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ROUTE 5

Glen Tarken tracks

Start/finish	St Fillans car park NN687246
Distance	14km/8.5 miles
Ascent	450m/1400ft
Approx time	4hr
Max altitude	Entering Glen Tarken 450m
Terrain	Tracks and a small path

A short-cut track bypasses the ramble up Glen Tarken for a walk of 9.5km and 350m ascent (6 miles/1200ft) – about 3hr.

Parking is at the two pull-offs just opposite the public toilets at the west end of St Fillans. This is just below St Fillans’ small hydroelectric power plant, where its tailrace flows out into Loch Earn. The walk traces the water supply up into Glen Tarken overhead. With oakwoods at start and end, and grassy trackways through the moorland above, it’s a route that doesn’t go anywhere in particular but has a pleasant time along the way.

Between the two pull-offs, start across A85 up steps onto a private road at the small St Fillans Power Station (this road starts alongside the Four Seasons Hotel).

Turn left for 150 metres, then back right at a waymark post up a track. It crosses over a disused railway, then zigs back left and slants up steeply through woods. Ignore two side-tracks on the right, before the gate at the top of the trees. Roughly 100 metres beyond the gate onto open hill, the OS Explorer map marks a cup-marked rock to left of the track, but the marks aren’t very visible.

Loch Earn from Glen Tarken foot

The track slants uphill towards rocky moorland. At a junction, take the main track back up right. It soon zigs back left, through a small pass at 450m. Then it slants gently downhill into Glen Tarken. After 1km, a side-track turns down left: this is the short-cut route.

Short cut via Glentarken Burn

The short-cut track gives a walk of about 3hr, but its ford over Glentarken Burn could be impassable in spate.

From the junction above Glen Tarken, the side-track descends to pass below a hydro-scheme tunnel end, then goes through a gate. Now rather fainter, it contours left (south) across the top of a spoil heap (presumably from the water tunnel), then turns downhill to left of a stream. It fords the Glentarken Burn, then rises to join the main valley track beyond.

The main track contours along the valley side, passing some water intakes. After 3km it bends across the valley floor, before heading down-valley under the steep Creag Dhubh, then gently up the valley side. Where the main track turns sharply back right, take the smaller track ahead, slanting down towards Glentarken Burn.

After 1.6km, the short-cut track rejoins from the left. Now the track steepens downhill at the valley foot. It goes through a gate beside a sheep-dip complex, with Loch Earn visible below. In another 400 metres a cottage is visible across the stream. Immediately above a small pointy knoll, take a green track on the left. It crosses the stream by a ramshackle bridge, then contours out to the cottage. This building rejoices in views along Loch Earn, no road access, and the name of Jerusalem (NN669253).

The continuing path is invisible to start with. Contour forward (just south of east) through rushes, to pass through a fence by a gap with an old iron gate. Keep contouring, now through bracken, to a tall kissing-gate into a former plantation, now felled. The path is now visible, but narrow and little trodden. It continues at the same level to the start of the fine oaks of Glentarken Wood.

Now the path becomes a disused vehicle track, slanting gently downhill. Cross the torn-up path of tracked vehicles, a moment of World War I terrain, to continue on the previous line on a clear path.

The path crosses Allt an Fhionn by a footbridge, then descends with an old fence on its right. At a fork, the right branch is the disused railbed, but take the left to a bridge under the railway. Keep left on a track that weaves among the legs of a viaduct, then contours below the railway. After the first houses of St Fillans, the track reaches the end of the private road at the start of the walk.

Keep ahead down to the power station, and turn right down the steps to the walk start.