Bringing in the New Year on Dumyat

I had a couple of weeks away from the hills while I visited friends and family over Christmas, so as the New Year approached I was itching to hike up something. To add to the excitement, Rex, who ranks highly among my best friends, came over from Nashville to visit for two weeks. You might well ask what someone from Tennessee was thinking choosing the first two weeks in January to tour Scotland in a campervan – we all asked the same thing. But despite my best efforts to describe Scotland’s wet windy cold with chilling damp air that creeps under your clothes and into your bones, Rex was undeterred (/brave? /stupid?) and came over anyway.

I’d suggested to my Dad and my Sister that we could bring in the New Year on the shoulder of Dumyat, where we’d be able to see the Stirling fireworks which were being staged from the Wallace monument. Dumyat is a fond familiar hill to my family, with Mum and Dad dragging my sister and me up it time and again when we were kids. We had our share of dramas on the hill with plenty of “My feeettt are tiiiirrreed”s and that time my Mum famously took a dive off the side of the hill – no doubt more concerned with me and my sister not falling than her own footing – and my dad galloping down the slope to catch her before she reached a sizeable drop.

After a few drinks in the van with some card games and laughs, we donned the boots and the layers at about 11.30 and set off up the hill. It was ridicuously warm for the time of year and time of night, with the breeze feeling decidedly un-Scottish – thought at least it could still Blow Away the Cobwebs as my Mum would say. The fireworks were good, even thought they lasted only a few minutes – nice to have a bit of a marker for the turn of the year. We had a sip of whisky and quietly toasted my Mum. After a really rough year (understatement) it felt like the Right Place to bring in 2022.

It was on New Year’s Day though that Dumyat really put on a show. Rex and I set off in the morning to walk to the summit and test out his new hiking books on a gentle hill. The sun did its thing shining through the clouds and… well I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

But don’t be fooled by how idyllic it looks in the pics – it was officially Blowin a Hoolie on the top! If that doesn’t blow away the cobwebs of 2021, I don’t know what could.