We all need a hill to climb.

I’m visiting my family in Scotland this week. My sister’s house is at the foot of Tinto, one of the highest peaks in the Southern Uplands, and the most prominent landmark in the upper reaches of the Clyde Valley.

Tinto is a magnet for hillwalkers [moderate to difficult], and is also a prime location for paragliding and hanggliding. So far I’ve been sticking to walking. I climb to the top cairn most days I visit. No gym can compete with a climb up Tinto. Horses at the foot, sheep further up, birds flying out of the heather, and no crap dance music [I’ll come back to that in another blog].

One of the great things about Tinto is it attracts all shapes and sizes. The slopes are tough enough for serious walkers, but forgiving enough for the unfit to make it to the top, if they’re willing to invest a whole afternoon. If not, there’s a smaller cairn halfway up, where Tinto teases first time climbers with a “false top”. As you scramble up a particularly rocky part of the path all you can see above you is sky, then the rest of the climb, the steepest parts, reveals itself.

The determined push on, the puffed out settle for viewing Fallburn Fort, a superbly preserved circular hillfort with a series of concentric ramparts. Most people don’t notice it on the way up.

Then there are athletic visitors to Tinto. Track suited football and rugby players jog up and down the hill at weekends, and every November there’s a race. I just walk, but at what I believe to be a respectably speedy pace and I like to time myself and try to beat my best time [44 minutes to the summit]. The record for the race? 30 minutes. I’ve shied away from checking, but I suspect that’s up and down.

Regardless of how long it takes, the real reward for making it to the top is a stunningly beautiful view. 360 degrees of undulating shades of green. On a clear day, you’ll see Skiddaw in the English Lake District and Lochnagar in the Cairngorms.

However, what I really like about climbing Tinto is the camaraderie of the hill. Sometimes it’s a nod and a hi, sometimes it’s a ten minute chat, but everyone says hello … no matter how much they’re struggling for breath.

And then there’s the wind salute. I love the wind salute. The salute is a heads up for blowy conditions ahead. This is given by people [actually just men] coming down on a particularly gusty day [some days just standing up at the top cairn becomes an event worthy of Olympic Gold]. The wind salute starts out like a normal hand to temple movement, but stops at the chest, the palm silently expressing “like that!”.

We should all have a Tinto. Exercise is good for us, but even more important is being reminded that we’re surrounded by beauty, and that when we remove all the crap of modern living, people are great to be around.