Hill: Ward Law
Type: Sub2k
Height: 594m
I was pleased with yesterdays long outing and despite my unsurprisingly slightly painful calves I wanted to finish my wee trip with this short but steep Sub2k, an Ettrick hill.
I was staying at the quirky Tushielaw Inn, not often that I watch the rugby with two brothers, one a local scrap merchant and the other a world travelling chef as well as a cruise ship drag artist, interesting! Yesterday for brekkie I was simply asked did I want a cooked breakfast, yes I replied. Then it arrived! After that huge breakfast I was more wary today and just asked for just a few items, lesson learned.
So properly fed I drove the short distance to start my walk. There are only a few walk reports but parking was consistently a major issue. However, looking at the map last night there seemed a more straightforward approach with parking at the community hall.
Indeed there was good parking and easy access to the hill by walking up the track between the old school and a house where there is a wooden gate. Go through to a grassy track that goes up the right hand side of the trees. Even after a lighter breakfast my body was not quite ready for this full on assault to start the walk. Only 200m but to my calves it could have been a Munro. There is heavy bracken around, dead today but I reckon the track should still be clear.
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| Spotted a cairn over to my left |
As the ground levelled off I spotted a cairn over to my left on the ridge. So I made my way towards that firstly heading for the sheep pen. The ground was a mixture of tussocks and bog but no real issues.
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| Looked at map re sheep pen wrong cairn |
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| Just straight up through the tussocks |
An alarm bell began ringing in my brain from one of the walk reports about a non summit cairn so a rest break to check my map and sure enough that was not the top cairn, way off line. No damage done I just straightened my line and plodded on uphill. Apart from the sheep it was silence, the only birds spotted on the moor were a pair of ravens.
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| False cairn on left with a nice view to Capel Fell |
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| Another false cairn with the real one behind it |
As always a few false tops until I spotted the top of cairn slightly to my right so off I headed. As it turned out this is another non summit cairn as a much larger beast lurked behind, surrounded by a deer fence with a ladder to climb. Actually there is not much to hold on to at the top of the ladder, the wind was gusting, it was an awkward turn to get balanced for the other side.
The proper summit cairn and the top of Ward Law is a huge beast, not that the other two are shabby. I presume with it being behind a deer fence that land is not the same owner as the other cairns? The large one is marked on the map as a Jubilee Cairn. The other two likely to be shepherds cairns but very well made.
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| White Coomb hills appropriately white |
Wind had picked up and was chilly. Good views particularly down the Ettrick valley and across to the Moffat Corbetts with a dusting of snow up high. How many Donalds can be seen from here, quite a few?
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| Will be heading to the hump after visiting the other cairn |
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| All 3 cairns visited |
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| Will the bracken cover the path when grown? Nice place to stay. |
As it had been a short ramble I wandered across to the original cairn before making my way back to the car.
Objective achieved, it was pleasing to have such good views for a short outing. An excellent trip which met the needs and got things restarted. What was surprising was 7 tops, about 25km of walking over the 3 days, some of it on the Southern Upland Way and not another person met on my rambles.
Time to rest these legs.
Ascent: 387M
Distance: 4.1km
Time: 1.52
Wildlife: Raven; Chaffinch; Robin; Blue Tit
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