[1] From the car park, walk past the magnificent remains of Sweetheart Abbey and turn right onto Main Street (A710). Follow the pavement to The Square, then go left just before the New Abbey Corn Mill. Walk along the minor road towards a millpond, turning left just before it onto another minor road, which is signposted for the Waterloo Monument (NX962662).
[2] Follow this quiet, narrow road as it climbs gradually away from New Abbey, with Criffel’s slopes ahead. The road swings sharply left, then right, and continues for another 750m/½ mile to reach a footbridge (NX957655).
[3] Cross the bridge onto a track signposted for Criffel. Go right at a fork beside a cottage and, at the next cottage, bear right on to a narrow, wooded path. At a junction, turn right and follow a track as it climbs gradually, swinging left, then right. As it bends right again, continue straight on along a woodland path, turning right into a conifer firebreak (NX956647). Here, the path becomes boggy and climbs steeply south, alongside a wall, up the lower slopes of Knockendoch. Once above the tree line, the muddy path continues beside the wall to arrive at a fence. The wall swings away to your left here, but you should continue straight on through a gap in the fence and climb the steep path through heathery slopes.
Sumptuous views open out along the Nith Estuary and to the Moffat Hills.
The path then zigzags steeply up Knockendoch to reach its summit cairn (NX955631).
[4] The path swings southwest away from the cairn to cross a boggy plateau. Follow it south then south-southeast, climbing more steeply as the crest beneath Criffel is reached. Keep an eye on the path here, especially in misty conditions, as it can be indistinct. Follow the path over a low, ruined wall to reach Douglas’s Cairn on Criffel’s summit (NX957619), with a trig point a short distance to the west.
(A) Criffel’s 570-metre/1,870ft summit grants exquisite views across the Solway Firth to the bigger, muscular Lake District mountains. Criffel has enjoyed great popularity for more than a millennium, as it was held in immense reverence by the Vikings, who named it Kraka-fjell – Norse for Raven’s Hill, the raven being the sacred bird of Scandinavia. With much of Galloway still sparsely populated, Criffel’s commanding vantage point is pretty similar to what the Vikings, and the raven, enjoyed all those centuries ago. The six-foot Douglas’s Cairn adorns the summit of Criffel. Although probably no more than a marker cairn, a story alleges that one of the Douglases – the Earls of Morton – is buried beneath it.
[5] Retrace your steps a short distance, then bear right onto an indistinct path and descend northeast over more wet ground to pick up the Craigrockall Burn (NX959629). Descend a path east alongside the burn into woodland, where a firm path is eventually picked up. Continue to a crossroads. Go straight ahead and down to a broad track signposted for New Abbey. Turn left and walk along this track, bearing left at a junction. At a second junction, turn right down a path and pass through two gates to Loch Kindar (NX964645).
[6] Walk along a field edge beside the loch and, at its foot, swing left to continue along the field edge beside woodland. Go through a gate and over a track, then bear left to cross another field. At the far corner, exit by another gate from where a grassy track passes through a gap in a wall. Beyond a gate, cross another field and go through a final gate to return to the outward-bound track. Turn right, cross the footbridge and make your way back to New Abbey.