Scolty Hill.

Start. Scolty Woodland car park.

Route. Scolty Woodland car park - Scolty Wood - Scolty Hill - General William Burnetts Monument - Scolty Wood - Scolty Woodland car park.

Notes. Early evening found us at a loose end, too early to head back to our holiday accommodation. A quick scan through our little guide book produced a short walk to a superb view point, and if the view wasn't good enough a bloody great tower would get us higher by way of a spiral staircase.

Scolty Woodland car park marked our starting point, a very popular spot a number of way marked trails start there. From the car park a wide forest track ran west, no views just pine forest, at a fork in the track we turned left ascending to a gate, after passing through said gate the views started to open out. Over Banchory and Deeside the hills of Craigrath, Brown Hill and Meikle Tap dominated the skyline to the north. We continued following the track, eventually it swung south, we swung south with it, at a small cairn we turned east, a narrow path then guided us through deep heather passed a giant erratic boulder before depositing us on the summit of Scolty Hill.

Scolty Hill may be less than a 1000ft high but the views refuse to disappoint, looking east down the Dee, Aberdeen and the sea can be made out on a clear day, all around, rolling to the horizon mountain after mountain, shining levels as far as the eye could see, just don't ask me to name them. We ascended the tower, a local chap precided to name every hill we could see, a mouth full of gaelic gibberish to me although he did recognise Lochnagar.

We descended the tower, then continued descending the hill, by way of a narrow trod through a carpet of heather and blaeberry broken only by birch and the odd gorse. We soon stepped onto our outward route, all that remained to re-trace our steps back to the car, go and make dinner and crack open a bottle of wine.

view route map.

home.

The track leaving Scolty Woodland car park.

Views zero but things are about to change.

Clear of the pine plantation views start to open out across Deeside.

Early evening views from Scolty Hill, best not try to name hills when you don't know the area at all, but I'll take a guess and say the one with the tor on top is Clachnaben.

Rising into a deep blue sky, General William Burnett's monument.

Looking east over the pastoral lands of Aberdeenshire, it looks like the coastal plain is hidden under a blanket of sea mist.

To the south wonderful shining levels.

Nestled in the valley of the River Dee, Banchory our home for the week.

The tower was built as a monument to General William Burnett who fought alongside Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars, it's been restored several times and now has a spiral staircase ascending to the top, and that's where Sue's heading.

Views to the north-west over the Blackhall Forest.

This may be a wee pimple with a tower on top but the views from the 980ft summit are breath-taking, across the horizon the Aberdeenshire coast.

Most fine hills are adorned with a trig point, nothing to do with the view. As I,m unable to name the hills here,s some information about trig pillows, it is 83 years since they were used for surveying, the first sits in a field at Cold Ashby, Northamptonshire, more than 6.500 were erected for re-triangulation between April 1936 and June 1964, the final calculation was from a pillar at Thorney Gail in Westmorland, Ben Nevis can boast the highest while the lowest is at Ouse sited at -3.3ft.

Sue descends Scolty Hill.

Coming to the end of a fine but short walk, about to be swallowed up by the tree cover.

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