Carmont Hill

Nestled in the Mearns, Carmont Hill is less a mountain and more a modest bump with a front-row seat to railway history. At 236m, it won't exactly demand an oxygen mask, but it offers a solemn, panoramic vantage point over the iron road to Aberdeen.

• •The hill overlooks a vital section of the former Scottish North Eastern Railway, a line that once linked Perth to Aberdeen before the Caledonian Railway took the reins in 1866.
• •Geologically, it sits near the Highland Boundary Fault, serving as a gentle topographical handshake between the Lowlands and the more aggressive terrain found further north towards Braemar.
• •The base of the hill gained somber international notoriety in 2020 as the site of a major rail derailment, leading to significant changes in how Network Rail manages local earthworks.
• •Technically classified as a 'Tump', it is the kind of summit peak-baggers visit only when they have run out of Munros and have begun looking at local maps with worrying intensity.
• •The ascent is so brief that if you stop to tie your laces halfway up, you’ll likely find you've accidentally completed the descent by the time you've finished the knot.