IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Blanefield, GLASGOW, G63 9AT

A few modern cabins in the woods here.

This ruin lies east of Carbeth Guthrie house and a little south of the B821.

The small post just to the left of the path has a marker for the John Muir Way: this path is part of the walkers' route from Balloch to Strathblane. The map shows that the ground is lower to the north, which corresponds to the open grassy area visible to the left.

There is a small informal lay-by at this point at the side of the road.

The path, which is clearly new, and which is therefore not, at the time I am writing this, marked on the map, is part of the John Muir Way: specifically, it is on the walkers' route from Strathblane to Balloch; that new part of the route opened in 2016 (complementing an existing route, for cyclists as well as walkers, between those places). For the hutters' community here, see Image Secret Scotland has a page – http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/CarbethHuts – about it; for the Craigallian Fire mentioned there, see http://www.geograph.org.uk/snippet/12126

The walkers' route from Balloch to Strathblane (complementing the existing cyclists' route between those places) opened in 2016. As the John Muir Way markers on the post visible at the right indicate, the route (when being followed from Strathblane to Balloch) leads directly ahead, and takes the left turning at this junction. Near here, it leads past the Carbeth Huts. For a view of this junction from the other side of the gate shown on the left, see Image The right turning is not part of the John Muir Way, but leads north to the B821: recent OS maps, perhaps by some misapprehension on the part of those revising them, call that part of the road Ballachalairy Yett; for the original application of the name, see Image

With the temperature significantly above freezing on a sunny day this large piece of ice was a surprising phenomenon. The black pipe visible at the top of the photograph feeds the water trough in the background. A small leak in the pipe seems to have been responsible for creating the large chunk of ice, presumably when the temperature had plunged well below freezing overnight.

The same junction is shown, viewed from the track on the right, in Image The gate on the left in that picture is in the foreground here. The tracks meeting here are marked on the 1:25000 and 1:50000 maps. In relation to the present picture, the walkers' route from Balloch to Strathblane on the John Muir Way leads directly ahead, past this gate, and then to the right, as indicated by some markers on the post that is visible beyond the left-hand side of the gate.

The view is from about the same place as Image, but in the opposite direction. One example of a hut can be seen, with Dumgoyne (Image) on the skyline behind it. The settlement of the Carbeth Hutters might be said to have had its roots in the summer camps organised here by the Clarion Scouts, a socialist movement, before the First World War. From those beginnings, the nature of the settlements gradually evolved in response to social changes.