[1] From Glen Clova Hotel (NO328732), follow the eastern section of the B955 south for a mile to Marchburn Cottage (NO342721). Turn right through the gate and cross the field (no path) and stile over an electric fence to cross the river South Esk by a wooden bridge. Turn left and follow purple waymarkers along the field edge and uphill to reach the B955 road. Cross a stile, turn left and walk for a couple of miles to Wester Eggie Cottage.
[2] Just after the cottage, turn right over a stile following a sign for the Minister’s Path to Glen Prosen (NO357696). Turn right up the Landrover track, keeping ahead until you reach a gate to leave the forest. Take either of the two tracks ahead (they merge 400m on) and weave your way up the hill onto the heather moorland, making for the fence-line. The ridgewalk awaits, lined up tantalisingly to the south. When you come to a fingerpost sign (NO344692), keep ahead, signed for Glen Prosen and then pass a hut on your left.
[3] Shortly after the hut, the path splits (at NO341689) and you turn left, making for the ridge. (This path is marked on the Explorer OS map, but not the Landranger). The Landrover track sweeps up Cairn Leith, opening up superb 360-degree views, then dips to cross a fence before climbing the Hill of Balbae (494m/1,621ft) and the Hill of Couternach (512m/1,680ft) – the highest point of the walk.
(A) At the top of this summit the views are dramatic in all directions, stretching beyond even the plains and down to the sea in the south and east. You’ll also see the Airlie monument, a sandstone tower, conspicuously perched on a hilltop in the middle distance.
Follow the path, keeping the fence to your left, dipping up and down across the Sneck of Corinch to the unnamed 459m/1,506ft-high summit (NO362639).
[4] Turn left, keeping the fence to your left, heading to The Goal. Just before reaching it you cross a fence by a stile, then bear left briefly along a thin path flanked by heather before turning right to rejoin the fence path. After 300m, turn right with the fence still to your left and head for the Airlie monument, dropping downhill into woods. Keep ahead, either via the gate or ladder stile, and exit the woods through a large gate, following the grassy path up to the Airlie monument (NO374614).
(B) The Airlie Monument is a memorial built by the present Earl of Airlie to his grandfather, who died in the Boer War.
[5] From the monument, take the path downhill into the pine forest. When you reach the second yellow waymarker (NO376609), go straight on rather than turning right. Follow these waymarkers as they wind through the forest for a kilometre before emerging by magical, lonely Cortachy cemetery, with no church. Follow the lane downhill for 100m, then take the yellow waymarkers right to the roadside path and head south along the B955 to Dykehead.