After a week in the squalor of Paris I needed a quick hit of fresh, clean air and the Campsies provided by the loch load on a wet and windy Wednesday morning. These are lovely and under-rated hills within 30 minutes of George Square. From the south they are visble as a green rampart to the north with a profile as familar to most Weegies as their mammy's nose. The tops are boggy and difficult away from the paths meaning they are totally empty on all but the best of days. From the north they present some fine corries which St.Tom of Weir described as the Cairngorms in minature. Tom loved them and for you that should be recommendation enough. Lets face it - if they were south of Birminghan they would be a national park.
My route took me up from the Crow Road to the level felltops on a boggy but obvious path but my time was limited and the top of Cortma Law was out of reach for the day.
It was great to be up there with an cold easterly streaming over the tops of the fells carrying stinging rain on the point of sleet.
It is days like that when you want decent gear and regrettably my newish Berghaus Active Shell jacket let me down. I could not control it in the wind with the funny wee internal hood toggles working loose in seconds allowing rain down into the front and when I turned round to returnto the car the jacket rose up over my bum continually. So within less than an hour of challenging but hardly extreme weather I was wet front and back.
The jacket was a replacement from Craigdon for a leaky Montane Superfly discussed above. Am I just unlucky or is the design of these light weight jackets just compromised for weight and style?
The jacket currently retails at £200 - steep for something that does not keep yer nuts dry.
