West Lomond – Across the Moor to the Highest Point in Fife

The walk

Park at the Craigmead car park, on the hill road between Falkland and Leslie. It's the largest car park in the Lomond Hills, with picnic tables. It's free for under two hours and £2 for the day, by cash or card at the machine, and from October to March it's open from 7am to 8pm. The toilets at Craigmead are shut for the rest of 2026. The nearest are at the East Lomond car park, further along the same road, or in Falkland. From Craigmead it's 3.8 km to the top of West Lomond, and the Fife Coast and Countryside Trust, which looks after the path, allows two hours each way.

Most of it is a wide, well-surfaced path over rolling moor, with some long steep stretches on the way to the foot of the hill. Then comes the hard part, a long steep slope to the cairn and trig point at 522 metres. The cone is the plug of an old volcano, and it rises above an escarpment of sandstone and limestone. People have been up here a very long time. Close to the path are a Bronze Age burial cist and the rings of prehistoric huts, and a short way off is a boulder carved with an early Christian cross and a fish. On a clear day the view from the top runs from Loch Leven below to the Perthshire hills.

Sheep and cattle graze the hillside, so keep dogs on a lead. The summit is open and the weather can turn quickly, so carry waterproofs and a warm layer. It's a long day for children under eight. From November to January, set off by 10.30am.