Devil's Beef Tub & Hart Fell(*)

Michael Baron

22 October 2025

About 10 years ago David Kaye and I did this walk. It is one of the longer walks in the Borders and the only one I am aware of that involves a rock scramble. I remember it as a longish walk of interesting terrain with an easy scramble over rocks and then a steepish grass slope. A lot of things change over 10 years!

On the day the party consisted of 4 marauders. The vast majority had taken the sensible option, so Stuart, Willie, Crawford and I left Edinburgh at 8.30 as planned..

The walk starts at the highest point of the Moffat road going up a small hill which was once a Roman signalling station with a lovely view towards Moffat. (Pictured).

We then descended on what was once a pleasant farm track but is currently being bulldozed for tree planting. At the bottom we turn off onto a good track following a stream.

The walk had the added interest of watching the sheep being herded off the hill. Willie unfortunately fell asleep counting them and couldn’t remember how many he had got up to. We did manage to count the number of quad bikes (1) and dogs (2).

We follow the stream into a narrow steep sided gully. Unlike most Border gullies it is rocky and the steep sides are not grassy but covered in scree. This leads up to Hartfell Spa a small man-made cave with no obvious water source.

The lack of an obvious path upwards should have raised doubts, but while this was being discussed, our leader (me) set off upwards on a route that may have at one time been a path but clearly had not been trodden for some time. We continued upwards to the head of the valley. We were surrounded on three sides with steep scree slopes interspersed with rock. This was the start of the “easy scramble”.

There was no obvious route upwards. A big boulder to the left looked the most likely way. I enjoy scrambling (or used to) over dry rock with good hand and footholds. None of this applied here and I had to be hauled up in places.

We had lunch perched on a steep scree slope and contemplated the next stage. There were no pleasant or even unpleasant grass slopes and least worst alternative seemed to be a traverse across scree and up a very steep loose muddy slope. The only thing that kept me going up was the thought of reversing the way we had ascended.

I don’t think I have ever looked at a typical Borders grass tuft with greater pleasure as I flopped down at the top of the slope. Crawford pointed out that we still had 300 metres of ascent to Hart Fell or there was a very good track down to where we had started. It did not take too much discussion to take the second option.

The way down was not all downhill - we had to do the climb back up to the road and a long mile along the road back to the car.

The day had an excellent finish as we discovered a new café, the Wee Crook, had opened behind the old Crook Inn. Fully refreshed with hot drink and buns we returned to Edinburgh.

What went wrong?

I suspect that there had been some sort of flash flood that has washed away the “easy” scramble but I also have to take into account that in the years since I did it either, gravity has got stronger or I am not as fit as I was.

A memorable day out nevertheless – more “I will never forget the scramble up that gully past Hartfell Spa” rather than “A lovely walk with great views” type of memory.

(*)This is the name of the intended objectives but should not be taken as suggesting that these objectives were achieved.