The Ochils Bengengie by The Torry

The weather has been pretty poor this week so I have not had any hikes in the hills.

However , every cloud has a sliver lining and the bad weather kept me indoors doing pooch paintings. I sold two this week which covers my art costs nicely.

I also sussed out an internet scammer when he pretending he wanted one of my paintings. He asked for my bank details and address so he could send an agent round to collect it. He wrote in his email that he was a sailor stuck at sea but could put money into my account, no problem. He disappeared when I got the IP address off his emails and I sent him the result shown in google map below.



Yup..my sailor at sea must have run his boat aground in central Nigeria. Either that, or he thought I came up the Clyde in a banana boat :-D

I did manage a walk last week, just before the weather broke. I had often wondered if I could walk up the steep slopes of The Torry hill behind Alva. The answer is yes there is a way and its not as steep as it looks from the road.

The walk started at Avla Golf course and headed directly upwards to the west of Alva Glen.



Then it went straight up the steeps slopes of The Little Torry heading for the obvious grass gully on the east side of the hill



Although the gully looks very steep from Alva, its not that bad when you get into it. I had Holly on the leash in one hand and my camera in the other, so there is no scrambling involved. This is taken looking back down the gully just before I topped out on the summit of Little Torry.

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The Ochil hills all look very steep from this angle on Little Tory.



Its a very quick way to get to the top plateau of the Ochils. Because it is so steep I arrived at the summit cairn before I had time to catch my breath.



Then it was a stroll in the grass to the summit cairn of the Big Torry.



And an enjoyable walk along the ridge to Bengengie. Its the third time this winter I have been on this summit.



A view from just below the craggy summit of Bengengie, looking towards Ben Cleuch, the highest of the Ochil Hills.



Then I circled right round the head of Alva Glen and across Alva Moss to arrived at the summit of Craighorn.



Looking back across Alva Glen to Bengengie



Then it was downhill all the way past east side of the Nebbit and back to the car in Alva.



Its roughly a seven mile hike and it could be quite wet in warmer weather, however I was glad it was still frozen grass when I did it last week with Holly.