 1Hr 50Mins. Ended up having to take various side roads to get home as the A96 was at a standstill.