I'd noted 'pure evil' as a warning in the margin of my Gospel According to St Dawson, no doubt gleaned from some poor soul writing with innocent, heart-felt inconsistency: an object can't be pure and evil together, not even a hill. I can take his meaning though. White Top of Culreoch has considerable potential for evil, purely in geographical terms. The gloss certainly made my approach wary and sharpened the senses.
This Galloway hill is on LR83 at NX600633 for those who want to compare or contrast, or to take heed if yet uncontaminated. White Top is not a tame hill. Its nature is quite different to near neighbours Bengray or Pibble Hill or Cairnharrow, all douce, well-behaved Relatives. White Top is a grumpy old uncle in comparison. (Fell of Fleet is of the ilk.) In September I managed White Top and Bengray one morning before heading in to Wigtown for a mountain poetry reading at the book festival, then rounded the day off on Cairnharrow. The toddle up Pibble (I almost wrote Piddle, which might be more suitable) had to wait till next day. In golfing terms I'd managed one under par, for two Relatives in a day I reckon is par, three a birdie, four an eagle, and any more disgraceful.
I left my camping van at the 202m spot height shown on the delightful road from Gatehouse of Fleet over to Laurieston (NX611622) setting off at 7:30 and being back at 9:00, so the hill can't have been too bad. The outing actually proved easy, a pleasant surprise, rather like having a dry day when the forecast was for rain. I can't see anyone going to the hill from any other direction, and along the track and up to deal with the capping of trees is not likely to raise dissent.
The track is a well-made forestry effort, the only sin being its gently descending nature: starting down for up is pudding before soup. Because of this, when it dipped further I turned off on a bit of ATV track to contour up round Craig of Grobdale. This indeed led to very rough ground, a mix of heather and tussock, not nice at all. If this was an ATV track I lost it, crossed the wall, and thereafter all else fell into place.
The steep heather slope, with bracken and some gritty runnels, was full of useful sheep trods which led on in kindly fashion to the crest of the Craig's south-west ridge with its view up the small north-south valley, and which gave a first look at those problematical summit trees. Crossing my bows was an ATV track, and it was worth dropping down this a little to follow it all the way up the wee valley till due east of the summit: all easy going.
I sat to contemplate the evil potential of the forest, which I'd studied all the way up. The fence had plastic sacks tied over the barbed wire so that was the obvious crossing. Going straight up from there to keep to a due west bearing took me only a short way into the larch before there was a hopeless tangle of wind-blow. I skirted this left to get to near where larch met spruce and found the larch relatively open and not even demanding my going bent double. Feet also left a clear trail on the needles or grass, so backtracking would be easy. There was then an upward stretch of clearing, before wending deeper into the spruce.
By feel I bore a bit left and, getting near I felt, came on a small green knoll. Could that be it? But beyond a dip there could be another rise so I pushed on and, after several wiggles, came on a further knoll with a small cairn. Eureka! There had been only the briefest nastiness, leaving the track, otherwise all had been easy. No impure hill. I reached the top an hour to the minute after leaving the van.
Every major forest edge with wall or fence (both here) is almost certainly going to have a sheep or deer trod along its length, so I decided to follow this straight down to the forest track. Most of the way showed recent tracks of an ATV which had flattened the bracken. Somewhere in the distance I'd been hearing a shepherd gathering, so he could well have been there recently. This line made for a fast descent and I was back at the van in half an hour from the summit, almost disappointed at not having experienced evil, of any kind.
I describe this day for two reasons. First, the description may help others; second, as an example of how subjective any day can be. The hill has an abundance of nasty going: deep heather, tussocky grass, bracken, etc, in which no foot can be placed with certainty. Hellish, certainly, if caught and both difficult and dangerous. One advantage of advancing years however is a certain cunning in avoiding such horrors. Picking a route is a craft, and the crafty perform best (the dividend of experience). Sometimes I'm surprised how companions just go straight at any hill - and frequently suffer deserved rebuke. White Top of Culreoch was highly satisfying to me because of its challenge accepted and, largely, concluded satisfactorily. Just glad nobody saw me at the skirting wall below the Craig. There was a sneaky bit of old fence-wire invisible among the long grass beside it, a trip-wire that sent me flying in spectacular fashion. Nothing can be purely perfect, no more than pure hell.
