Current plan is to finish in Montrose, but thinking about a Dunnottar castle finish. What I read about the Fetteroso Forest and windfarm desecration has me concerned,though. I don't really want to walk where I can't drink the water... Also, Stonehaven seems to require more busy road walks than I like. Does anyone have a good route suggestion to get through to the castle with minimal roadway/wind farm/industrial walking? I also assume we can easily get to Montrose by bus or train that same day?

Last things first....getting from Stoney to Montrose is easy, you can catch a bus on the coast road a few hundred metres from the castle or if you visit Stonehaven after reaching the castle for a celebration fish supper / icecream/ pint you have the choice of bus or train to Montrose. Trains are roughly every 30 minutes https://tinyurl.com/y8ptumc9 and buses about every hour https://tinyurl.com/yc8w2b8u

For getting to the castle from Fetteresso see the discussion in this forum https://tinyurl.com/ycu7xb56 Personally I would stay in the forest until the very end and then walk down the single track road until you get to the outskirts of Stoney and then go round the edge of town until you get to Dunnottar Woods and then towards the castle. Others have suggested a different route going through Tewel & Touks which bypasses Stoney completely. Either way your amount of road walking is limited and far, far less than if you come out of the hills further South and have to walk across the coastal plain known as the Mearns. The further South you leave the hills the further you have to walk through farmland.

I agree wholeheartedly with your concerns about windfarms and the effect on water, it is absolutely criminal what happened at Amlaird https://tinyurl.com/jtb8z4e but to be fair the Mid Hill windfarm in the Fetteresso has far less landscape and visual impact than most other windfarms. Compared to some of the monstrosities and acts of landscape vandalism that you will inevitably come across during your trip across Scotland, Mid Hill is much lower impact and has resulted in some good forest roads. The windfarm is centred on a single region in the middle of the forest and isn't highly visible. I was up there the other day on the Stockmount Drovers Road and honestly you don't see it until you walk round a bend and come across the edge of the trees when the open area appears in front of you.
Whereabouts are you thinking of entering the forest? Many challengers come down Glen Dye.and enter near the Spittal of Dye. Others come over from the North past Kerloch using either the Stockmount or Builg drovers trails. Again the windfarm only appears once you get over Kerloch.
Many challengers use the Fetteresso every year, mainly I think because it lets you stay away from farmland the longest and minimises the amount of road walking. It is popular to camp the last night at Cowie Crossing NO 76456 87384, which leaves you an easy last day to get to the castle.
I live in the area so if there is anything else I can answer just holler.

Great info, thanks!!

Am I alone on this forum in not being keen on the Fetteresso? I'm not a fan of road walking either but, in truth, I'd probably prefer to use those in preference to this vast area of soulless monoculture. I understand the argument that going through the forest keeps you off tarmac until very close to the end but, in my view, it's a dubious exchange. The forest roads are still a hard packed surface and no kinder to the feet than the tarmac. And, more pertinently, all that you can see for miles on end are trees, trees and more bl***y trees. And ugly trees, at that. The minor roads south of the Fetteresso are very quiet, you pass through some small villages and there's some variety in the view.
Everyone to their own but a bit of road walking on the last day isn't necessarily so very bad.

Colin

No, Colin, you are not alone. I did the Fetteresso this year and wasn’t impressed. It might have been more palatable if there wasn’t the wind farm in the middle. Assuming I can do future Challenges, the Fetteresso is unlikely to be on my route!

Colin/ Robin,
I see your point, and to be honest, with it being my backgarden I only ever visit the forest for 2-4 hours at a time, if I want a longer walk I go elsewhere. I do however think that the bad rep is partly psychological because your average TGOC trekker enters the forest having spent the last 10-12 days in big sky country. If you have just crossed Rannoch Moor, the Monadhliath and the Cairngorms, it is going to be a bit claustrophobic. This is especially so because you tend to enter the forest by literally crossing the Cairn o'Mount road from the open grouse moors of Glen Dye, Clachnaben etc.

However:
It is possible to cross the forest without seeing the windfarm too much, don't rely on the 1:50k OS map, which shows roads that don't exist and misses good tracks that do.

It isn't the boring sitka monoculture that Colin mocks, in fact if you were to visit today in December you would quickly see that it contains a lot of larch and also oak, sycamore, beech and Scots pine, especially in the Drumtochty forest area. It also contains a lot more wildlife than you might think, there are lots of deer, both red and roe, as well as thousands of the endangered Scottish crossbill and coaltits. There are lizards and adders and I have come across a couple who openly admitted loving sitting on a log watching the dragonflies in a disused sand quarry for hours. It is quite beautiful when they are flying.
There are also some pretty impressive vistas if you stay close to the southern edge of the forest and some very open areas within the forest. There are also old buildings and farms to explore.
For sure, it isn't Glen Affric by any means but it also isn't that bad. I agree with the aversion to windfarms, but to be honest the area has been totally trashed by windfarms all over, the ones at Meikle Carewe and Tullow Hill are far more invasive on the landscape and the hundreds of 1 to 3 turbine clusters all over the Mearns are unfortunately going to be unavoidable for the TGOC visitor, something of which as a resident of Aberdeenshire I am ashamed.
I guess the whole point of the challenge is to experience Scotland in it's different guises with the option to reach the North Sea by following the Moray coast, the Deeside way, the Fetteresso or the mass rally through Glen Esk and Northwaterbridge, you takes your pick.

Excellent Brian, a healthy exchange of views and I probably wouldn't disagree with a lot of what you're saying. The theme of contrast is very pertinent and I'm sure that you're right to opine that we're all pre-conditioned by all of the open space we've experienced on the crossing. Personally, I do suffer from mild claustrophobia so the locked in nature of much of the forest is not going to appeal to me. I always, always prefer a view.

The main point which I wanted to make was that the "road free" aspect of the Fetteresso is illusory and that the minor roads outside of the forest also have their appeal. I certainly did mock the banal sitka monoculture and make no apology for that. When you're within one of those commercial tree factories, they all look exactly the same and any sense of a local environment is wholly lost. I completely accept your statement that there are other aspects to the forests and delightful settings if you search them out but, at that point on the Challenge, I'd guess that gentle, patient exploration will be low on the agenda for most folk, who'll trudge doggedly through the sitka on hard and wide forest roads.

So here's a challenge for you Brian. Given your local knowledge and the fact that the forest is on your doorstep, how about devising a route through the area which avoids the unpleasant aspects as far as possible and showcases the finer details. I feel sure that many, many Challengers would thank you for such an endeavour.

Colin

Thanks again for all the great commentary and ideas here. Here's my current plan:

I have sketched out a notional route that skips the Fetteroso entirely, approaching Dunnottar from the south. From Auchronie going eastward it roughly parallels the road (and sometimes on it) that goes to Milden, then Hound Hill to Glensaugh. From Glensaugh, northeasterly through the Glen of Drumtochty and Glenbervie. A sharp right turn to cross the A90 around Clearymuir, before working our way back east and north up to the castle. Seems to be mostly minor farm roads, with a few off-road segments to cut the corners. I like the idea of avoiding Stonehaven proper until we've crossed the finish line at Dunnottar. I agree with others here that a final couple days traveling along small roads won't be entirely unwelcome.

Fair challenge Colin, serves me right eh? I could certainly put together a route that I know works east of the Stockmount trail to Swanley at the eastern edge of the forest as I've done it recently but I'd have to double check the western sector before pointing other folks that way, a lot of the logging roads come and go as forestry operations occur. There is also a network of tracks cut by mountain bikers which are OK for man and dog but would be difficult for someone with a 15kg pack.
Am I right in assuming that folks are more likely to come down Glen Dye and enter the forest at the Spittal or are we looking at the Cairn O'mount summit or Clatterin Brig to the south or even further north? The Builg drovers trail crosses over from Bogendreip NO 662 909 and the Stockmount trail crosses from Knockburn NO 699 916 and I know both routes are passable and connect up my known route eastwards.

Thanks, Brian. I’m sure there are some good bits. You say don’t rely on the 1:50k maps, but that’s exactly what most of us do our planning on. I doubt even 1:25k will be very accurate with forest tracks as they are changing all the time with logging. TBH, the Fetteresso is no different to many commercial forests in that regard. I did some extensive research on Bing and Google aerial photos and even those failed to give me an accurate picture, particularly on one track to the north of Cairn Kerloch near Glenskinnan, which looked clear on the photos, but was overgrown and ususable on the ground. Unless you have local knowledge, it’s not easy to construct a good route given the changes due to the windfarm and forestry operations. Still, I’m glad I did it just for the experience and there were isolated parts that were quite nice. :+1:

I'll try and get a current passable route put together, but it may take a while. A lot of roads up to the forest are iced up at the moment.

I know what you mean, the FC are very good at sticking "Forestry Operations Ongoing, No Admittance" signs up in the middle of nowhere with no alternative route but to turn around and go back.

It's a good job that I did some recon work before recommending a route. I found a fence which was once so ramshackle that a mole could climb it has been replaced by a new high, multi-strand barbed wire version. Having picked the shortest day of the year to get stuck in the middle of nowhere with light fading fast, I ended up playing commandos by sliding underneath it through a cold peaty puddle, much to my dog's amusement. Still work in progress.

Brian,
That's dedication! Shame the snow didn't last but was nice while it was here. Got up Bennachie last weekend and it was lovely.

Brian,

yourself and other people have mentioned, camping at this spot in the forest- is there plenty room for several tents?

I'd recommend NO 763 873. Plenty of room, and you can draw good water from the stream 50m to the west.

There is plenty of camping spots in that area. There is quite a wide flat grassy meadow between the road and the Cowie Water around NO 76452 87382 which could take a good few tents. There is also a good flat area around NO 76412 87320. There was an old touring caravan parked there for a long time but someone came along and trashed it to steal the chassis. To be honest a battalion could set up camp around the bridge. To the South of the Cowie burn are old antitank defences so not much camping potential on that side and there is a well preserved pillbox on the shoulder where the Cowie Water and Finglennie Burn converge. If the weather is bad you might also consider camping in front of the old ruin hidden in the trees at NO 76441 87177 There is a big old beech tree in there with a small clearing around it. It is high above the two burns. There is a story that this used to be the location of an inn at one time, it is on the Cryne Cross Drovers Trail. It is said that a laird gained ownership of the land by marrying an old dowager and then promptly banished her to this old building so that he could move in a young, pretty mistress.
There is a sand quarry at NO 76424 86548 where you could pitch a tent or two but you would have to carry in water from one of the burns. This is the place for dragon fly watching that I mentioned in another post.
The water in the Cowie(and other burns in the forest) is clean but quite peaty so you might want to think about filtering if you can.
I'm still working on Colin's challenge to come up with a route across the forest.

I'm eagerly awaiting your route, Brian!

See my most recent post on the topic http://pub9.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=757451871&frmid=14&msgid=793604&cmd=show
I'll e-mail you the notes. I'm trying to find somewhere to post them for easy download.

If it's a choice between camping by the noisy A90 at Northwaterbridge or in the Fetteresso, I'd go for the forest any time.

Yes the road is noisy at NWB! However, I always take earplugs as a guard against noisy campsites, not just NWB :wink: