Anyone got any idea what the situation is with the fallen trees on the GT black? It's mainly Boundary through to Redemption I'm wandering about, there's nothing recent on the blog. I don't want to climb to the top of that fireroad just to have to go back to Spooky Wood.

I was up last week and tried Secrets and Lies and Broon Troot for the first time. S&L had taken a serious battering. Broon Troot was awesome though, until I crashed. 😳

snow and fallen tress this weekend. s+l is ruined but broon troot always rocks

Snow? Still? Bloody hell!

Oh well, red it is and back up for a bit of the troot. 🙂

there's 2 other cheeky trails u can try.

Climbing upto mast from bottom of britney spears, after about 100 metres the tree line ends, you can

1/. At the first post, metres before the first tree line ends, theres a cheeky downhill trail with nice switchbacks that starts by going through an 'alcove' made by the trees on the right hand side. Nice and rocky to begin with, then switchbacks. At end of switchbacks go straight (instead of left) and it takes you onto the black trail ( beware, that grassy bit is very holey)

2/. After the first tree line ends(about 10 metres just as the trail slightly veers right then left) if you look upto your right (3 O'clock position ), theres the top of the grassy climb. There's a walkers path up to there. Head up there and follow trail, down some nice switchbacks, through the trees and some other bits of climbing and downs. Its a walkers trail but very nice on the bike. Ends on the red trail leading upto spooky

Still snow we went round on Wednesday and there is a 2m snow dune in the woods off the boundary. Didn't make it as far as redemption but there are a lot of low hanging branches on what we did do.

@ radoggair

Sounds fun. I've not actually done the East side of the the black before and wasn't planning to today but I think I might, just for a change.

Obviously I don't know the trail though. Going by the map it looks like your first trail goes in at post 71, is that right? Whereabouts would the second drop in?

Cheers

Obviously I don't know the trail though. Going by the map it looks like your first trail goes in at post 71, is that right? Whereabouts would the second drop in?

By looks of it its about 100m past post 71, post 71 is at very bottom of britney spears before final climb to mast. There's another post about 100m up the trail, you cant miss it, directly to the right is the entrance to this trail under the alcove of trees.

The second one (begins about 20 metres after entrance to other trail mentioned) drops you in at top of spooky wood climb. It drops onto the fire road by the bench. When you do it you'll think 'so thats where that goes'

Its worth trying them both n will take about an hour to do both at a steady pace, but new trails rock!!

S+L after the woodwork is still absolutely spot on, so you can always do spooky then join S+L from the blue.

The bits of the black that were worst affected by the snow were basically nuked, I think there's some bits that have been under white stuff since December, no joke.

I look forward to the next 'there were some stupid/inconsiderate walkers on the MTB trail' thread

why?

I look forward to the next 'there were some stupid/inconsiderate walkers on the MTB trail' thread

In all the times the trail has been ridden i've never come across any walkers whatsoever and when you do the trail you'll understand why

I went by 2 sets of walkers on that trail just over a month ago. A few tree tops down in it as well on the faster section in the trees.

Cheers radoggair, didn't make it out last week. Definitely have a sneaky go next time though.

Apart from the having to walk a total of about 50m across a few icebergs around the Boundary, the entire route is clear and rideable. I did it on Friday gone.

where is broon troot trail?……i wont tell 😉

( beware, that grassy bit is very holey), you are not joking, a couple of years ago, 2 out 3 of us, fell there at the same time. I dislocated my shoulder, then my bike tried to drill it's way to centre of the Earth via my head.

haha, actually the reason i said it was my front wheel found a hhuge hole, veered me off left to which i fell 30ft down the hill with the trees saving me and my bike falling any further ( and it is quite steep there, struggled to get back up )

I rode that second trail radoggair is talking about last Tuesday evening and it was full of blown over trees, so hard going and not worth it until it's cleared. Not a great time for exploring the hiking trails – seems like the forest was absolutely battered by a storm a month or so back and there're still loads of deadfalls.

This is a superb trail btw – you'd never have an issue with hikers because it's very undulating, it's actually a hard trail to keep speed on, there's one nasty short climb on it that's very hard to get up.

Sundays trailquest had markers on both of those routes – so AFAIK that means they are not dedicated walkers paths, but open to everybody

the second one had five or six trees down across the trail before the climb back up towards Spooky.

Steep climb out too

Scheleschirche – Member
Sundays trailquest had markers on both of those routes – so AFAIK that means they are not dedicated walkers paths, but open to everybody

As this is Scotland, there is no such thing as a "dedicated MTB trail" either. What do you reckon the chat on here would be if the Ramblers Association decided to walk en masse up Spooky Woods one Sunday afternoon?

Fine my me. Spooky Wood is pretty guff anyhow.

A group tried to walk up the pie run one day we were working on it. They thought they were going up a walkers path until showed us where they thought they were on their little map.

Exempt from outdoor access code:

I would argue that a dedicated mtb trail falls into this category (mind you so would a walkers trail).

Land or water that has been developed or set out for a
recreational purpose, whilst in use and where your exercise
of access rights would interfere with the recreational use
intended for that land, such as horse racing gallops.

druidh – Member

Scheleschirche – Member
Sundays trailquest had markers on both of those routes – so AFAIK that means they are not dedicated walkers paths, but open to everybody

As this is Scotland, there is no such thing as a "dedicated MTB trail" either. What do you reckon the chat on here would be if the Ramblers Association decided to walk en masse up Spooky Woods one Sunday afternoon?

I'd think that wouldn't be "responsible access" – pretty much as a MTBer belting round the path round the NE side of Harlaw Resr on a sunny summer Sunday afternoon.

Radoggair

I had a look at the start to the first trail you described on Sunday. We found the 'alcove' and the start of the trail as it headed down to the right. Does it end where the walkers path splits from the bikers path
where the trail starts up to the HH Hut?

I think we saw the other grassy trail you described heading up over the hill towards the start of Spooky Wood.

EDIT has anyone got a map?

MC

EDIT has anyone got a map?

Cunningly disguised as the word "map" in my second post. 😉

From what I can remember the waymarked walkers trails at GT have "no bike" symbols on them. If these trails are marked like that I'll probably give em a miss. If not, I'd say they're fair game.

I once accidentally read a "no bike sign" as a no going uphill on a bike sign. Damn this slight Aspergers of mine and my literalisation of signs.

Thanks Resin42 – that was way to subtle for my eyesight. The trail does come out where I thought it did.

As this is Scotland, there is no such thing as a "dedicated MTB trail" either. What do you reckon the chat on here would be if the Ramblers Association decided to walk en masse up Spooky Woods one Sunday afternoon?

I don't think i explained myself very well.
The two trails in question are 'shared trails' available for everyone to use

Druidh is absolutely right – all the Glentress trails are open access to all.

The exemption for

Land or water that has been developed or set out for a recreational purpose,

has not been applied to MTB trails – it might be possible to do so but then it would set precedent that other paths could be set aside for walkers.

It probably would not be responsible access to have a mass walk on the GT trails but that is a slightly different issue

Greig – let me know next time you're doing that…