Bad news I'm afraid......
I received the following from Forest & Land Scotland today.

Hi Brian,

I have has a reply from the forester and I am afraid he is not able to add any advice about bypassing the work but has reiterated that walkers cannot walk through the site or along the site using the forest road. There is more than one active site at the moment and the work will be carried out as logistics of the site, machinery movements etc. dictate so I am afraid that all we can say is to be aware of the ongoing work and obey all signage on site.

Kind regards,

Karen.

Karen Patterson | Visitor Services Assistant[/color=blue]


I took a walk along the Finglennie Burn track today and the forestry work is now blocking access to that track as well. This means using the southern route over Leechie Hill is not possible until June. Anyone using the Southern route through the forest will either have to continue North at NO 727854 and join the more normal route to the bridge over the Cowie following the windfarm exit signs or head south at NO 732838 and the exit from the forest.

Sorry about the bad timing but trying to get useful and up to date information from Forestry & Land Scotland has been nigh on impossible.

Thanks for that I’ll pass word on to people to check your post.

This is doing my head in. I went up to the forest today to take a look at the situation while there is no actual work happening.
I wanted to check out that it was possible to bypass the section where the work is going on.
There are three options
Option A continues North at NO 727854 as mentioned above.
Option B crosses into the forest at NO 745851 as per the normal route but turns left and follows a convoluted route to NO 764871
Option C stays outside the forest and bypasses the area where logging work is going on but it is very boggy and requires crossing over a single strand of barbed wire stock fence

When I actually reached the work area I discovered that contrary to what I had been told by the Forestry Commission, only about 200m of the normal route was actually covered by "No unauthorised entry past this point" signs. Another bigger section is covered by "Warning Forest Operations, please follow signs and diversions" signs, but no actual entry prohibited.

The start of the "No unauthorised Entry" zone is actually a few metres to the west of where you would access the logging road when coming down from Leechie Hill, so you would find yourself already in the zone without seeing any signs.

Walkers are therefore in a situation where they have to decide whether it is safest to go 20m in the wrong direction to get out of the zone followed by a long detour or continue eastwards for 200m and get out of the zone at the eastern end which is the way that you would normally go anyway.

https://www.keepandshare.com/doc9/22603/diversions-jpg-1-2-meg?da=y

Zooming in....

https://www.keepandshare.com/doc9/22604/diversion-zoomed-in-jpg-1-1-meg?da=y

This all assumes the situation is the same next week as it is now, obviously everyone has to keep their own eyes out for signs and diversions and make decisions based on the current situation and based on what they see on the ground.


If you find yourself at the decision point I recommend avoiding the churned up logging road and head down through the trees on the left just after the end of the felled zone. There is no marked route through the trees just head downhill for about 100m until you come to the lower track. This option is a quieter and more pleasant track with no vehicles.

Hi Brian,
I went through the area today and as you say, I was on the road without seeing any signs. Have to say, the road surfaces all seem to have deteriorated since last year. Seem to be much more rocky from water damage.
Think a change of route is called for in future.
Regards, Scott

You must be well ahead of the pack Scott, don't normally expect to see challengers this way until the Tuesday/Wednesday.

Yes, unfortunately I had to get back to work as we are going on a family holiday this Friday. Due to my daughter starting an internship on the 10th June, we had to pull it forward a week which meant I only had 10 days for the crossing.
Feet and knees are tender today after all the rocky paths yesterday!

Talking to challengers who dropped in for a cuppa or who I met out and about it seems that despite my best efforts folks got caught out by "No unauthorised access" signs in the Fetteresso. From what I can gather not only was there the closure on the south side of the forest that I knew about but also a closure on the north side that Forestry & Land Scotland didn't tell me about. At least one person on the social hiking map took a big detour because of the closures. There were obviously more.
Could anyone who came across closed routes in the Fetteresso please give me the details?

Well, thanks to you Brian (and comments from others) I gave it a miss.

Greatly appreciated your input on this. Thank you.

Oh that's a shame Ed! I walked straight through more or less as planned with no hinderance at all from forestry works. I entered south of Bridge of Dye and exited at Mergie, then walked to Stonehaven rather than camping purely due to not wanting to deal with my wet tent and finished a day early. Saw noone but half a dozen other Challengers and a horse rider!

Dammit :upside_down_face:

I was surprised to learn that very few challengers had heard about my guide, routes & other info. Obviously the message had not been passed on.
At least one group were caught out by the "Footbridge" at Heatheryhaugh which is a locked cage and wire contraption. Another showed me a plot of where they had been in the forest and it was like a fly caught in a jam jar.

There's always the next time, Ed! This year I walked straight through the forest from the north - coming from Strachan - with no troubles whastoever, as did a couple of other folk that Monday evening/Tuesday morning. Simples!