Weather/Conditions: Quite good - some cloud, a few light rain showers and bit wnidy. But breaks of sun, not tooo cold and the path mostly dry, cept some boggy bits near the bottom.
Distance/Ascent/Time: 7km / 480m / 2h 40m
Accompanying: Dad

Dad has been talking about going up a hill for ages. I always want to get out with him, but finally we settled on Tinto: not too big a hill day, and close to Glasgow. It didn't call for an early start, so we left home late morning and were ready to go at mid-day.

The first and only time I was up Tinto was in 2007. It now seems rather long ago. It was also the eighteenth hill entry on my website. I was still fifteen in 2007, and it was the year I got going with the hills. My first time up Tinto was with Kim, and just like then it was via the main car park by Thankerton.

Good conditions in the morning were giving way to some wind and a little rain, but views on top were clear and it was a perspective on a hilly country I don't visit often. Shalloch on Minnoch the previous day and now Tinto - maybe I'll start climbing the Southern Upland hills after all!



I suppose I was put off the area of the Southern Upland Way in 2010. I focused on the Highlands instead, where the hills were more dramatic, less touched by industry and more expansive. But I'm getting to a point where I've done the Munros nearly three times and I'm well through the Corbetts. It gets to a point where to climb something, you have to start looking to lower hills and it might be about time to engage with Galloway and the Southern Uplands. I know the Highlands very, very well, and here is another area only south of Glasgow that I know little of. Until now I haven’t felt so motivated to look, but having had a couple of good hill days - perhaps...?

Dad and I headed down the way we came in some rain, easing back to afternoon sun at the car park. We got late lunch in Douglas before heading back to Glasgow. It’s always nice to do a hill with dad and we should do more of them.

360° Panorama

Tinto