KP’s by moonlight

Snowing on and off in Glasgow all afternoon, it didn’t bode well for Westies night time run in the Kilpatrick hills but a few of us had the faith that we might just get lucky. Sure enough by 6pm the snow had stopped and it was starting to clear nicely as 11 hardy souls gathered at the gas works. With the car thermometer sitting at -1C, Tom, Trev, Val, Sarah, Iain, JD, Mark, Hamilton, David, Sean, and Charlie set off at 6.50pm up the track and into a biting wind. With the full moon rising behind us, it lit the frozen path and we crunched up the steepening incline and all the way out to Loch Humphrey. Sarah, Iain, John, Trev, and David decided to press on to Duncolm, while the rest of turned about at track end and headed back. The moon was higher now and reflection from the snow made our way easy but the best bit is always turning that corner on the high track and seeing Glasgow across the horizon and lit up like Disneyland after dark. Speedily down except for young Mark who even with head torch (Eh?, the moon was brighter) slowed to a crawl on this most ‘technical’ of tracks. Back at the cars the Duncolmers came in to admit they only went to the middle hill but lack of summit was more than compensated by the moon glinting off half frozen Loch Humphrey on the return. All were enthused and driving back into Glasgow the snow was starting to fall again.