Conic Hill is the reason most people who have never walked in Scotland end up walking in Scotland. It is 4km there and back from the car park at Balmaha, 350m of climbing, and the payoff arrives all at once: the islands of Loch Lomond strung out in a line beneath you, each one sitting on the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs straight through the hill you are standing on and on through Inchcailloch, Torrinch, Creinch and Inchmurrin. Geology is rarely this legible from a footpath.
The route leaves the far corner of the Balmaha car park, climbs through oak woodland on the West Highland Way, then turns off on a stepped path to the ridge. The steps do most of the work; the last few metres to the true summit involve a short scramble over rock that stops some walkers short of the top, and there is no shame in that — the view from the col below is barely different.
Two things to plan around. The car park fills by mid-morning at weekends between April and September, and the overflow arrangements are not obvious once you are already in the village. And the ridge is fully exposed: on a bright day it is the best two hours in this part of Scotland, in low cloud you climb 350m to look at the inside of a cloud. Check the forecast for the hilltop, not for Glasgow.
