White Hill from Bonaly

It’s a cool, overcast spring afternoon as I set off from the upper car park at Bonaly on my first reconnaissance of White Hill. Not to be confused with its near neighbour a couple of miles east (confusingly also named White Hill), this Pentland foothill lies just north of Capelaw Hill, peaking at a modest, tree-clad 318 metres.

After going a short way up the main track from the car park, I cut down to my left, towards the sound of rushing water. A narrow path leads me down and across a wooden footbridge over the Dean Burn. The burn descends through a pretty dell overlooked by tall pines, the clear waters cascading down a series of mini-falls, over polished pebbles and around moss-covered boulders. At once the ambience of nature’s crucible is calming, the clamour of the busy roads below rapidly forgotten.

Ascending the steep eastern flank of the little valley, the path for much of this section is a contorted lattice of exposed pine roots; I pick my way up and up. As the burn’s cheerful babble recedes behind me, stillness reigns. If it weren’t for the faint whooshing of the city bypass, I could very well be amongst the pines of Abernethy. There is not a breath of wind and not a soul around. However, I’m clearly not the only one who has been enjoying what’s on offer here; the forest floor is littered with squirrel-nibbled cones, discarded in greater profusion than I think I have ever witnessed.

I skirt the southern edge of the wood and, as the ground begins to level out a little, the heather scrub of the Pentland plateau opens out to my right. The hilltops are shrouded in mist, exuding a sense of mystery and adventure that is evocatively Scottish. Yet the woods around me offer ample intrigue. I stop to take a few photos on my phone - here and there are the fallen casualties of storms, both recent and long past, root bases ripped vertical and great trunks rendered prostrate. A little pile of discarded cone scales tells me that a squirrel has made its dining table of one such trunk. On the forest floor, fallen twigs and branches, having lost their bark, lie like bleached antlers.

I reach a place where a small rivulet, draining off higher ground to my right, feeds into a boggy section of ground through which I must pass. Several logs have been placed over the wettest part and I gratefully tightrope-walk my way across the most robust looking of these. However, reaching the end of my chosen beam I notice there are still a few metres of deep mud ahead before I reach dry land. I plot my course – end of that other log, tussock, tussock, home. But the log I step onto is not as well anchored as it looks and, under my weight, sinks alarmingly deep into the mud. I coggle. My right hand instinctively reaches down into the mud to prevent me falling over completely. Just. Unfortunately, still grasped in it is my phone, which I raise, wincing, pulling it from the mud with a slurp, dripping like chocolate fondue. I dash to a nearby stump and in a flurry of hankies perform gadgetry CPR. Thankfully the phone is salvaged and onwards I go.

Soon I reach the far side of the wood and, as the trees thin out, I’m at the summit. Veering left over to the forest fringe to take in the view, I’m slightly surprised by the height attained over our fair city, laid out below. Houses are arrayed in miniature, like those in an architect’s model, row upon row, fading with distance into the mist that has taken up residence these past few days. Pressing on, I pass through a gate and turn southwards away from the city for a short stretch, bordering a denser conifer plantation. On reaching the corner of the plantation I turn left and begin to descend eastwards through grassy scrubland in the direction of Dreghorn. A fine view opens up, with the Braid Hills on the horizon and the rocky cliffs of Green Craig to my right. At the bottom I join a gravel road which continues down through deciduous woodland. Last year’s oak leaves still cling to branches, like clustered brooches of beaten copper, while new buds form at the ends of upward stems.

On reaching a gate, I pass through into a field with a pylon in its centre and cross diagonally to reach a signpost on the far side. I take the route left, marked Bonaly, following the power lines. The cry of a buzzard, circling somewhere in the mist over the woods, pierces the air. By the path, blackthorn bushes are sprayed with pin-point white constellations of nascent blossom and hazel catkins all hang at an angle, as if frozen in memory of the prevailing wind. The final stretch of this path winds energetically up and through the woods behind the Bonaly scout centre and soon I find myself back where I began, at the footbridge over the bonny Dean Burn.

This walk takes approx. 1 hour, with some steep and boggy sections. Some sections pass through MOD land – please heed all signs!

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Published in Konect April 2024

Author: William Weir

Photo by William Weir