WATERPROOFS or not? That was the question on the lips of the eleven walkers gathered near Langleeford in Northumberland. Although it wasn’t raining the low cloud was sweeping across the nearby hills and it looked threatening. Eventually, Scottish Borders Hill Walking Club set off along the Harthope Burn to begin our long ascent of Cheviot. The route along the burn for the first mile or so is a well-defined track and the going was easy however, once Langleeford Hope is passed the route is not so well defined. Over the years the burn has changed its course several times following storms and floods and large sections of the hillside have been washed out. At one ill-defined junction we opted for the wrong route causing us to detour around parts of the scarred hillside but, realising the mistake, we got back onto the right route. By now it had become obvious that those who had opted for full waterproofs at the start had got it right, the rain was sweeping over us coming up from the south. We carried on.

Although the path was well defined it did involve crossing back and forth over the burn several times and some of the crossings were quite slippery. One or two of the crossings had been forced on us by landslips obscuring the path and it did bring home to us the destructive force of large volumes of water.

Onwards and upwards to the source of the burn and then to Scotsman’s Knowe to begin the steep ascent to Scotsman’s Cairn at the summit of Cairn Hill. The stones of the cairn have been arranged in a circle to act as a wind break and we took advantage of the shelter to have our lunch. Once replete we crossed the fence line on to the Pennine Way and the welcome flagstones which gave us sureness under foot and, as a result, we speeded up on the easy ascent to the top of Cheviot. To the north we could see that the sun was out over East Lothian but we were still under the swirling clouds.

The top of Cheviot always seems to be a disappointment as the top of the hill is closer to a plateau and, given the cloud, there were no views but this was to change. As we left the trig point heading for the cairn that would mark our route to Scald Hill the cloud started to break up, the sun came out and we had wonderful views in all directions. And it was warm; waterproofs came off and, for those of us who hadn’t bothered with waterproof over trousers, our trousers soon dried. The initial part of the descent is quite steep but the path levelled out before we ascended Scald Hill which is all of fifteen metres higher than the dip preceding it, then down again heading in the general direction of Broadhope Hill. Rather than go up the hill we chose the path round the back of Blackseat Hill and picked up the track next to the Hawsen Burn which took us back to the cars. The total walked route was ten miles, but our activities were not quite over. One of our members had a “significant” birthday and we were all going to the Tankerville Arms in Wooler to celebrate but, as we got into the cars to set off, there was a very heavy burst of rain which would have drenched us all had we been out in it. This passed as did the celebration.

The next club walk will be on Sunday, July 12, meeting at Newtown St Boswells at 8.15am to share transport or in Coldingham at 9.30am, not Eyemouth as shown in the syllabus. Further details from Evelyn Horsburgh on 01750 76214.