The Pentlands: great hiking near Edinburgh, Scotland
The village of Glencoe, Scotland is known for its incredible hiking, nature and landscape. However, if you fly into Edinburgh (as many tourists do) you will quickly realize that it, along with the rest of the highlands, are pretty hard to get to. Specifically, it takes around 3 hours to get to Glencoe by car and almost 4.5 hours via public transport. Renting a car is expensive and taking public transport restricts your schedule to that of trains and buses.
On my recent trip to Edinburgh I faced this conundrum — I really wanted to do a day hike, however, I did not want to deal with renting a car and driving all the way to the highlands. This is when I discovered The Pentlands. A hilly nature preserve located just 20 minutes from Edinburgh city center, these hills (or maybe even mini-mountains) are perfect for a day hike without much planning. If you want incredible views of Edinburgh along with the surrounding Scottish countryside The Pentlands are a great option.
A tourist’s guide to hiking The Pentlands
While I am definitely not the resident expert on The Pentlands or other hikes near Edinburgh, I want to provide a guide based on my own experience. The following guide is purely anecdotal and illustrates steps that are specific to my travel style. That being said, hopefully it is still helpful in some way. I really did not see many guides on hiking the Pentlands available online when I was looking to get there — hopefully this clarifies some things!
Getting to The Pentlands from Edinburgh city center
While staying in Edinburgh I tried to research the closest entrance point to the park from the city. I found that Midlothian Snowsports Centre in Hillend provides a more lowkey trail entrance. If you’re staying in Edinburgh city center this entrance is only 23 minutes by car and at the time of my trip cost me only 10£ by Uber. If you’re looking for an even cheaper option the number 15 bus line to Easter Brush stops directly at the Snowsports Center and runs fairly frequently from Princes Street in the center of the city. Either option is great, just make sure you have a plan to get back into the city after your hike (I will talk more about this later)!
A very lowkey entrance
So when I finally got to Midlothian Snowsports Centre I was pretty confused on how to actually get into The Pentlands. After some searching I spoke with the desk clerk at the Snowsports center and made my way over to the right of the building. Up that direction is a very inconspicious trail head gently sloping upwards into the park itself. While its very easy to miss, its totally worth the climb! Below is an annotated map depicting the entrance, as you can see its to the right and very lowkey.
As you can probably see in the photo above, the entrance trail was nothing more than a dirt road running up into the rolling Scottish hills — perfect! Its worth noting that this entrance path splits into two options: one steeper and one more gradual, both incline to the top of Caerketton Hill (in the background horizon of the photo). I really enjoyed this part of the hike, the view just kept getting better and better.
Up the slopes
Now i’d be lying if I said this was an easy uphill walk. While I did take the steeper path, i’d definitely be prepared for a workout! The view are really super worth it — you can slowly see all of Edinburgh spread out below you.
Honestly pictures don’t do it justice. At Caerketton Hill peak you can see the vast majority of The Pentlands sprawled out ahead of you. To get to the top of Caerketton Hill it definitely takes ~30 minutes, which really isn’t bad if you want some incredible views of the city and the rest of the park. If you’re like me and need a few hours of walking to be satisfied you can continue to follow the trail deeper and deeper into the Scottish countryside; however, if you’re done you can just as easily turn back to the snow center and get a beer in the city.
Here’s the view facing away from Edinburgh (and deeper into the park itself). You can totally see the long sprawling trails the seem to go on forever. You can also see some pretty cool sheep that I tried to pet, but they were clearly not interested.
Overall route
Now above is route that I took through the park. Overall I highly recommend planning your exit strategy ahead of time. In general I found that this route was a perfect mix for adventure/direction for me. The majority kept me on trails climbing and descending the rolling hill, while the end added a bit of spontaneity to my journey.
Spontaneous exit
What do I mean by spontaneity? Well, I did not exactly plan my trip back into Edinburgh. This got me stuck crossing private fields and a military base to actually make it back to the main road (A702). While the views were still awesome (see below), I only recommend it if you’re up for an adventure. If you want a more legit route you can easily circle backwards to the snowcenter or continue further on.
There really aren’t any towns along A702 in the location that this spit me out at. Because of this, I recommend bringing a phone with plenty of charge to call an Uber back into the city. My phone was dead at this point and I ended up hitchhiking back to the nearest metro station.
Closing thoughts
Overall I think my entire hike took ~4.5 hours so I was able to leave around 9:30 am and be back just in time for lunch. Not bad for less than a 30 minute ride. Next time I go to Scottland, I really hope to checkout the Highlands, however, if you’re limited on time (like I was) I recommend checking out The Pentlands! If you made it here, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my story/guide.
