This month we planned a trail session combining the well-known route up to the Whangie from the Queens View Car Park (10 minutes past Bearsden) with a short section of the John Muir Way and a loop of the Burncrooks Reservoir. We had another decent turnout of new and familiar faces and headed up the hill at about 0910 after meeting at 0900. Although a little cold in the wind initially, we soon warmed up by the hill run and treated to nice views back East of the Earl’s Seat and Dumgoyne in the Campsies as well as North providing views of Loch Lomond.
It was muddy enough on the way up the hill but everyone seemed to handle that well and made steady pace with running and power hiking. We went through the Whangie which is always a nice photo opportunity and hard to believe this cracking rock formation is just on our door steps. Another short climb followed and we took an obligatory group picture at the trig point before pushing on over the boggy top down through the bracken-lined single track to reach the John Muir Way. Everyone seemed to enjoy the muddy single track and big Euan even treated us to some fairly special gymnastic type twists and turns in the slope when his road shoes took him for a ride.
Once back on the hardpacked trail of the John Muir Way, Euan’s Adidas Boost road shoes came into their own and we didn’t see the big man for dust; well, I didn’t anyway. The loop around the Burncrooks Reservoir is just such a great bit of trail with it’s rollercoaster of a path and feeling of complete isolation wedged being between the Kilpatrick Hills and the Campsies. It was awesome seeing the group working their way around it as we were the only ones on the trail. On finishing the loop we were back on the John Muir Way to retrace our steps back up to the Whangie. Well, everyone except Danny (the other owner of Physio Effect) who left us before the muddy climb back up and continued along the John Muir Way round the back of Eden Mill and joined the West Highland Way where he was able to run back to his house in Milngavie. This allowed him to complete a long run of 18 miles for his marathon next month. I just think it’s brilliant how easy it is to link Scotland together with trails and paths.
After a leg sapping slog back up the single track to the trig point, we were able to get another run through the Whangie and then a sustained 15 minute descent back to the car park. All in all we were done and dusted in 1.5 hours with 1300ft of ascent and descent giving everyone a decent workout and a new route to go running on. I’ll look forward to planning up next month’s run and hope to see a good turn out again.
