Photos & description by a member of our group, late April.

The Core Path through Balloch Woods from the village to the Curling Pond is now passable again.
This is the trail known as both the Larch Trail on the existing signage in the woodland and the Pond Trail on former signage ; it runs through the middle of the wood, with slopes down to the left and slopes up to the right when heading towards the Curling Ponds.

The path had been blocked since Storm Eowyn blew down a large area of trees on the edge of the felled area.

Click a photo to see larger image.

The core path was impassable due to the sheer volume of windblown trees across it.

This was reported to Forestry and Land Scotland by several members of the community, resulting in FLS taking action to open the core paths and make the Curling Ponds accessible by foot again through the woodland.

The below images show the same areas as they are now.

The paths have been cleared and are now walkable again.

The only area where the path is not clear is the area just before Cardoon Bridge. In 2021 a storm blew down a section of around 8 large trees across the path in this area, uprooted as one. As visitors to the woodland navigated around this obstacle a new trail of sorts was developed, though it did go through rather boggy ground thanks to water collecting in the ditch left by the uprooted trees. This lack of a proper core path makes it hard to find a route through post-felling.

There is a rather crude line drawing on the adjacent photograph that shows the best route to take (the one that was used 2021-2024) for this unclear section. The top end of the red line is the site of Cardoon Bridge. The direction of travel we are looking from in the photograph is from the village towards the Curling Ponds.

It is excellent news that the core path is once again open for the community and visitors alike.

There is a rather dangerous looking tree that has been cut and left hanging from another tree right next to the path.
This has been reported to FLS by members of the community.

But there are still concerns.

There are also some concerns around some of the tributaries that feed into the Balloch Burn. Where the storm affected trees have been cut large logs and lots of branches have been dumped into these tributaries, potentially diverting water onto the paths and causing further damage.

These concerns will be raised by the Initiation Group to FLS, along with discussion on the Burnside Trail which at present is blocked by a combination of felled trees and windblown trees from Storm Eowyn.