Walking the ‘outdoor capital of Scotland’: 25 years of the Cateran Trail

The carved face of a cateran stares out of the waymarker before me. Deriving from the Gaelic word ceatharnach, meaning a lightly armed warrior, "cateran" later came to denote the cattle raiders particularly active here in Strathardle, Glenshee and Glen Isla up to the 18th century.

The signpost directs me through plantation forest to an undulating moor, darkened by heather and lightened by grassland. The bushy auburn of a fleet-footed fox stands out like a light tumbling down the glen. There is a rough grandeur to Perthshire landscapes such as this, ringed off from the world by mountains - in this case the snow-sprinkled bulk of Ben Earb and ridgelines of Creag an Dubh Shluic and Meall Uaine.

I follow a gravel and trampled-grass path through this silent scene, climbing slowly to An Lairig gate. This is the lowest point of the surrounding mountain saddle, at 648 metres, but the high point of the Cateran Trail, a 64-mile circular walking route starting and finishing in Blairgowrie. The trail is 25 years old this year.

"I've always thought that east Perthshire is the outdoor capital of Scotland," says Bob Ellis, a councillor and hillwalker who co-founded the trail in 1999 with local businessman Alan Dick.

"We worked out a route and then it was a case of Alan dropping me off at various places and me jogging with a Dictaphone, describing the state of the trail and what we would need to do in the way of signposts. A lot of the trail was already there on forestry roads, but there were bits where we had to cut swathes through the heather."

This was before the 2003 Land Reform Act introduced Scotland's famed right to roam, so the approval of local landowners (all 43 of them) was crucial to getting the project off the ground.

The gnarled cateran carvings on the waymarkers were made by Robbie Gordon, then an officer in the Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust. More common to see, though, are the symbols guiding walkers along the way - a red heart encircled in green. "The route looked a bit like a heart," laughs Bob. "Especially after two or three beers - and we're in the heart of Scotland here."