Four outings to kick off another winter

December now and the sun hits the horizon at just after 3 in the afternoon.  We have had quite bit of snow and the temperature has hovered around freezing for two weeks now. Time to man up and face the winter.

Run

I headed out to the pass of the fair haired lads late in the day as the sun and the temperature sunk low. The trail up to the pass was just covered by snow and was not disturbed by any trace of a boot or a tyre. Occasional fox prints was the closest I got to company. Once at the pass I dropped down the zig-zags on the other side toward the loch. From somewhere out on the water far below I could hear the commentary from the Jacobite cruise boat drifting up in the gloaming. When I reached the forest track I turned and jogged back up with some short recovery stops. Hill reps is the official title but it does not feel much like training when you are out on a path clinging to the side of the great glen high above the loch. The evening was bone cold but beautiful. 

Bike

It took me a good 30 minutes to prepare man and bike for a night out on the snowy trails above the town, I stuck to familiar trails as a concession to my wife's concern at the wisdom of heading out alone in sub-zero temperatures on icy roads. The canal path was a ribbon of silver under my bike light with light snow concealing slick black ice but as long as I made no sudden course changes the wheels adhered well enough to keep me upright. Once in the wood the bike light was thrown around by the powdery snow to create a bright black and white movie of a trail. I stopped at the bench overlooking the town and took it all in for a while. The strange thing was how warm I felt despite the epic frost settling  all around. Every other Invernessian had thought better of it and stayed in to watch River City. I hit some traffic on the rip roaring descent narrowly avoiding a head-on with a deer caught in the headlights and then having to duck to accommodate a quick strafe from a tawny owl. I got back to the house after an hour scarcely able to stop from giggling out loud. Night biking must soon be either taxed or banned - you just cannot have this much fun for free.

Walk

Three of us headed out straight from work to get in a few miles of training for the Monster under the full moon. We headed up the good land rover track from Lynebeg quickly discarding the torches in the bright moonlight. Up on the hill top there was a covering of a couple of inches of crunchy snow giving perfect conditions for night walking. All around snow covered hills glowed in the moonlight as white clouds floating over the jet black valleys. 

It was just too good a night to go home so we trailed out along another track southwards guessing correctly that it would turn back to the road at some point. The detour meant a cold fording of a wee stream and a two mile march up the side of the A9 but it was a small price to pay for such a grand night stolen from the early winter. 

Hills

The exploration of gorgeous Glen Feshie provided another great day out. This one featured 4 sports in one day with cross country and downhill biking, a bit of winter hill walking and the option of a bit of orienteering all provided. 

I biked in from the end of the public road along the perfect tarmac of the estate road to Feshie lodge where the track deteriorates as it passes out into the beautiful meadow at the where the glen turns east. From there a decent track ran up the hill to a small pass leading eventually west to the Gaick forest. After a toughish climb of about 300 metres I discarded the bike and headed off along the track towards Leathad an Tobhain - a Corbett sitting out in the wilds between the old counties of Inverness and Perth. As  reached the intervening hill I was getting a bit concerned about the depth of snow which was now ankle deep. The decision to wear trainers was looking marginal for frost bite. I rationalised that I would be fine as long as I kept my feet dry and then promptly fell into a patch of unfrozen bog up to my knees. Still a bags a bag and I was too close now to turn back. The summit was frigid with a vicious wind seeking out those wet toes so I lingered only long enough to eat my piece and note that the GPS read an interesting 3005 feet. Not a Munro though. Back to the bike for a descent of only 30 minutes to the car. Phew.

While I saw no wildlife at all I did get passed by two argocats and one landrover on the hill track - an outrageous amount of traffic - they might need to consider dualling it. All three stopped to chat continuing the impression of Feshie as one of the better estates. They are by most accounts trying hard.

A soaker in the central belt

After a week in the squalor of Paris I needed a quick hit of fresh, clean air and the Campsies provided by the loch load on a wet and windy Wednesday morning. These are lovely and under-rated hills within 30 minutes of George Square. From the south they are visble as a green rampart to the north with a profile as familar to most Weegies as their mammy's nose. The tops are boggy and difficult away from the paths meaning they are totally empty on all but the best of days. From the north they present some fine corries which St.Tom of Weir described as the Cairngorms in minature. Tom loved them and for you that should be recommendation enough.  Lets face it - if they were south of Birminghan they would be a national park. 

My route took me up from the Crow Road to the level felltops on a boggy but obvious path but my time was limited and the top of Cortma Law was out of reach for the day.

It was great to be up there with an cold easterly streaming over the tops of the fells carrying stinging rain on the point of sleet. 

It is days like that when you want decent gear and regrettably my newish Berghaus Active Shell jacket let me down. I could not control it in the wind with the funny wee internal hood toggles working loose in seconds allowing rain down into the front and when I turned round to returnto the car  the jacket rose up over my bum continually. So within less than an hour of challenging but hardly extreme weather I was wet front and back. 

The jacket was a replacement from Craigdon for  a leaky Montane Superfly discussed above. Am I just unlucky or is the design of these light weight jackets just compromised for weight and style?

The jacket currently retails at £200 - steep for something that does not keep yer nuts dry.

Summer's over

The north wind is back along with shorter nights and crap telly. The 25 minutes of sunshine we had more than made up for the biblical rain. 
Still, night biking starts soon - more to follow......

The empty quarter by bike

South of here there is a huge stretch of wild country running almost to the Tay. It is bounded by gentler lands on three sides and the A9 corridor on the west and human intervention is limited to some tentative roads into deep glens and the broad valley of the Spey with its outdoor industry, distilleries and occasional farmlands. It would be wrong to call this land a true wilderness since much of it is shaped by the hand of man. It is streaked with forestry and grouse moor burnings and in place land rover tracks reach high on to the hill. But in the main it is glorious country with rolling hills, big, brown rivers, huge skies and it pretty much empty of humanity where you can travel for days without meeting tarmac. All this makes it a grand place for adventure.   

Right in the heart of this place lies a group of hills known as the Ring of Tarf. While the name invokes Middle Earth the reality is a hard country of peat and bog with few paths and little in the way of logical routes. We traversed the Ring about a year ago and found it to be a real challenge and maybe not something that you would choose to go back to more than once but during the trip we also twice crossed the through route from Glen Feshie to Blair Atholl which looked a fine way to travel. I hatched a plan to take the bike from the familiar tracks of   

Inshraich Forest through the full length of Glen Feshie and then to pick up the old drove route from Speyside to Blair Atholl across the watershed of the Geldie, Tarf and Tilt rivers. On the map it is an awesome inviting slice of Scotland and a quick trawl on the web showed that it has been done by bike. The weather forecast showed three dry days. The only remaining question was whether I was man enough....

I crossed the Feshie by the only remaining bridge south of Feshiebridge itself and headed up the glen towards the small bothy of Ruigh-Aitcheachan. The path was rough and required a fair amount of pushing - panniers just do not lend themselves to anything technical. However, much of the route through the middle part of the glen was sublimely beautiful with mixed pine and birch woods and open meadows filled with clouds of rising butterflies taking flight as I passed. This was to be the pattern - tough ground for biking amongst incredible natural beauty. Equal parts inspiration and frustration.

The woodland thinned out beyond the point where the glen turned east just as the track ran down and into the Feshie. The depth of the river required portaging the panniers and bike separately across a short meander meaning 6 crossings of the river in total. Luckily, it was reasonably dry and the river was low but in spate conditions you would have to follow a slight path further up the hill. From there the track continued through the open upper glen until it petered out with around 4 miles still to go prior to Gelide Lodge. This proved the toughest section since it crossed the watershed between the Feshie and Geldie. There was a particularly tough section up and over the Eidart Bridge – it might be best to cross the river where it meets the Feshie if condition are right. Eidart Bridge itself has about six months to live and goes at severe with a bike and panniers.....you have been warned.   

Geldie Lodge is remote in anyone's book and would be a big disappointment to anyone turning up expecting a full Scottish breakfast. Its roofless ruin looks out towards the southern ramparts of the Cairngorms across a bleak desert of peat and heather.

Today it was quite busy – 4 other tents and a resident population of a few billion midges. The midges made dinner a challenge but by adopting a policy of walking up and down the track while boiling, cooking and eating I managed to get a few calories down.  I also made some tea but by then I had had enough of fighting the wee bastards and retired to the tent. I needed to sleep with a midgie net on for the first time ever. It was not a pleasant evening.

In the morning they were worse and I was up and away into the grey morning by 7am. The first stretch took me past the semi-ruin at Ruigh Easlaidh and onto the complete ruin of Bynack Lodge, sited amongst some tall pines.

Bynack lodge – August 2012

Bynack and Geldie lodges mark a kind of reversed terminal moraine of human activity in these remote glens. They were built after the retreat of the crofter and during the brief re-advance of the sporting estate – a short window between the croft and the motor car when these far flung outposts were needed to reach the deer and the grouse.  The decline and fall of these places are well enough recorded elsewhere but for this generation only the sad erratic remains are left high on their raised banks. They lend much to the atmosphere of loneliness and isolation which is found in Glen Geldie.  

Beyond Bynack the track gradually deteriorated until it was only rideable in parts. The upper part of the glen opened out into a large flat meadow ringed with steep hills. Through a side glen I could see out to a misty Carn Bhac which was just shrugging off the morning haar to bask in the August sun. From the meadow the path turned westwards and into the narrow ravine of the upper Tilt clinging to the steepening north bank. I traversed this with a lot more pushing than riding before emerging on the flats beside the glorious Falls of Tarf. This is worth the visit on a dry day – it must be biblical when in spate. Once over the bridge it is a long but mostly downhill on good landy tracks to Blair Atholl through gorgeous Glen Tilt with its policy woods giving deep shade. The track follows the River Tilt which is fast, brown and bubbling. The day was perfect August with high white clouds in a deep blue sky. Sheep bleated high on the green hillsides stretching away up to Beinn a Ghlo – a pastoral scene like a vertical England and a grand place to be on a day like this.  

A tough route requiring real commitment even in gentle August but I am not convinced about its suitability as a bike route. It might lend itself to a solid one day push on a full suss unloaded bike by a better rider than me but without solids skills you will be off and pushing for a fair distance as you cross the two watersheds. The Empty Quarter is not the place to have a big off.

As a footnote there were proposals up until the sixties to drive a road through Feshie and Geldie to Deeside and the plan was well advanced and widely supported locally and in political circles. Some token opposition was raised by what would now be called the outdoor lobby but I have not yet found out why the route was never developed. The good news is that while you just can’t access Glen Shee from Inverness for a day’s dodgy ski-ing, you can revel in a huge stretch of wilderness  I think that’s a result. 

Hills from hell

From a wee niche under the summit tor of Coileachan I could look down the long miles to the road tucked under the bulk of Beinn Dearg.  It looked awful. A short steep slope to a small kettle lochan in the corrie of Meall Gorm, followed by a rough step down into the glen and then a few miles of rough path and muddy slop down by the river.  It did not appeal and I looked around with the abstract thought of finding a better route.  But the shadows had lengthened, it was growing colder and short of growing wings my only feasible route was down in the general direction of the slop. 

At least for the first half hour I had gravity on my side but once I reached the loch at the bottom of the corrie it was all hard. Something of an animal track ran along the steep shore of the loch but it regularly blinded out or stopped short above a steep sided peat hag.  Up and down a dozen times but no easier route appeared for the duration of the lochan.  Once the outflow was reached it only got worse as the route descended into a battleground of monstrous hags rising unseen like brown  waves across the down slope.  Adding to the battle was the sodden underfoot conditions meaning every foot fall  pushed a thick mousse of mud up to my ankles.  Eventually I reached the river and after a further half hour of heather bashing and clambering over the top of eroded banks I reached a vestige of a path. Nearly there.

I sat by a plank bridge and ate the remaining food trying to persuade myself that I was still having fun.  This was supposed to be a fast afternoon raid round 4 Munros with a minimum of kit and in trainers but it had turned into a real fight.  I trogged on in growing darkness and eventually reached the car by headtorch after 7 long hours.

The mugging of the Monadhliath

I had an interesting wee opportunity ride into a wild estate somewhere south of Inverness on Sunday that gave pause for thought. .

I followed a circular track over a fairly high hill.  It was obvious that the track was new, built for comfort and was also being rapidly expanded deeper into the Mondaliath.   

Hmm.. the Monadhliath – a difficult child.  If you look at a large scale map of Scotland it appears that this  area is one of the biggest remaining areas of wilderness left. You could form the impression that it had some protected status or designation. However, the truth on the ground is ugly. Roads are being driven in from all directions with no apparent control over the quality or impact and the whole area has actually been designated as a favoured area for wind factory development. The rate of degradation is frightening – it so fast that many of these roads are not visible on Google Earth or on online OS maps.  You would be entitled to ask why this is happening.  

Well, the locked gate at the road end of the track I followed gives a hint as does the stripy heather and the myriad of very visible traps at the side of the path. It is an aggressively managed shooting estate. A quick search on the internet will leave you none the wiser as to who the responsible  owner is but it does tell you about prosecutions for raptor persecution, illegal traps and a small matter of a £ 2.5 million wind industry subsidy that you and I are generously bestowing on the estate incuding - incredibly - payments for turning the things off when demand drops.

It could be different.  High on the hill a couple of misplaced dotterel were doing their best with chicks and there were a few mountain hares. These are indicator species which show that the Monadlaith is a wee cousin of  the Scottish Arctic across StrathSpey and could be a fine wilderness if we just loved it more.

The evidence strongly suggests that these estates are not fit custodians of our country – they are ruthless business people with no respect for the mountain environment unless it produces a profit. We cannot trust these faceless exploiters with the future of our wildernesses and our wildlife.

Highland Cross 2012

The Highland Cross is a charity duathlon across Scotland starting from Morvich in Kintail to Beauly near Inverness. You can either walk or run the first 19 miles through Glen Lichd and Glen Affric and then pick up the bike at the start of the road in Affric and cycle the next 27 miles to the finish in the Square at Beauly. It is a tough way to spend your Saturday. For the athletes, the current record is a scarely believable 3 hours 15 minutes. It was not in any danger from me.

The run started badly with some real heat and humidity in sheltered Glen Lichd. Given the crappy spring with around 3 months of frigid easterly winds I do not think anybody was prepared for it and there were a few faces like well skelped arses. I was roasted and struggling to breathe. The next stage climbs some 1200 feet in one go to the wild top end of Glen Affric  passing first Camban bothy and then on to Alltbeithe youth hostel. It was cooler in the glen with a welcome slight breeze but the sun beat down in defiance of the rainy forecast.  I suffered mightly during the run with a mantra of 'why are you doing this?' running through my mind for the full 19 miles.  I mixed short walks with shorter and shorter runs and finally got it over with in about 4 hours 15. I was sure that I had gone too slowly to break my 6 hour target but I did a quick transition and got onto the road on the  bike. 
The first few miles were agony but I soon got a rhythm going and hit the hill down to Fasnakyle at a good lick. At some point before Cannich I broke my road bike distance record for the last two years - I had not exceeded 8 miles on skinny tyres since the last time I did the cross in 2010. Still, I was actually enjoying it - the speed is a bit seductive - and battered into Cannich in a decent time. If I could keep it up 6 hours might be on. I struggled to keep the speedo up at 20 and any wee gradient caused me to back off and drop a gear as my legs tightened towards cramp. Then came the last short climb of Aigas brae which is feared beyond all measure in Cross legend - it takes minutes but such is the toll in cramp that it can take on tired legs that the outsider would think it was the Alpe DHuez. The top is always an emotional moment for me - when you see the Fire Brigade support team at the top you know you have cracked the cross and it is just a wee downhill roll to Beauly. 
As I started the descent a quick look at the watch confirmed that I had clawed back enough time to make 6 hours if I could keep the pace up but just towards the end of the descent I hit traffic and got stuck behind the Cairngorm MRT landrover which in turn was crawling along behind some guys on mountain bikes. I cursed my luck but rather than sacrifice the 6 hours I tried some hairy overtaking and streaked out onto the main road at Lovat bridge. More traffic and more cursing but then I had a lucky break as an ambulance came out of Beauly and the cars pulled in to allow it through. Once it passed I took the chance and shot past before the cars could pull back out. Then it was just a half mile into Beauly Square and into the finish lane and under the clock with 90 seconds to spare. Then the cramp hit and I had to be helped off the bike.
Is it worth it? Aye, it is if you are fit for it but if not it's a long suffer of a day. I think it is my last one but there again I said that the last time....

Great Glen Why?

During my long run on Friday, I was once again reminded of how poor a route the Great Glen Way is.

Anybody coming from a distance to do this route must be sorely disappointed at the mixutre of tarmac, fire track and commercial forestry they have to trog through. Add to this the almost total lack of views of the Loch and it must be quite a let down. The earlier parts are not much better - Fort Augustus to Drum is the same mix of commercial forestry and B roads.

If you are doing the GGW after completing the West Highland Way it will be the sublime to the ridiculous.  The West Highland Way is a natural line stringing together some beautiful areas in a fine route of continual interest. Add in some great wee pubs and it is a fine way to spend a week.

In contrast, the GGW is a lost opportunity. Had it been taken up the south side of the Loch it would have been far superior covering areas like the pass of the fair haired lads and the river side routes mentioned in previous blogs.

But, as with so much in the outdoor arena in Scotland it appears that the actual route is  a compromise between vested interests - landowners limiting access forcing the route into the publicly owned forest and ensuring that walkers have plenty of exposure to Nessie tat even if they rarely see the loch.

The way has some redeeming features such as the lovely section from Invergarry to Fort Augustus but for the walker who wants to really experience the Glen I would suggest the following. Follow the GGW from Fort William to Fort Augustus to get the best of it but then  get the bus to Whitebridge and complete the walk to Inverness using the lightly trod paths of the South Loch Ness Trail,

It also has its limitations but it tries much harder.

Running on empty

A long evening run from Drum to Inverness as part of my training for the Highland Cross. I am not capable of running all 17 miles but a combination of walking the climbs and jogging the flats gets the job done. This type of distance begins to have both a physical and mental impact. After around 12 miles all the stored energy in the body is gone and you keep going on a combination of whatever you  can eat and willpower. When you add the isolation - I did not see a soul in 17 miles - and a bitter east wind it adds up to self abuse. By the time I reach the canal side in Inverness I felt hollowed out. Still, it does show that it can be done....I wonder if I could take it up to 20.....

A night under the err...star

God bless Her Majesty. For the mere price of an established hereditary principle and the upholding of 1000 years of subjugation at our own expense we get three holidays in just over a year. I have made good use of this royal bounty by hitting the hills on all 3 occasions. 

The Jubilee wheeze was a traverse of the north side of Kintail from Cluanie to Morvich taking in 6 Munros and 3 tops with a bivvy at the midpoint. While the hills were grand the bivvy was a new experience for me. We found a fine spot under Sgurr na Ciste Dubh where some small horseshoe rock walls indicated that others had had the same idea. It was sheltered from a keen north wind but it had little in the way of a view but we settled down for the night after a few brews and a wee dram. I snuggled down into my bivvy bag and looked forward to a fine night of stars and meteors.  It was 11.30 before the first star winked on to be followed by ...well...nothing. The night was too bright for any sort of display and even when I woke at the back of 2am only the major constellations like the Plough and Cassiopeia were out. The bright night was added to by a full moon which did not rise high enough to reach our bivvy sight but still cast a pale glow over the face  of the hill behind. 

A fine,comfortable night was passed and despite a frost settling I was so warm I had to rise to cast off layers. 

Bed, breakfast and boulders

In the morning we rose at a leisurely pace,brewed up and broke camp and had polished off three Munros by a shade after 10am. That's got to be a good day. I felt moved enough for a quick rendition of the national anthem but I could not remember the words.

Fannich forest again

We took the bikes in from the Achnasheen road up the long tarmac estate road to Fannich Lodge. In a similar fashion to Strathfarrar this appears to by a hydro road - publicly funding but access denied by the estate. Fannich Lodge proved to be a bleak outpost overlooking the dull waters of the upper loch. Even in the sunshine it seemed drab and grey. 

We dropped the bikes behind an outbuilding and struck up through the woods, completely missing the path until we emerged at the small stream half a mile up. A good stalker's path meandered up the broad ridge all the way to the stony summit of Meall Gorm. We sat for a while in a large rock shelter still filled with snow to eat lunch and take in the views. From there we wandered out to An Coileachan where we met an Italian woman who was faced with the walkout from hell north towards the Ullapool road (see Hills from Hell). Our southerly route was far easier even including the 15 mile round trip on the bikes. Our anticipated downhill freewheel to the car is somewhat spoiled by a ripping head wind which makes the ride out more uphill than the ride in. Tough day or maybe I am just getting old.

What season are we doing next?

I biked into Glen Einich in occasional snow snowers towards the northern corries of the Western Cairngorms. From Aviemore they looked like an advert for Lapland and as they got closer the illusion did not fade. From around 800 metres the snow cover was mostly intact - in recent years that's unsual for February but for the first week in May it is pretty unique.
I ditched the bike at the ford of the Beannidh Beag and strike out over the heather moors and glacial bluffs towards Braeriach. On the tundra like foreground I passed a small herd of reindeer which were a long way out from Glenmore but looked the part as light snow fell from the darkening sky. One of the hinds sheltered a tiny days old calf between its legs.

The ground steepened up to the snow line. Given that its May it would be reasonable to expect what the ski resorts call 'spring snow' or as it's also known slush. However, almost from the start the snow was bullet hard taking a good slash with the boot edge to get purchase before a steep, intact snow slope at 1000 metres forced me into crampons. I stomped upwards and on towards the summit as snow devils chased each other across the plateau. At the top the views encompassed the deep green spring of the Spey valley to the north and the massive ice age chasm of the Garbh-coire to the south. This might be the finest view in Scotland but it is no place to linger today as the ice age makes itself felt on the north wind. I retraced my crampon scratches over that wonderful white wilderness of the plateau and dropped down towards the Einich in thickening snow showers. Inside of two hours I was eating chips in Aviemore spaced out by the contrast of all the seasons in one afternoon and looking up longingly to the deep shadowed corries of Braeriach's late winter.

Nipping out for a quick pint

Our upside down spring continues with April resembling January with northerly air flows dragging snow showers down to low levels. The lengthening days mean warmth while the sun shines but when it drops below the horizon winter comes back. Interesting times and it makes packing for a 20 mile evening ride a bit of a challenge. 

I took to the south side of the river again up through the town and climbing out through a progression of suburban woods, farm land, forestry and then moors to a track high above the glen with unique views down the full length of the loch. The south side route meant maximum sunshine as I battered on through hypodermic gorse bushes. It cannot be long before the fashion for shorts in mountain biking dies a death but not before my shins are permanently skinned. 

Eventually, a path dives off to the right into the woods in the direction of the loch. A twisty, flowing singletrack plunges downwards towards Dores; it's a Goldilocks trail - not too hard,not too easy...just right and in the deep dark woods. After a glorious 5 minute rip I emerged grinning on the main road and cruise into the pub car park spattered in mud and a fair bit of gorse extracted blood. You really wonder what people think. 

The English based bike magazines always seem to feature beer but the opportunities on Highland night rides are few and far between. So sitting down in the beer garden of the Dores Inn with a pint in my hand and a view down the loch is a rare and fine moment. As I set out again the sun set over the steep hills across the loch and the temperature plummeted. From here the route roughly follows the River Ness through a mixture of estate roads, the odd baroque castle, some fine winding single track with nice short climbs and swoops through lovely open bluebell woods. I reached Inverness slightly blissed out - if you had a big box of trail building Lego and wanted to construct a perfect midweek ride from your front door this would be the result. 

A quick loop between worlds

On the long road from Glasgow, I dodged the vicious showers up the A9 before pulling over at Balsporran in the sunshine and took to the path up Geal Charn. I managed some wheezy jogging until the path got a bit upwardly angular and boggy.  The stony summit was reached in 50 minutes and I scrambled into all the gear I had to keep the oncoming hail at bay. I headed down to the south towards the col with AMharconich with brilliant but intermittent views through bruise black clouds to Ben Alder and beyond. At the col I could look left to the artics thundering along the A9 and right to the wilds of the Ben Alder forest. A massive land rover track had been driven up to the col and I used the intrusion to run back to the car through torrential rain. A Munro summit and grand if short stretch of wild achieved in less than 2 hours.

Village of the ghosts

The Highlands have more than their fair share of empty glens and crumbling ruins. The traditional view of this is to blame the ‘clearances’, a well-chronicled but poorly understood wound on our national psyche.

The catechism goes like this.  Massacre of Glencoe, Bonnie Prince Charlie, disaster at Culloden, tartan is banned (personally) by Butcher Cumberland,  collapse of the clans, evil English landlords, black faced sheep,  Patrick Sellar, letters from America, Battle of the Braes, gunboats, Consider the Lilies, empty glens. 

However, a short walk on the south shore of Loch Moidart this weekend has opened my eyes to a more complex reality of abandonment and renewal that continues to the present. 

We took the silver walk from Kinlochmoidart along the south shore to Port a Bhata – the village of the boats – where the remains of a crofting village are settling into the heather and bracken.  We sat in the sun on the step of a substantial ruin; its lintels were intact and some of the walls still had mortar.  It did not feel ancient especially the field system in front which seemed only recently abandoned.  The whole place hung heavy with human memory and from its state of collapse I guessed that it had been empty for a century or so giving the lie to the tag of clearance village which is applied locally to Port a Bhata  and to the nearby ruins at Braigh.  It was easy to compare this place to our own village a few miles around the scalloped coast in Ardnamurchan. It also has its old ruins mouldering into the peat but there also new builds, extensions to old crofts and all the signs of regeneration. However, this renaissance is a recent phenomenum  - the previous few decades saw serious and sustained decline as crofting became more marginal and families moved away to the cities. This slow decline is beautifully recorded for the ages in Alistair MacLean’s ‘Night falls on Ardnamurchan.’ However, a mix of dogged, determined locals, incomers with wealth and returning exiles have made the place live again. A new primary school and health centre give it a future. 

So what went wrong in Bhata and Braigh? A brilliant article in the local history website records the decline.  No callous landlords but a tale of determined and innovative highlanders trying everything to rest a living from the margins. Lazy beds, tatties, kelp, milling, sheep, distilling and even boat building were all tried over the 19^th century before they gave into the inevitable not so long ago in 1915. Perhaps the date hints at the final straw. The last resident was an elderly batchelor shepherd and it’s easy to see him amongst the ruins – a collarless shirt and waistcoat, moleskin breeks held up with string and big, clarty boots. It is easy because these characters still existed round the coast in living memory.

These thoughts do not seek to minimise the clearances.  A little known postscript to the crimes of Strathnaver and the failed trial of Patrick Sellar was his retirement to Morvern where he cheerfully cleared a few communities onto the boats.  

What a story these glens tell. So keep an eye out for the ghosts while you are in the hills – you will find them by the odd ring of stones, the leaning gable or the ancient crooked rowan. 

Warm day in the big glens

This time last year - and, indeed the year before - I was wading about in 3 or 4 feet of snow. Not today though as the Scottish March temperature record was broken a bit to the east. 

My brother and I spent the day in Glen Strathfarrar on four perfectly proportioned Munros. A mixture of springy turf and very wide vistas gives a day to savour. Despite the haze, from the summits you can see more or less every major summit north of the great glen and a fair few to the south of it such as Nevis and the Cairngorms. The country to the west around the head of Loch Monar looked particularly fine in the sunshine with twinkling lochans and deep glacial trenches cutting through to the west coast. Real fiords - I was half expecting to see longships appearing.

The glen has a curious feature in that it is 'closed' in the winter. Despite the obvious fact that the road was built with public funds during the hydro boom the glen is 'private' and they can throw a gate across the entrance to prevent 'poaching'.  I think in this context poaching is a euphemism for unfettered access by the great unwashed. In summer, the gatekeeper dispenses the privilege of access to your own countryside up a road that you pay to maintain via your lecky bills but in winter you must phone the Mountaineering Council of Scotland to obtain access to the inner sanctum.

While driving up the glen to meet my brother I happened upon a tweedy type in a utility truck who ostentatiously passed the layby he should have drawn into and forced me to reverse a hundred yards to the last one. That's not easy while tugging your forelock. He gave me the onceover down his nose before driving off at speed. His land apparently or maybe not. 

What a ridiculous throwback to a less enlightened age. The MC of S should cut out the kow-towing and get them telt - oor hills and access for all.
For reference here are the access arrangements.
However, the gates and padlocks should not discourage you from visiting Glen Strathfarrar. The place itself is warm and welcoming with shaggy woods and quiet stretches of deep brown river. The hydro schemes have weathered into the background and are barely noticed. I doubt the same will be true of the windfarms in 50 years.
Time to go - venison stew for tea but don't tell anyone.

Pass of the fair haired lads

A longish half run and half hike through a stretch of country on the south side of the loch that was new to me. The route included a fair length of forestry road which rose at a gentle angle to the edge of a green tunnel of trees which only opens out at the tiny pass itself. It barely qualifies as a pass until you get over the brow and catch the wide views down to Loch Ness and beyond to the snow capped mountains north and west of the Great Glen. The view is part pastoral, taking in the fields and farms of Glen Urquhart, part urban out to Inverness and part wilderness out to the Affric hills and the Monadliath lining the horizon. This day it was stunning and I had to to stop to take some photos and drink it up for a while. The air moving gently up from the loch felt warm and smelt of vanilla from the yellow gorse in the woods below.

The route plunged down into the woods below on a ladder of zig-zags where the path did not appear much travelled and was mostly grassed over. The steeply pitched curves eventually gave way to a long downward rake of green forest track getting deeper and darker as it headed down towards the lochside. Then, tucked in at the edge of the path I saw my first wild primroses of the year and was forced to stop for yet another photo. These wee Scottish wildflowers always instill a sense of hope in me - their colour, their timing and the way they respond to sunlight make them a concrete proof of spring.

The forest road opened out into a more prosaic commercial forest for a few miles, passing old ruined crofts moss covered and half submerged in the larch and Sitkas. The road then branched into a wide route running downward and a more over grown upward trail. I was heading up but stopped first to treat a wee blister at the broad junction. Above and behind me was a margin of the forest which had taken a real battering in the recent gales with at least half the trees leaning over or blown down completely. The remaining trees creaked, cracked and groaned like wild animals. Even in midday sunlight it was an alarming noise and I mentally crossed this route off my list for winter night outings.

The forest and the wide road ended at Erchite farm which is split into an abandoned wester and a thriving easter which both share an unrivalled view up the glen to the Moray Firth and down the loch to Drum and beyond. I followed an increasingly boggy and sketchy path up through new scraggy forestry clinging to the crags. The road eventually just ended in what looked like a turning circle hanging above a gorge. There was no obvious route but I could just see some open moor a few hundred meters up through the forest. No choice but to bushwhack up through the ripping and tearing wind fall until it eventually opened out into equally tricky steep heather. I wheezed upwards to a small summit and then on to the cairn of Beinn a Bhataich. It had turned a fair bit colder as I climbed but it was still a surprise when a squall rose over the shoulder from the loch and fell as a short but dramatic snowstorm.  

From the summit all that remained was a short rough descent to the road and a 2 mile jog back to the car in the warm westering sun. 

A nice round for the first half with much to like - the wee pass itself, the rocky conglomerate crags which point to the violence of the formation of the Glen itself, 3 seasons in 3 hours and the all pervading scent of spring. 

However, I plan to look for alternative endings for next time.

 

Gear of the Year

Time for some gear talk and my vote for gear of the year as winter comes to a close. 

I considered my excellent Inov-8 Roclite 315s which have been through a lot over two years - hell on the Fannichs, a Highland Cross and more snow than we have seen in the previous decade and are still going for more. Comfy, grippy and hardy.

Honourable mentions to my lovely Haglofs hoodie fleece, my Howies merino 'surf style' base layer - which they stopped doing for some reason - and my PolarBuff. Nice to be warm...

But the winner is....my still shiny Hope Vision R4 LED light set. For a northcountryboy like me it means an extra 18 hours a day of potential playtime per dreary December day. It's a headtorch, it's a bike light, it means an end to night time as an excuse for not riding, running or even hillwalking. It's like a sunny day you fix to the front of your bike. And its made in the UK. 

Turkey of the year also belongs to the UK. A Montane eVent SuperFly jacket that leaked from the off. It took nearly a year of discussions to persuade Montane that the jacket was faulty. Just not good enough.

Green and pleasant land

While working away for the week I took a quick opportunity run along the Grand Union Canal in Hertfordshire. A pleasant enough 5 miles along the chalky footpath with the constant soudtrack of the West Coast mainline thundering past every few minutes. This part of the country is threatened by the HS2 expansion and many feel it is worth protecting. As a Highland Scot it would be easy to get snotty about landscape quality, about its lack of wildness, the fact that it is heavily populated and a bit degraded already but tonight as dusk fell it looked and felt like England is supposed to - green and pleasant. Worth loving and protecting.

Still, you wonder if the same conversations took place when the navvies turned up to dig the Canal.....

Spring might be here....

A 10 mile 'long run' taking in the same trail as the post titled 'White woods'. 

However, tonight it was 12 degrees. Shorts on for the first time this year and and out into the twilight for a balmy spring run. The weather almost made it bearable. The wee guy on the BBC weather is going mental about the Fohn effect in which air heats as it moves downhill - the same effect was also highly evident in my shorts after 10 miles.

That's as much training as I intend to do for the half marathon - my time won't be great but I should finish.

Urban biking highland style

I just did not fancy heading out of town or uphill tonight so I took the bike for a quick blast along the tow path of the Caledonian Canal. This involves following Telford's finest from the swing bridge at Tomnahurich out to the seagates where the canal meets the Beauly Firth about quarter of a mile out from the natural shore. The path and the waterside are trig and well maintained with gates and bollards painted in the house colours of black and white. On a fine night like this its a great place to be - a bit like San Francisco Bay but without the gun crime. 

This is what passes for urban riding in Inverness - just how lucky am I to live here?

A long run in the white woods

Winter is back for a short while.

Occasionally, in amongst the long miles and sore legs there are some sublime moments. 

The reality of running in the Scottish winter is often mud and glaur but sometimes the woods dress up like Narnia and your heart beats that wee bit faster.

Out with the owls again

Another beautiful day given up to work motivated me out for a 6 mile run at dusk up onto Saddle Hill. It felt spring like in the lower woods but winter returned in cold gusts as I gasped up the steep line of the track to the flat hill top, hands on thighs and lungs burning. The oncoming darkness and a sudden rain from the west caught me on the top of the hill. I jogged down into the smirr with the headtorch showing morse code rain drops across the black sky. Down by the road, owls screeched to each other - spring soon but I will miss these mad twilight outings.

A night run with Nessie

I spent the working day window gazing as the February sun made a short arc across a sky of clean, inviting spring blue. On such a day the only answer to the tedium of work is to plan your escape and shortly after 4pm I was in my running gear and in the car.

I pulled up at the Clansman with a full 60 minutes of daylight for an 80 minute run but with the insurance of a really, really bright headtorch. The path climbs up steep and straight through beautiful winter woods of oak, pine and birch in a diagonal rake for just over half a mile before it opens out on the right to views of the loch below. Beyond the loch a creamy three quarter moon had risen over the Monadliath and was starting to cast light and shade through the trees. Not a breath of wind stirred the woods as I jogged up the green path.

A rougher section followed, snaking a steep but simple path through the low crags at the top of the wood ending at a grassed over track where the climbing stopped for a while. I could run for a few minutes until a right turn onto a footpath pointed me upwards again, climbing with hands on thighs and burning lungs. The path was wetter now and ice cold melt water seeped into my shoes. Then across the fire track and onto a rough path across the open hillside where views of the deepening shadows down to the loch and out towards Dores opened up, The blue above deepened as first Venus and then Jupiter winked into view. Head down and feeling good I battered on for the top of Carn na Leitre ignoring the broadening views to secure the big reveal at the summit. I made an effort up the last slope and then stopped the watch, got jacket, hat and gloves on before I looked around.

Half the Highlands were laid out around me – Wyvis floated in the north, a white whale in the ink blue shadow ocean of the Aird. To the west the usual jumble of peaks were silhouetted against a thin strand of yellow horizon beyond the cloudy edge of the warm front forecast for the weekend. To the south Orion had risen with Sirius snapping at his heel. Silence thickened around me with the gathering dark. I tore myself away form it all and ran down towards the Great Glen Way where a thin layer of hard snow still lay across the trail. Ten minutes on I had to accept that night had fallen and turned on the torch where the path left the fire road and dived down into the wood of Corryfoyness.

Five minutes running under full beam brought me out at a small bench seat poised on the edge of the crags above Loch Ness. I sat down and took the night in. The moonlight fell unimpeded on the rumpled blanket of black water. It was 6 o'clock on a Friday night in February and absolutely no one else was out here. Inverness showed orange beyond the northern arm of the loch where people were making meals, gathering in pubs, driving home. I had this glorious place completely to myself with the likely exception of whatever was causing that wake across the water 1000 feet below. But night running makes any such view a cold comfort so I shivered off down the rocks into the trees where the mineshaft steep path led me down into the dark woods to the lochside.

Up the long path to Catalonia

There is a place were the yellow and red ribbons of the Catalans flutter in the high sunshine round a statue of the Virgin. This is the story of how we got there and of the fireworks that followed.

We reached the Pyrennees by train mostly, a track bound journey split only by the Channel, but at Tarascon the rails stop and at last the paths point up. So we teetered off with our big rucksacks sometimes hitching and sometimes walking, down the road and up the valley, through the empty village with its boarded up cafe to the foot of the zig-zaggy road which on average at least aimed up the hill towards Spain. We slowed the pace to a plod on the steep grades, hands on hips and leaning forward to avoid being nailed to the cross of the big sacks. Then at the end of a 1500 mile search for sunny hills the sky darkened to a deep grey and it began to rain. Not just a shower, but a persistent hill rain we both knew from the sacred ground of the West Highlands - this was definitely not in the plan. The drizzle seeped through us until we reached the hanging valley at the top of the zigzags where we camped. To the south, lightning flickered around the hidden peaks that we aimed to reach the next day. It did not look promising.

But the morning and the day that followed were flawless. Guinness ripped open the tent door and my eyes opened to the darkness of the flap against the hard stars. He groaned and coughed and retched and spat the stove into life filling the tent with the odours of meths fumes and powdered milk. The smell drove me deeper into the sleeping bag and when eventually the steaming bowl was placed on my chest I could only demure and reach for the tea instead. “I’ve put in apple flakes to give it some taste.” My dirty look made no impression but once the tea was down and the fur was out of my mouth I could stand outside for both the oats and the apple flakes. There was enough light from the stars to make the head torches pointless and when I did turn it on it seemed intrusive, bouncing light off the weird shapes of the beehive shepherds huts of the Orris de Pujol. We had considered spending the night in them from the safe distance of a Glasgow pub but close up they were sheep fowled and spooky. By the time I had finished the oats, his impatience was the only thing not packed and he boiled slowly as I bumbled into my climbing clothes and threw my gear into my sack. But when I eventually shouldered the pack he beamed broadly at me. “Are ye right?” Aye, I was right. Today had been a long time coming.   

We walked up the deep, blue shadowed valley at dawn as the pink light touching the spires above turned to bright white and scrambled up shallow rock ribs to a snow filled cirque. We stopped and snacked on cheese and bread while still in the cool shadows and watched the sun slowly flood the snow bowl. Then we unstrapped the axes, shouldered the packs and struck out across the snow. We climbed over our first, tiny bergshrund onto the face of Montcalm which continued at a comfortable angle of rock and grass for a  couple of thousand feet before easing out to the granite boulder field of the summit. The air was thin and the rocks glared in the sun making the top hard to obtain but at last after five hours we were there on the summit of Montcalm complete with its fibre glass bear and bear cub. You wonder who thought that one up.

Then we were off -  the usual story of a summit hard won and quickly discarded - down the back of the hill to a high stony col and then slowly up the narrow ridge of Pic d’Estats before crossing at some undefined point into Catalonia and Spain. On the summit, we flew the Saltire in the sun and carried out our usual ritual of Calvinist handshakes but the experience was different to all those other narrow places we had aspired to in our own country. Here the sun shone with an anger and the people who came before had erected crosses and a tiny statue of the Virgin, all decorated with yellow and red ribbons. There were plaques and photos and prayers. The Catalans celebrated their summits while we revel in the dourness of our hills decorating them with either funereal cairns or strictly functional trig pillars. 

But you can only stay for so long and take so many photos before you have to leave and we quit Catalonia after less than an hour. Our route led back over Montcalm and at the col we met a large family of Catalans dressed almost entirely in black. There were young boys and girls, middle aged men and even an old woman. Perhaps a funeral party perhaps carrying a plaque to the summit for a newly lost brother but whatever the reason the grandmother had trekked to a height of 3000 metres in the heat of August. We could only exchange puzzled greetings and pass on by.

So that was Spain - hot and full of tourists.  

Our descent reversed the ascent - down the rocky face of Montcalm, over the snowfield, down the rock rib and then a quick jog down the valley to the tent. It was hot and still in the valley and I had fantasised hard about the stream by the tent. It had been freezing when I collected water the previous night but now it would be just right. I reached the tent first, trotting happily down the path and dumped my rucksack at the tent door. By the time I reached the stream I had stripped to the waist and was seductively removing my sweaty bandana for my date with the wee burn. It was still cold. In fact it was way too cold for anything other than a token immersion of the top of my head. Luckily, Guinness was far enough behind to miss the pathetic spectacle and I was able to get away with a quick “very refreshing” through clenched teeth. The tent was packed away and we headed down laden once again with huge sacks. Our new smiles and suntans made them more bearable but no lighter.

We veered off from the zigzags to follow a path down through the woods. The late sun dappling the path ahead and the living greens of the leaf canopy above. We reached the road as the sun dipped behind the hill and the shadows brought out a horror of clegs - massive horseflies with green eyes. We still had shorts on and had to resort to waltzing down the road together, turning in circles and slapping clegs from the others legs. So it was that as the first car came round the corner  we were slapping and stamping and leaping about with our huge rucksacks on and screaming ”Die ya wee numpty” at the surface of the road. I stuck out a speculative thumb but was greeted by a look of horror from the young woman in the car as she accelerated passed. You could not blame her. When we heard the next engine we got our act together, smoothed down our hair and smiled. The white Renault van screeched to a halt and we piled in the back. The guy driving had very little English so while Guinness tried to chat to him in pidgin I concentrated on the big wolfhound which had got up of the floor of the front passenger seat. It kept making a low, throaty growl when I moved so I adopted the policy of shrinking and staying very still. After a long mile or so it seemed to succumb to my limited charms and jumped over the seat and laid its head on my lap. Nice doggy. Very nice doggy. Any move still resorted in a growl but I was more concerned about the latest insect experience of the day which were making themselves obvious on the dogs head. Eleven scratchy miles passed and we were dropped in the middle of Tarascon outside a cafe.

“Nice guy” said Guinness as the van departed. “I’d love a wolf hound.”

“Aye, right enough” I replied wiping the slobber off my bare leg to look for fleabites.  

We drunk the two best beers that have ever been drunk and headed for the campsite. I was dead beat and with good reason and my feet were beginning to throb so badly that I swore I could hear them. Bed seemed like a good option.  

But Tarascon was in the grip of a summer festival and the day was not over.  As we neared the campsite we realised that entire town was blacked out and suddenly we were in the middle of a huge, silent crowd. From the direction of the wee castle on its rock in the middle of the town came a booming voice with a long stream of French in which I thought I caught the words “Star wars” or even “Sterrrgh Werrrghs” Then the music started and the Force was definitely with us. A single stream of sparkles flew up from the castle ramparts and ended in the most almighty bang and then all hell let loose. If fireworks are your thing  then the Tarascon Festival is the one for you. Never mind that it’s a poky, wee French town - they are more than happy to send their entire annual budget up in smoke in one balmy August night. It was awesome. The whole thing lasted an hour and was accompanied by a bizarre soundtrack which was lost on us tourists. “Look Skywukerrrrgh ... Obee - wchann Kenobee... Le Force” The show got even better when the big rockets started falling to earth and set fire to the scrub on the castle rock. Pretty soon there was a good blaze going right under the castle walls and it looked like this was the start of a night to remember. Then the sirens started and fire engine appeared and a wee guy could be seen flitting about in the light of the flames battering at the burning bushes. The hero of the hour but the surreal commentary still continued

 “Crhann seuluu...bang.. Derth Vederr ...bang”. What a night - we decided to go for a beer.   

And so it was that at somewhere around two in the morning we got reached the campsite with a half empty bottle of a last very expensive biere and a tricolour to go with our saltire. It was a fine tribute to the Auld Alliance that had required Guinness to swing from it with all his weight before it gave way. The French had actually padlocked the ropes so we had no choice - have they no sense of tradition?

So that was Tarascon and the wee, winding path up to Catalonia. It was a good start.

Feeling gravity's pull - Skye stories

Druim Hain late on a summer’s night. The Cuillin are introduced to me individually across the table of Coruisg. The shadows are deep in the corries and the noise of water falling reaches me from a hundred burns.  I turn back for Sligachan in some confusion. How I am supposed to do this?

From the connecting ridge the path ran out across the face and round a corner. A foot wide with broken crags above and a long, invisible drop below. I steeled myself and walked out along it.  At some point around 100 metres out the path disappeared at a step where the scratch marks showed its upward progress out to a corner perched above that drop.  Crouched in the gully below the corner I could sense it still... maybe 50 metres to the screes somewhere below. Eyes closed I could see the arc of my fall, like a tear drop down the face with maybe a single glance or a scrape off the rough gabbro. Roy stood above the corner urging me on but sensing the inner debate. ‘It’s easy – just move out and up. Then it’s straightforward from up here.’ I thought of the rope, useless in the sacks discarded below the summit of the previous peak.  ‘I am not doing it’ I said with growing relief.  He persisted and protested but he had seen the wobble and then the resolution before and he knew I had already turned round.  In my head at least. So that’s Skye for you  - scree or scary.

The day was perfect – warm in the sun and cool in the corries. The Cuillin gives that wonderful contrast between sun-warmed and cool shadowed gabbro. The rough rock varies in texture and temperature endlessly as the day progresses linking your senses to the hill through your slowly bloodying finger tips.

The path ran up past the gorge and up through the outer corrie to the rocky inner corrie which itself gave up under the long scree gully  up to An Dorus – visible above as a notch of deep blue in the skyline.  I reached the narrow notch quickly despite the backsliding on the scree , enjoying the evolving rock scene and the texture of the rough gabbro under my fingers.  On the right stood the scratched rock wall blocking progress to Greadaidh and slightly up and over the col was the route to Mhadaidh – up a gully above a remnant of snow running down the first few metres on the east side. I picked slowly up the gully looking deeply and breathing deeply at each hold . After the few short metres it opened out and I was up onto a flattish area where low stone walls have been built as bivouacs. An open face leaned against the main ridge and stretched away to the summit. I picked my way up the briefest scratches of a path and suddenly emerged on the summit with its wild eastern exposure. Coruisk, massive and grey in the sunlight echoed far below.  South down the ridge lay my way to Greadaidh – foreshortened, black and threatening. Any confidence I had built ebbed away into the depths of the corrie below and I clung to the rock and my rucksack as I ate a quick meal. No place for me to linger.  But in retreat, the pitch was less intimidating and the dark shadow of the gully faded to a reality of easy moves above a manageable drop.  

Round on the Glen Brittle side I examined the climb out of An Dorus with a calmer eye. Doable and not exposed – my kind of bad step. I was up the difficult 10 feet quick with some minor scraping and wheezing  and got a clearer view of the route ahead – less scary, less foreshortened. The day was coming together and my confidence was building. I traversed up some open, shallow slabs with the deep sword slash of the Eag Dubh still holding snow in its depths and then up and round the Wart to the ridge itself.  The next short section was straightforward and reminiscent of other narrow places on the mainland with a clear path working through boulders. I reached the cairn in good humour with only a small amount of fearful hand scrabbling and shuffling. To the south and to my alarm stretched a long saw tooth ridge topped at the far end – maybe 200 metres away by a second cairn. From here it looked higher. I sat down by the northern cairn and racked my brains. The guidebook was safe in the car but did it say the northern or southern peak was higher? I knew that I could sit here until the next ice age and not know for sure.  No option but the traverse out and back along the roofline of Skye to that distant cairn.  I dumped the sack and set off. The shuffling reached critical levels after a few minutes tottering along the edge and I resorted to au cheval bum shuffling before finally panicking and heading down to a small rake on the Brittle side which led with some difficulty beyond the south peak to the south ridge.  As I scrambled own to the rake my self-loathing of this gripping fear reached new levels. You complete dick – this ground is far more difficult than the ridge itself. But I could cope with more technical ground as long as the exposure was reduced. 

I doubled back along the south ridge which yielded easily to the cairn above. The reverse view of the Greadaidh ridge clearly showed the north peak to be higher. This was a double blow – not only was all that faff and fear to reach the south peak unnecessary but so was the current prospect of the return and the possibility of a screaming descent into the depths of Coruisk.  You complete and utter dick.  Bring the guidebook.

Rain on gabbro and slick scree and steep grass. Somewhere above us in the deep mist the pinnacle sat leaning back against Sgurr Dearg. About 2000 feet up under a vague crag we thought better of it and turned back down. The wind blew squalls and showers into our backs all the way down Corrie Lagan and the sheep fouled path to the Hostel. 

Pinnacle Ridge on a day of swirling mist. The first three pinnacles yielded to easy and relaxed scrambling before we gathered ourselves above the big drop and uncoiled the rope . The climb went by quickly before I found myself tottering on exposed slabs high up on the summit peak of Gillean. The world sloped downward at a constant angle all around me. Anywhere else it would have been horrible but the combination of sticky gabbro and mist obscured exposure made it work for me and shortly the summit somehow appeared on my left. Given that the ridge was taken head on we must have been hugely off route but I did not care - the top was tiny but reassuringly flat.  We scrambled down the West ridge and descended to the screes down some slimy chimney since the continuation of the ridge was designated as dangerous after the recent suicide of the Gendarme.  Understandable – the exposure maybe got to him.  We reascended to Am Bhastier and trod the ridge ahead nervously waiting for the tricky section to appear.  I climbed down into a notch and scrambled up the other side. Once back up on the ridge we chatted across the narrow gap and agreed that the hard bits must be further on. Guinness took three steps back and then launched himself across the gap landing with a sprachle at my feet. ‘Easy’ he said. The top of Bhastier came with no further bad step but half sensed and awesome exposure down through the mist. Swirls of cloud moved verticality up the crags below the summit before curving and breaking over the top. Back down at the gap we concluded that he had in fact jumped the crux. Back on the screes Bruach na Frithe was now in sight beyond the vertical black monster crags of Bhastier. It would be my hundredth Munro so there would be no turning back today. The hill is an easy walk in comparison to what had gone before and for the first time the mist lifts to reveal the sea and rock of Skye. Unique and surreal scenery stretched down the spine of the Cuillin to its terminal peak pointing out towards Ardnamurchan and Rum.  Only the pterodactyls were missing.

The day of the pinnacle and the first surprise was immediate. The first few moves off the ground felt like real rock climbing. In fact all the way to the first stance seemed like a regular pitch.  Maybe it was the polished dolerite – if you ignored the exposure it could have been the crag outside Glasgow where I used to go top-roping.  As a strategy for the day that worked well for me -  ignore the exposure and think about top-roping.  Standing on the stance is a study in focus. On the screes below Roy had said ‘ keep the ball on the deck’ about 100 times and I repeated it as a mantra.  I can see the mainland from here – keep the ball on the deck – I can’t see the bottom of the Pin on either side but I can see straightdown to the corrie floors on either side – keep the ball on the deck.....

The last pitch is closer to horizontal than vertical but the sense of exposure is overwhelming.  The view stretches to 60 miles in all directions and is not obscured by anything other than a couple of feet of rock leading up to the bolster stone.   At the top there was a short wait on the flat while Roy sorts out the abseil and I concentrated on screening out my peripheral vision.  He called me down to the stance under the summit and clipped me to the nice sturdy chain. I assumed I was going first so when he set himself up and leaned back I felt the ball rising from the deck. 

‘You canny leave me up here, wee man – surely I should go first?’

‘Me first and then I can protect your ab -  or d’ye fancy swinging out round the face?’

‘Fair enough........’

He reached the slabs under the pinnacle and after a while shouted up for me to ab when ready.  I checked the descender  and the screwgate again and then again and then leaned back gingerly.  One or two scrabbly slips on the upper slab created the picture in my head of swinging free in space round the steep side before I reached the steeper rock beneath and then finally the terra firma of Sgurr Dearg.  The ball was back on the deck.  A pinnacle no longer inaccessible but I still had a lingering sense of my own unworthiness, a certainty that I had borrowed the bottle for the climb. Still this is how I would do this.

So these scattering of days on the ridge above the sea have taught me the Cuillin. I have the gabbro scars on my fingers and I have seen the roseroot on the screes. My boots have left careful prints in the black sand on the lochan in Grunnda and I have heard the eagles echo in Coruisk.  But I have also learned that my place is not here amongst the pinnacles and sparkling rocks of the Cuillin. All this is alien to me and I cannot love it - this other place of gravity between the sea and the deep blue Cuillin sky.

8 hours in Eden

The ridge is broad but rocky with a sinuous path winding through small outcrops. Somewhere in the last few steps it becomes transcendent and the summit itself seems in another place with different air. I climbed the big, haphazard cairn and took a breath – it seemed to have substance and nurture. I said aloud – ‘I will not leave this place.’ 

 

Glengarry has a thin surface of civilisation which extends for only few feet either side of the ribbon of the road and it took me only minutes to reach its edge at the forest gate. I peered into the dark green tunnel ahead as I footered with the gate’s catch and chucked the bike through. The wood was open enough to let the high sun in for most of the ride and so the forest felt close and warm. Squadrons of dragonflies followed the bike as I crested the hill and dropped down a rough section of track to a big bridge over the River Kingie. So far, so good. The empty sylvan forest alive with the sound of insects, hung with dripping green mosses and with a deep carpet of pine needles had moved me away from that ribbon quickly and into a wilder, lonelier place. I said to the bike – ‘where next?’

I knew the answer and the bike and I proceeded happily in the growing silence to the path off to the ruin at Loch. A previous visit here put the old croft in a dim light of spooky shadows and terminal decline, but on this day the sun was high and the hoverflies were buzzing. Loch appeared to doze in the sun although its remaining gable leaned away to the east.

The path became rougher and wetter, the bike flowed less and I was working harder. This was still pleasure but I said to the bike ‘Tell me when.’

The forest became scraggier and the trees less overbearing as we moved up the valley of the Kingie. The river was now visible on the left, wide and meandering in a broad green strath. To the west the mountains reared up in the clear air with just the slightest shimmer of heat on their high ridges.

About a mile after the forest gave out I sunk into a deep rut, struck the pedals and the bike said when. I found a dry yard of path, sat down and threw my legs out across it to chew through a piece and take a drink and stock. This was a fine place. The empty glen stretched out in swathes of yellow grasses towards the bothy at Kinbreack, its proportions defined by glacial perfection and ringed with ridges - I laid the bike reverently against a bank and took to my feet up the path towards them.

It aimed gently up to the glen between Gairich and Sgurr Mor and I left it at a small bridge and struck out through the bog cotton towards the east ridge. Things went slow in the heavy afternoon but there were flowers in numbers and peat in depth to look at and wonder. Dwarf cornel, tormentil and spears of marsh orchids had to be avoided as I traced a spidery route upwards. The upper mountain had a sharp transition to boulders and short heather and no obvious path to be found. The light changed from noon-time to afternoon before the trig point was made. Then there was nothing to be done but to descend to the col and climb the east ridge of Sgurr Mor through the swarms of desperate, dying crane flies to the summit ridge...

I said again – ‘I will not leave this place.’

The ridge stretched out from my feet through a land of stone and water towards the western seaboard and its quilt of islands. A snaking wave of tops and bealachs ran on to the middle distance ending in the cathedral spire of Sgurr na Ciche. Now the pap of Knoydart is a high point for most but not for me. For from here I could see the Feadan na Ciche for the first time in many years. It is that place – the chanter of the peaks – which holds a special place in my heart and a strong grip in my imagination as the heart of the wild. My only visit to the chanter was at the age of 18, descending from the Sgurr in a daze of excitement after climbing my second ever Munro. That short November day we walked from Sourlies to Strathan along the ridge, watching as a snow squall first covered the distant Ben and then departed leaving behind the first cover of winter. As far as I could see there were only peaks, endless and ‘filed on the blue air.’ I was overwhelmed by this far country and knew that it would take a lifetime to know it properly. I did not know then how willingly I would give it and the deepness of what it would return.

So this is where my mind goes in the darkness of winter to imagine the Chanter of the Winds deep in snow and droning with the west wind. I can stand in the centre of the Infirmary Bridge, where the Ness first meets the tide and look up the river seeing the long, lonely flow all the miles up to this Eden.

 

I lay on my back and said to the cairn – ‘I will stay.’

But I knew from many summits that you cannot stay. I shouldered my rucksack and turned my back on the wild. I walked away altered – stretched, deepened and at peace. I retraced my footsteps to the deep valley as the sun reddened and the flowers hid their faces from me.

The bike waited by the path. ‘I’m back’ I said, remembering other stories and we bounced off down the path to that last gate where the wild ended and the road began.