Category Archives: mountains

From Newtonmore to Fort Augustus via Laggan and the Corrieyairack Pass

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After work, in the afternoon, to the shop to buy various bits, and then pack a bag. The rucksack, which had been 13.9kg with equipment less about two kilos of batteries, Kindle, notebook and pens and trail poles, was 22kg on the eve of departure – all up: all clothing, all food, and some water. Heavier than I anticipated, but manageable. Where had that weight crept in from? This was to be my ninth solo backpacking and wild camping adventure. To Cromford then, and by train to London.

Arriving in London I had a bit of time – trains in the UK are just not reliable enough to cut things fine and not leave plenty of time. I was at St Pancras at 19:38 for a 21:15 train out of Euston, up to Scotland. Why was I travelling from the Midlands down to London to go back up to Scotland? Because the alternative was taking the train to Crewe and picking up the sleeper there at midnight. If you’re going to wait for a couple of hours on a draughty railway station platform at night, I don’t recommend Crewe. I did that once; it won’t be happening again. I had a pint and a sausage roll in the Betjeman Arms at St Pancras, then strolled along the Euston Road to join the sleeper to Inverness, the longest train in Britain, and my carriage right at the front of the train.

I slept well enough on the train and had to hurry through my full Scottish breakfast in a paper bag. I found myself on the platform at Newtonmore at 07:15 on a drear and misty morning, barely starting to get light. I dragged on everything I had, to keep warm, and in Goretex over-trousers, gaiters, waterproof jacket, gloves and woolly hat, set off into the pre-dawn gloom. I had in reserve only a thin Rab mid-layer and at that point in the morning wondered if I had come onto the hill ill-clad. I walked out of town up onto the heath; had there been no mist this would have been glorious and scenic. You could tell it was a temperature inversion – there’s a look about the sky when you can sense that radiant blue sky and sunshine are only inches, as it were, above the steel-grey ceiling of mist.

I ascended the Calder River up Glen Banchor, meeting no-one, listening to the fearful noise of stags rutting. This noise reminds me, with my taste in films, of the zombie apocalypse. At one point I needed to take care fording a stream. Late morning, I was approaching a tin hut somewhere round 648984, where the map marks “township” at Dail na Seilg. A stalker strode out to speak with me. We had a polite conversation about my plans, and his plans, and I saw that I needed to change my plans. It suited me to do so, to be fair – it wasn’t simply a matter of me rolling over. That said, this is pure stalker’s country, not at all walker’s country.  I followed a tired old land-rover trail and became aware I was going in the wrong direction. I was soon lost and disoriented in the brown upland, stumbling over the heather looking at my compass. It took some close map and compass work to get me onto the right trail, a good and substantial unmade road, which I followed south-west down Strath-an-Eilich.

Early afternoon I came out at Castle Cluny, a nice-looking Scottish Baronial pile in the usual grey granite. Through the delightful autumn colours I trod through the grounds out onto the road. Without a detour, there followed a tiresome 2.5km tramp along the A86, a single track road at this point, but still with a fair amount of traffic. This brought me to Laggan, around about 3pm. From here, another tarmac road tramp of 4.5km brought me to the “Spey Dam”. I had not been aware I was walking up the Spey valley. I met no mountaineers or walkers. At this point, around 4pm, I’d been 7-8km on metalled roads and much of the rest of the distance on good unmade roads. I admit that had I known so much of this route lay along actual roads, I might have chosen differently.  

Resting by the dam, I saw a couple of cyclists whizz past. I set off along the road under the dam and arrived at a kind of industrial yard, with piles of rubble and hardcore, and big spotlights ready to be connected to a generator – there’s no mains electricity here, even though this countryside isn’t the ostensible wilderness of the Cairngorms. All around there are very robust and well-maintained deer fences, with proper access for vehicles and pedestrians at the appropriate places. At this point, early though it was, I was looking for a place to camp. I could continue along the unadopted and private metalled road along the north side of the reservoir created by the dam, or I could hike uphill into more wild country further up Glen Markie. I opted for the former. I went through a metal gate, pulling back the bolt. The bolt made a displeasing sound that in the pristine silence of that place, sounded like a lamb being slaughtered. I walked a hundred yards before repenting of my decision and turning back. Such sudden changes of mind have served me well in the past. Being willing and able to change your mind is a virtue, not a vice – don’t let anyone tell you that stubbornness is a virtue.

I detoured uphill into Glen Markie for about an hour, past a wasteland of industrial plantations, until I came across a place where I might camp. I would have to hike back downhill to the reservoir tomorrow morning, but this was more or less where I thought I would end up when planning this trip as a desktop exercise back in June. I camped near the ford of the Allt Tarsuinn Mor, just before it joined the Markie Burn, a substantial river. I had a very cramped and limited pitch, but it had the advantage of being bone-dry heather. I was just below the tributary stream as it flowed down a ravine into the main river. I could hear running water in three different registers: the roaring or rushing of the river, the chuckling of the brook over stones, and the sound of small waterfalls. In spite of the limited pitch, it was supremely comfortable and I took one of the best nights’ sleep for some years, from around 7.30p.m right around until well after 6.30a.m next morning. I had a completely dry strike and was away from camp around 9 o’clock. There was no hurry. In any case, at this time of year in this place, daylight comes late and lingers late. There was little usable daylight much before 7.30a.m.

I hiked back down to the bottom of the glen, and turned right, resuming my route of the afternoon before. There followed 12km along metalled road – a single track road through glorious, empty country – but a metalled road all the same. The adopted part of the road (that is, the part coloured in yellow on an OS map) ended at Garva Bridge. Here there was an ancient bridge of 18th century military origin. Two cyclists whizzed past. I stopped for lunch and sat between the road, the woods and the Spey, under the cathedral of a clear blue sky. Today’s weather was better than yesterday’s. The tarmac gave out at a place called Melgarve – an empty house. At this point, in the heart of the Monadliath, you’re about 16km from the main road at Laggan, and perhaps a little further from Fort Augustus.

Beyond Melgarve, first a very conspicuous “Road Closed” sign, secondly, an actual half barrier blocking the way ahead to vehicles. The road itself continues up into Corrie Yairack, though without benefit of tarmac. This is one of “General Wade’s Military Roads”; to walk this route is why I was here. The afternoon’s walking ahead of me was the crux and heart of my trip.

Corrieyairack Pass

To the chagrin of some, a mighty high-tension power line marches up the valley, into the corrie and up and over the pass. All should have access to electricity. I remember in the 1980’s hitch-hiking in the Lake District and getting a lift from an estate agent. He told me that the Friends of the Lake District – every one of them living in a home with electricity – had opposed the building of power lines over a wild valley, which would have brought electricity to houses that did not at that time have access to power. Ever since then I’ve had little patience with the sort of environmentalist who sits in comfort opposing construction that would being the same comforts to others.

One of General Wade’s original bridges

Near the foot of the pass proper, I met a cyclist, the first outdoorsperson I had spoken to in days. I had seen no walkers, nor even so much as a footprint, along this route. The crux of the pass was six zig-zags, six legs of which were at this time of day (mid-afternoon) walking directly into bright sunshine. I was bareheaded. I had not thought to bring a sun hat, though I did have sunglasses. I blazed up the zig-zags barely out of breath. I’ve had eye trouble this year, and for that reason I chose this route because it was not so physically challenging. I also reflected that I have become successively more physically fit, particularly upper body muscle tone, on each one of these nine solo camping expeditions I have undertaken since 2021. I came off the hill on that first trip and had some unpleasant muscle problems in my shoulder, and had to visit a sports physiotherapist at the cost of several hundred pounds. Since then, on the advice of the physio, I try to do regular upper body strength exercises. Coming down to the Dungeon Ghyll last October, after two hard days on the hill, I was absolutely shattered – and part of me, misses that feeling. Being immensely tired sharpens one’s appetite for the simpler comforts in life –a hot shower, clean clothes, a Nice Hot Cup of Tea, a pint of beer and a pie, a warm bed.

At the top, a squalid guard-house stood, with an open door and bunks visible inside. In the long and golden afternoon I followed the path down towards Fort Augustus. I passed a 4WD vehicle with three fellows in it clearly observing deer. Another thing I noticed which I found unusual, was overflight by a small fixed-wing aircraft – repeated overflight, three or four times. Helicopters would be unremarkable, but a light aircraft, I found unusual: this is wild country. It was certainly not a sight-seeing flight. Far more interesting and dramatic mountains are available within a few minutes flight time for even a light aircraft. My best guess, looking at the heading and direction it was taking, was that some form of commercial survey was taking place, probably of the power lines in the valley.

It was my intent to camp at a place called Lagan-a-bhainne, a wooded area of small valleys about 12km out from Fort Augustus. Still in the wilds, but off the high moors. When planning the trip I had spotted the area and thought it looked like a likely spot for a wild camp. My eye as someone with some experience in map-reading, was drawn to it. As on the map, so the reality on the ground: it was indeed a quite magical area where a narrow wooded valley cuts through the high moors. I found a spot to camp, taking quite some care that my tent could not be seen from the dirt road: it seemed to me that the three men I’d seen earlier would be employees of the landowner, and they might be driving through later on. Unlike in England, it is still perfectly legal to camp wild in Scotland, but why draw attention to yourself?

This was my second night by a babbling brook. I find the sound thereof, very restful. For supper I had my usual Indian: a spicy red lentil dhal, chick pea flour pancakes, and fresh spinach, all washed down with about 200ml of rather nice Shiraz. I always say, wild camping does not mean roughing it. Wild camping – any camping for that matter – is not, for me, a means to an end (as in merely low cost accommodation close to the mountain), but an end in itself. It is time spent alone outdoors, time spent in the wild countryside, time to collect your thoughts and prayers, time to be still. I came away carrying probably 22kg, of which 3kg was food and drink. I was not troubled thereby.

Interestingly, though I had picked a reasonably flat place to pitch, I could not settle comfortably at all – there was incipient backache, tossing and turning whichever way I lay. I moved through 180 degrees and slept like a baby. I woke up around 0600, which is too early at this time of year and latitude – there being another ninety minutes of darkness. But I was awake. I got up and prepared for my day. I had a breakfast of champions – cubes of bread, cubes of cheese, and chorizo sausage, all fried in a little olive oil and butter. Porridge of course. Black coffee. I did not have a dry strike, but it was a lovely morning and there was no rain – it was all condensation. I am using three separate dry bags for the different components of my tent – outer, inner and “footprint” (ground sheet), and this technique is a useful convenience, making the tent easier to pack in my rucksack, and ensuring that the wettest bit (generally the outer) doesn’t get the drier bits wet during the day.

Around 0800 then, onwards through the grey morning, trending ever downhill on a good road across the moor. After an hour or so, Loch Ness and Fort Augustus came into sight, and my heart fell – was it so close? I didn’t  want to arrive there mid-morning. Actually the route has not so much a sting in the tail, as the walk-out is longer than it looks on the ground. On the map it was 12km; it just didn’t look that far. On my way down I passed an estate 4WD rumbling uphill, and a cyclist labouring along. It is a long and seemingly everlasting hill from the Fort Augustus side – rather like climbing Helvellyn from the Thirlmere side.

The road came down to another area of confused drumlins and narrow valleys full of trees, all very picturesque and rather reminiscent of the western Peak District. The road splits round a height of 228m at around 371055. General Wade went left; on a whim, I went to the right, along a 4WD road clearly very overgrown and ill-used. Well, not quite on a whim – a study of the map seemed to indicate that there was a way through some rather promising wild woods. I made the right decision! On the mountain, as 1930’s Scots climber W.H Murray noted, it sometimes pays to turn aside commonsense routine.

My path led down a long-abandoned un-made road by the side of the stream, down into the most magical valley, a beautiful and silent dell, peopled only by the sound of the rushing waters of the stream. This was the highlight of the trip! I had to carefully ford the stream. I continued, in a little trepidation that should have to turn back at the last. And indeed, the track to Culachy House was gated and very clearly marked “PRIVATE”. But there was another way – a hairpin to the right, down into another deep valley where I found, by chance as it were, the most beautiful waterfall: Culachy Falls.

From the falls a pleasant walk along a path through the woods, across the road and into a graveyard by the river. A little further on, the main road, and my walk was done.

  • Day 1: From Newtonmore to Glen Markie, 25km in 8 hrs 33 mins
  • Day 2: From Glen Markie to Lagan-a-bhainne, 27km in 8 hrs 7 mins
  • Day 3: From Lagan-a-bhainne to Fort Augustus, 12.3km in 3 hrs 28 mins.

I stayed at Morag’s Lodge in Fort Augustus, a former hotel now trading as a hostel. For a modest fee you can share an ensuite room with bunks. For slightly more money but still well below B&B prices, you can buy an entire room to yourself. Morag’s Lodge serve supper and packed lunches and a continental breakfast, and they have a drinks license. There’s a members’ kitchen as well as a proper bar, so it has the best of both worlds. The staff were super friendly and helpful.

The first time I came to Fort Augustus was in May 2012. I’d camped wild the night before further north in the Monadliath. My diary of the time records the following:

Yesterday I drove west from Aberdeen, in wonderful hot mid-20’s weather, enjoying the quiet roads and rolling wooded hills of Deeside. I pressed on over Lecht to Tomintoul through the summer afternoon to Nethy Bridge. Then over Slochd and left down minor roads towards Fort Augustus, at this point looking for somewhere to camp. I turned left again, up a minor side road, going right up over the top into the heart of a dark and wild corner of the Monadliath. The sun was behind me as I drove, and it was glorious. I found a place to camp amidst sufficient dry fallen timber for a jamboree of Scouts to make open fires. I camped in a little copse of pine above the road. It was 9.20pm and full daylight. Sunset at this latitude in late May is 9.45pm. There was sufficient wood from where I sat to make a lovely little fire, on which I prepared sirloin steak (medium) and courgettes and (alas) instant mashed potatoes. A nice S.E Australian Shiraz made it the pleasanter still. I had brought with me 2 litres of water, for there was no running water here – I could not have camped had I not brought water in myself. A couple of times, an estate factor’s landrover drove past and stopped. My fire was making a fair bit of smoke; there was no wind and the smell was unmistakable. They could not see me, and perhaps they cared less, for they did not come looking for me. I went to bed at 11p.m and woke at 5a.m, thence dreaming my way through to 7a.m. Morning was misty, yet dry. No single drop of dew fell, which was remarkable. My breakfast was bacon, mushrooms, tomato, roll and butter, served with fresh black coffee. A breakfast of champions, particularly when served outside.

What struck me most about this camp was the silence. The only noises were the calls of birds, particularly the call of cuckoos, and the sound of sheep. I set off at 8.30a.m in deep mist, back to the Great Glen, and on down to Fort Augustus, where the sun burnt the mist off, leaving a cloudless sky, a glorious summer day. I took coffee and cake at “The Scots Kitchen” in Fort Augustus, and read the paper. Could I ask for more?

An important part of this journey today was the adventure of doing it solely using public transport. I took bus Scottish CityLink bus 919 down Loch Lochy through Spean Bridge and onto Fort William. Once in Fort William I then had to wait a couple of hours for the sleeper train to London, which left on time and arrived more or less on time at Euston at 0800 the next morning. Thence along the Euston Road again and back into St Pancras station, where it was so early, there were no decent coffee shops open yet, and I had to get a coffee from Costa. Onwards home to Derby, and my trip was complete.

From Dalwhinnie to Corrour over Ben Alder and Aonach Beag

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At 5pm, to the station at Cromford. I took train through to Derby through the sunny late afternoon. At Derby I adjusted the straps of my new rucksack to what I hoped would be a satisfactory arrangement. I bought a bottle of London Pride from a shop across the road from the station. Through to London in first class, a most pleasant experience for which I paid about £30. I could have picked up the sleeper at Crewe: I have done this before. But then it would have been necessary to wait on Crewe station for nearly two hours til almost midnight. Even on a warm summer evening, that’s not a sensible way to spend time.  I walked the few hundred yards through to Euston station, walking behind the British Library, before joining the Caledonian sleeper a little after 8.30p.m. I ordered a full breakfast for £10- life is too short!  

I slept fitfully, as I generally do on the sleeper train, but I know I did sleep, for I dreamed. I recommend the use of the Caledonian sleeper. If you can stand the narrow bed and cramped conditions, it is in my view, a cost-effective way to travel to Scotland.  I got off at Dalwhinnie, after my full breakfast, into thick, grey morning mist.  The train rumbled off towards Inverness, its red taillight disappearing into the mist. All was quiet. The time was 0655. One man got off ahead of me and walked away ahead of me. 

I started off on the long walk-in, which begins with a detour along the main road as a key level crossing is closed. It is a long and tedious walk-in along a good and reasonably flat unmade road on the west bank of the reservoir, the enormous Loch Ericht, a loch so long that I could see the horizon at the other end of it. From Dalwhinnie station to Ben Alder Lodge, where the route leaves the road, about 12km. I was consciously and deliberately trying to keep my pace down, albeit with only limited success. I’ve seen and experienced in the past, the effects of walking too fast, too soon. But the slowest I could manage along the flat was about 13 minutes per kilometre.  After Ben Alder Lodge the path trends to the right and uphill, through woods onto the open moor. At this point I found myself ahead of the gentleman I’d followed along the lake shore. The path arrows up into the brown hills; it was so very, very dry. Every small stream I crossed was dry; every drain and ditch, just full of dust. I wondered if there was any water at all in these hills. I was glad to arrive at a big stream, which ran clear and fresh, though somewhat depleted. The stream led up to Culra.

I arrived there at around 11a.m, as I’d predicted when planning this trip as a desktop exercise during the winter months. 17km in four hours. At Culra there is Culra Lodge (a wooden hunting lodge, locked down, with a wind turbine), a bothy (closed due to asbestos), and about half a dozen tents pitched. I added my own tent and sat outside for a leisurely lunch. The older man I’d seen earlier, who I’d burned off on the climb up to Culra, arrived and we had a brief chat. His destination, as was mine, was Corrour.  

Looking up towards Culra, with The Lancet in the background

After lunch I pulled together what kit I needed for hillwalking and stuffed it into my now almost empty rucksack. What did I carry? Sunglasses, sunhat, warm jacket, spare long trousers (I was in shorts), first aid kit, food and water, map and compass, walking poles. What did I leave behind? Tent, stove, fuel, sleeping bag and mat, more food, my Kindle and notebook and power banks. After judicious use of suntan lotion, I set off over the brown moor, under a cloudless sky. Up and over the moor, as dry as any I have ever seen, rising into a small glen containing not a high mountain tarn, but a substantial ribbon lake, Loch a Blealaich Bailthe. The atmosphere was magical as the path led round the lake, with the massif of Ben Alder on the far side. I met a young man and woman, mountain cyclists who had cycled over Ben Alder. This hill is so remote that to climb it in a single day trip without the use of a mountain bike is quite tricky, even in summer. Not long after that I stopped for a while for a second lunch and bathe my feet in the loch. To wash your feet in such water as this, on such a day as this, is to wash away tiredness and pain, to sooth away discomfort and ache.  

I continued up to the col – Bealach Breabag – and then on upwards to the right under hot sunshine. It was sleep but perfectly manageable. As I climbed, I encountered a party of five older men coming down, so I knew I was on the right track. Straightforward enough, in this weather, to continue upwards and onwards to the summit of Ben Alder, a most remote mountain.  

Looking down to Loch a Blealaich Bailthe from Ben Alder. In the far distance, Loch Ericht.

Not long after point 1081, I made a grave mistake. Treading north in the afternoon sunshine, I could see the sharp ridge of the Short Leachas ahead of me. There was no descent possible this side of it; the Harvey’s maps (1:40k and 1:25k) I had on me did not reveal a usable descent on the other side of it. Yet, descent there must be – to this day I do not know where. Possibly it goes directly down the Long Leachas ridge. I opted instead to swing to the left and downhill, aiming for the valley of a stream unnamed on the Harvey’s map, along which no cliffs were marked.  There being no signal, my phone would not resolve to the 1:25k OS map, so all I had was the 1:50k which showed this. After the fact, a close reading of even this low scale map does reveal that this is a hanging valley and that therefore there are likely to be cliffs. I should have known better. The sun was bright, the phone screen was hard to see, and I didn’t see what I ought to have seen. To say nothing of the word ”waterfall” which was warning enough! 

This screenshot from the 1:25k map illustrates what a hanging valley looks like on a map
This photo is looking more or less SSE from the path, at the very top of this map image

I descended on the right, keeping in the sunshine, until I could go no further as cliffs impeded further downhill progress. I put away my trail poles as doing more harm than good in a very steep and rocky place. Then I crossed over to the left-hand side, taking the opportunity to drink from the stream, and continued downhill again before my path was blocked by gently sloping slabs as the hanging valley opened onto the main valley. I was almost down and safe – but not quite. With great care and considerable difficulty, I made my way back to the stream, descending all the while, and crossed over again. Most of the time I was descending sat down, but twice on that return to the stream I had to resort to descending face-in, and down-climb. I do not think I could have gone back up: whatever I was doing, at this late stage I was committed to going all the way down. I should have turned back earlier, but I didn’t.  As I scrambled out of the gorge on the right bank again, I saw a huge deer run down to the water and disappear behind a fold of the land. It emerged seconds later barely yards from me, belting down the hillside in a panic of fear. I shudder to think of my fate had it collided with me.  

In all of this descent I was never actually frightened; I was well aware that I could ill-afford to allow vertigo, or fear of getting stuck, to get the upper hand. That said, my pulse was up to 156 and I don’t think that was down to exertion, as I was going downhill. I was lucky with the weather, and I was lucky with the time of year – whatever I did, I had plenty of time. I had food, water and probably 4 hours of useful daylight to play with. From where I’m stood now I got out of that situation not only by luck, fitness and mountaincraft, but by the sheer grace of God.

In due course, therefore, through great care in route selection and discerning choice of foot placement, I made that perilous descent successfully and safely and found myself on the valley floor. There followed a 3-4km tramp through the mid-afternoon sunshine, down the valley to my tent at Culra. 

My supper was taken outside my tent, sat by the stream in the warm sunny evening. I started with that Englishman’s staple, a Nice Hot Cup of Tea. After a break I followed that with fresh tortellini with an admixture of fried chorizo sausage, washed down by some red wine, and followed by hot chocolate. It was a warm night, and very tired, I slept like a top, turning in not long after 2130. 

I was away by 0700 the next morning. I have divided my tent up into three separate dry bags. This makes it easier to pack and easier to keep important parts of it dry. The inner tent, the flysheet, and the groundsheet and pegs are all in separate bags. That was unnecessary this morning after a completely dry strike – there was not a hint of dew. My path led back up the same route I had came down the previous afternoon, but as the Bible and the well-known hymn remind us, “morning by morning new mercies I see” – this morning, with the sun from a different direction, this was a different place, an absolute paradise. A stream wandered down the brown valley, babbling past rowan trees and chuckling to itself as it ran over boulders. Glad I was indeed, to be permitted to be in such a place as this, on such a bright morn. I passed the scene of my adventure the previous afternoon, appearing this morning as grievous shadowed slash on the hillside, and continued upwards to the Bealach Dubh – black pass. I was entirely alone, at this early hour.

Looking up towards The Lancet

Carrying only a litre of water, augmented in my pack-up by several small oranges and a bag of small tomatoes, I set off up the hillside from the Bealach, conscious that I might not see running water again til late afternoon. There was no cloud in the sky; it was barely 0900. Not far up the hillside I did in fact find the very tiniest little streamlet, a mere dribble running clear and cold. Not something one would normally touch, and certainly never in the Lake District with its ubiquitous livestock. I filled my spare water bottle – another litre – added a purifying tab and marked the bottle so I knew which of the two bottles was which. In the end, I never needed it. It was just there in case. My path led up a shoulder of green grass and grey stones, never steep enough to climb with feet and hands, but rocky enough to make trail poles a liability at times. Geal Charn (1132m) was a dun hill, a huge, rounded plateau, a rolling summit of brown grass. As with some of the landscapes on Ben Macdui, it is reminiscent of parts of the Dark Peak – but this is 1100m above sea level. It’s NOT the Dark Peak. From Geal Charn, easy and gentle hillwalking continues, up and down, over Aonach Beag (1116m) and Beinn Eibheinn (1102m). I rather suspect that the ups and downs I found easy, even carrying nearly 20kg, because I’m very fit. There were no clouds, little wind, and no shelter from the sun. In these conditions, a sun hat and sunglasses are PPE, not an optional extra. I met around ten people at various points on this hike, all going in the opposite direction to me. 

View from Aonach Beag towards Beinn Eibheinn
Beinn Eibheinn
Loch Ossian

From Beinn Eibheinn, down to Meall Glas Choire, crossing a rather strange dry gap at 730436. As someone trained in geology I wondered at its formation. It resembled the Chalamain Gap in the Cairngorms, though on a much less grand scale. It is a strange thing to see, at such a high altitude, boulders rounded by some primordial torrent, in what was clearly a dry riverbed. I suspect that at some point at the end of the ice age, the retreat of a glacier has caused some temporary glacial lake to burst its banks, and a torrent like unto Niagara, has carved through this hillside. This kind of thing happens in the Himalaya even today.  

Onwards down the brown grass to a rocky knoll, Creagan na Craibhe, and thence down through troublesome and difficult heather to the stream. This trackless ground was bone-dry and in a normal May would have been difficult, squelchy terrain. The stream was actually a substantial river and was called Uisge Labhair – “the waters spoke” or such. See that Gaelic word “Uisge”? After you try pronouncing it, it will become more familiar. 

And there I stayed, dear reader. I washed my feet in the waters of that noble river, and made my camp nearby, near the place on the map called Lub Mholach. This was the finest camp I have made in many a long year. It was a magical garden spot. I bathed in the river, dried off and had my supper. Red Lentil Dhal, Farinata, Red wine. Though there was no mountain to the west like last night, to provide shelter from the evening sunshine, I was tired enough and retreated to my sleeping bag around 2100, before the sun had even set. I was very cold that night. I had wondered before the trip if I should invest in a lighter weight summer sleeping bag, but my experiences this night, tell me to stick with the three-season down bag and silk liner even in a warm Scottish May 

Next morning I was awake bright and early and out of bed and breakfasting before 0600. A breakfast of champions: porridge (with Grouse and chocolate in it), black coffee with sugar, and fried bread and fried chorizo with melted cheese. My feet, which had been sore in the late afternoon, felt a little better after a night’s rest and some Paracetamol. I packed up and was away before 0700, to hike something like 10km through to Corrour station, arriving there just after 0900.

Loch Ossian
Loch Ossian, looking back up from near Corrour

A delightful hike through the woods along the shores of Loch Ossian. Arriving at Corrour station, in the brown emptiness, under the endless blue sky, I was dismayed to find the cafe shut, but that couldn’t be helped. I had enough food left to make a cup of hot chocolate, and a cheese and egg sandwich, whilst I waited, in company with others, for the train. 

Corrour station house

By train two hours down the line to Arrochar and Tarbet. I had a “credit” for an unused night in the Tarbet Hotel on Loch Lomondside, and I made use of it to stay here tonight. Once checked in, I enjoyed several cups of tea and a long shower, before descending to the bar without boots on, to sit and enjoy a pint and a pub supper after another successful hiking adventure. 

The next day, I took train from Arrochar and Tarbet to Glasgow Queen Street. I walked the few hundred yards to Central Station and took a Pendelino to Preston, then another one to Crewe. I had a “Standard Premium” ticket which was effectively first class without the catering. I thought it was good value at £130 for a four-hour train ride. At Crewe, a seamless change into a smaller and less salubrious train bound for Newark, which encountered technical problems – the first problems on this complex return train journey – which meant that I missed my connection at Derby. Hey-ho – I got home an hour later.  Sat in the train at Blythe Bridge, waiting for the fault to be found, I remember a similar experience as a boy in the early 1970’s on our way back from Blackpool, when a Crewe-Newark train we were in broke down somewhere along there. On that occasion we had to wait a lot longer than an hour. The trains? Cromford to Derby (£8), Derby to London in first class (£32), London to Dalwhinnie in the sleeper (£255), Corrour-Glasgow (£35), Glasgow to Crewe in standard premium, (£133), and Crewe to Cromford (£20). The journey I made could not have been easily accomplished at all without public transport, and I deemed it good value for money. 

Geek stuff – gram counting and costs

My rucksack, an Osprey Aether Pro 75, weighed around 14.5kg without food and water. The Aether Pro 75 is probably the lightest serious expedition rucksack on the market in the UK, weighing a truly astonishing 2.1kg empty. Here’s a table of the weight of some of my kit:

Kit itemRucsac weight
MSR Elixir 2 tent and pegs stored in dry bags, poles2805
Aether Pro 75 rucksack2100
Skyehigh 700 sleeping bag with compression drybag, cotton bag and silk liner in its bag1300
Trangia 27 with matches, striker etc840
Lhotse raincoat580
Spare clothes (socks, underwear, T-shirt)550
First aid kit 460
Trangia fuel (ethanol) with bottle412
Thermarest mat380
Mountaineering trousers365
Notebook with pens260
Goretex overtrousers238
Goretex gaiters 231
Merino wool leggings (winter only)200
Kindle187
2 x Powerbanks 362
Merino wool hat175
plate, cup and spork170
sun hat133
Black Diamond headtorch w/batteries120
Mittens winter only120
Garmin Inreach Mini 2 with karabiner114
Thick gloves 107
Aftermarket rain hood for rucsac104
Ledlenser lantern with cable and battery (winter only)91
Maps85
Sh1t shovel83
Spare drybag70
2 x lightweight (not climbing) karabiners 50
USB-C charging cable50

Backpacking in the Lakes: Keswick to Great Langdale via Ennerdale

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I’m off on my adventures again, fitter, more experienced, and with a better packed rucksack and better equipment, than when I started doing this in the autumn of 2020. This is my fifth consecutive Autumn solo backpacking trip.

First, a trip from my home in the Midlands, to the Lake District, using only public transport. A flawless train journey; change at Sheffield and Manchester. At Sheffield, cloudless skies and sunshine. Barely ten miles later, emerging from Totley Tunnel into the Peak District, it’s grey cloud and drizzle all round. At Manchester, I changed into a shiny new “Transpennine Express” train going to Glasgow. I had thought that the very useful direct trains between Manchester and Glasgow were one of the many good things that had disappeared when the railways were privatised thirty years ago.

At Penrith, I stood sheltering from the drizzle waiting for the bus to Keswick. Here’s a father and his daughter travelling to the Lakes for half-term. Here’s a young English fisherman and his Eastern European female partner, with so much luggage you’d think they were actually moving to the Lake District. Here’s a bearded Italian traveller playing some kind of woodwind instrument, and here are five nervous-looking youths, Hasidic Jews wearing yarmulks, travelling to Scales near Threlkeld. A Monday on a bus in an English country town.

At Keswick, I stepped off the bus into light rain. I had planned to go by bus through to Braithwaite, but I needed to stretch my legs and warm up a bit so I thought I’d walk. I walked along a familiar route, past the Pencil Museum, across the muddy wet fields to a suspension bridge, and on to Portinscale. I first came this way in the late 1970’s. The path was flooded out completely – this Autumn the Lakes are very wet. At Portinscale I saw one of those micro-vans selling cakes and coffee. The young man running the stall had a little hand-written sign: “Mince pies £4. Free glass of mulled wine”. You can hardly ignore an offer like that…I had a chat with the fellow while I toasted my forthcoming adventure in mulled wine, and then moved on.

I followed a muddy path through the fields, cutting off a bend in the road, and still arrived at Braithwaite before 2pm, over an hour earlier than I’d planned. I’ve been coming to Braithwaite for over forty years, though I don’t think I’ve ever been here in fine summer weather. To me it’s a cold weather kind of place. I continued onwards and upwards towards Force Crag Mine, walking slowly. A temptation for the amateur athlete is to go too fast, too soon – and here, not only was there no hurry, but there was nowhere to camp except in a location barely two hours walk from here. At the mine, there is a turn-off to the left that crosses the stream and then curves around the hillside up to a distant cloud-shrouded col. There was a ford, and it was by no means passable, certainly not when walking alone with an 18kg rucksack. That was unlooked for. It was not in the risk assessment. I wasn’t expecting that. To have difficulty fording streams – in the Cairngorms, yes, one expects that. In the Lakes, even in October, not so much. It is very wet this year.

I continued up the right bank of the stream, through stones and rubble, through mud and marsh, through the outflows of strange settling tanks relating to the long-closed Force Crag Mine. I walked past the whole mine workings looking for a safe place to cross. At one point I found myself on very loose and spongy vegetation, quite possibly grown over a bog or an actual pond. Potentially lethal! I made a swift retreat. Force Crag Mine was a barytes, lead and zinc mine until less than forty years ago. It is in a beautiful location at the head of Coledale, with the dramatic Force Crag behind it. Eventually I managed to cross the stream, and had to bound uphill over steep heather to regain the path. Onwards up to the col and in no time at all I found myself a reasonably flat if not dry place to pitch my tent in the area above Force Crag. An eldritch, wild location, particularly as darkness fell. I made a good camp, had a good supper of fresh tortellini and red wine, and slept very well.

My camp above Force Crag

29/10/24

I was away from camp by 0745. It has taken me around an hour and fifty minutes from the decision to get up, to actually starting my hike timer. Unfortunately I had a wet strike – my tent was wet with dew and mist. My new Ledlenser lantern was superb, a revelation in kit. Light, small, and very bright. I walked first up through the clag to the windswept Coledale Hause – no real camping there; no water, no shelter. From Coledale Hause, to the left and south, up a broad valley to a crossroads (or crosspaths) at a gentle col. Here, turn right and uphill to Grasmoor, a tall hill (853m) whose rocky edges, such as they are, are away on the north side. Descending from Grasmoor, in thick mist, I had to resort to the compass and micro-navigation. This underlined an important principle of mountaincraft – trust the compass and not your inclination. (This does presume that you do know how to use a compass properly.) I counted paces and found where I needed to go. I would have liked to make greater use of my polythene 1:40k map from Harveys, but my path lay off the western edge of this map, and to be honest a 1:40000 map is neither use nor ornament for close navigation on foot.

The path goes south and down the ridge called Lad Hows. At the start of the descent I happened to look round; as the clouds were thinning and sunshine was trying to peep through, I saw a remarkable sight. I saw a rainbow almost full circle, surrounding the mountaintop. I struggled to get my camera out in time; by the time I had it ready, the effect had almost disappeared. Further down, I saw a red grouse in silhouette against the cloud. It flew off. I pressed on downwards, eventually coming down below the cloud deck and seeing Crummock Water far below. I could see Loweswater, and also a distant band of light indicating that the weather was not quite as bad at the coast as it was here in the mountains. At the ford by the road I met the first of many half-term holidaymakers.

Descending to Crummock Water

Along the road for a few hundred yards, then left onto a parallel track. I was passed by two running ladies. This path was not on the map. The Ordnance Survey maps, whether 1:50000 or 1:25000, are wholly inaccurate and inadequate at this location. My route took me – this was not on the map at all – along a good path down the side of a woods (High Woods) to a stile where one enters those woods. Here I was passed again by the same two running ladies, this time going in the opposite direction. Clearly there was some kind of loop path not on the OS map. Interesting to see that the open-source maps available on the Ordnance Survey phone app, did have these paths. Onwards through some magical woods, past a boathouse. I met quite a few people and various dogs. The path led to the outflow of the lake, which is a modest dam – more of a weir, really – into which fish ladders have been built. On the other side of the dam, on a silvery grey beach, I found a place to sit for an early lunch. It was a little after 11a.m. I needed to charge my Garmin watch, which suffers serious power drain when recording a hike.

Looking up Crummock Water towards Rannerdale Knotts, the prominent mountain

I had the usual lunch: hard-boiled egg, chorizo, cheese, butter, tomato, and some pitta bread. Pitta bread was not a success when cold. Also, mini oranges and trail mix – raisins and chocolate and my own chocolate covered date/nut/seed fingers. A lot of holidaymakers passed me with a succession of labradors. Most of these were leashed or reasonably polite but one of them had to be physically restrained – actually man-handled – to keep it from sticking its nose in my bag of food. The owner’s very apologetic teenage grand-daughter, in charge of the dog (which was off-leash) was not strong enough to control it, and she was horrified by its behaviour. To those who might say that I presented temptation to the dog by having a food bag out, I say the same thing as I said to the dog…

After lunch, the path led quite literally along the water’s edge, past a pretty “pump house” (why are municipal water works in the UK almost always architecturally admirable?), and then away from the lakeside up over a hillside. I passed two black horses. Up through some more delightful woods – this was your Green Wood and Flass Wood, above High Park and Low Park farms – round the shoulder of White Crag. The path curved around to the left and south and on into Mosedale. Here in Mosedale I consciously and deliberately put in the pace, faced with the conviction that I was running late. The route up Mosedale is along a good un-made road. Later, the road ends and the path curves right and to the east, over boggy wet ground, towards Floutern Tarn.

Floutern Tarn was in the clouds, shrouded in mist and clag, and I was tired. At a rough col above the tarn, there was a straight fence marching up the mountainside. Where man can put a fence, I can walk. Oddly there was no path on the OS map, yet, today’s route, made months ago using the “snap to path” functionality in the OS mapping software, goes vaulting right up this mountainside – Steel Brow. On the ground, there was in fact a rough path. It was very, very steep and very nasty. But I am very fit and I made it to the top, albeit slowly. At the top, more marshy ground. One follows the fence more or less due SE to the summit of Great Borne, and from there, across more brown moorland over Starling Dodd and Little Dodd. At this point I was growing concerned about my timekeeping. About 2pm, I met the only other mountaineer I saw all day, a South African fellow hiking back along to Great Borne, heading for Ennerdale YHA. We agreed that I should struggle to reach Black Sail by nightfall, given that I had yet to even start along the Red Pike ridge. I thought I might even struggle to reach the Scarth Gap, and find myself benighted on the ridge. This wasn’t likely, but I was tired, and it was a grey and gloomy afternoon.

As I continued, in a patch of wet, boggy ground, I lost the path. Looking at the map, I saw that by going along the contour (level) for perhaps half a kilometre, I should reach the descent path from Red Pike down into Ennerdale. I decided instantly to get off the hill: always know when to cut your losses. Solo backpacking in late October, my natural inclination to “glass half empty” becomes mere common prudence and good mountaincraft. Counting paces, I did just that – trod level along the contour for something like 600 paces, and without difficulty, encountered the downward path. It’s worth noting that this was a combination of micro-navigation (counting paces and a close understanding of the map) with full knowledge of my location from satellite positioning. It would not have been possible without a smartphone.

As I came below the cloud deck and saw Ennerdale below, I glanced at my watch and saw that the power was almost out. I stopped the hike timer on the spot: I had been on the hill for 7 hrs and 52 minutes. Down through a broad firebreak, a rather beautiful grove of autumn coloured deciduous trees. Ennerdale, though ostensibly the wildest of all the main Lakeland valleys, has good roads, contrary to popular understanding. It’s just that these roads are private, unmade, and reserved for forestry.

Descent into Ennerdale, dusk

I arrived at the road around 4pm. All I had to do now was peg it uphill along the forest road towards Black Sail, looking for a campsite. I had no chance of reaching Black Sail in daylight. Black Sail was over 5km away uphill, and in these gloomy conditions, at best an hour of daylight remaining. I had to work out afterwards at home where I actually camped. I needed two things: 1) running water within a few hundred feet 2) flat ground in which to pitch my tent. Running water was super-abundant; the road crossed streams every few hundred yards. Appropriate flat ground capable of supporting a tent peg – not so much. As I hiked, three or four people passed me hiking downhill with no packs, clearly on an afternoon stroll out of Ennerdale YHA. As time wore on and the light faded, and as I grew tireder, my criteria for a pitch grew less discerning. When I eventually chose a spot, it was getting on for 6pm and almost completely dark. I needed to use a torch to pitch my tent. I pitched it outer first. Whilst it was not actually raining, I was effectively in the clouds and the air was full of light drizzle. All parts of my tent were absolutely soaking wet – footprint, inner and outer. I got the inner up and had to use my towel to wipe the inside dry.

I was absolutely shattered, exhausted almost to the point of nausea. Tent up, everything inside, I was finally able to rest. My first priority was to go out again and fetch water, and then, drink water. I was concerned that I was dehydrated. Then, dry clothes, ibuprofen, and some Ralgex for my shoulder. After a while just sitting, I began to feel a bit better, and started to prepare my supper. This was red lentil dhal with garlic and onion and spinach, and some farinata – chick pea pancakes, washed down with red wine carried onto the hill in a plastic water bottle. It was a most excellent supper.

A most excellent supper

My new lantern performed well, though the limits of the battery were starting to show. It flickered several times and then switched itself to a dimmer setting. I had not bought the charging cable. No matter; the lantern is a game-changer for dark season camping, as it weighs barely 80g and is about half the size of a pack of cards. And so to bed – not long after 7pm.

30/10/24

I slept passably well. In fact I slept very well, on both nights. When sleeping on the ground (even using a Therma-Rest mat) I’m accustomed to reaching for the brufen as soon as I wake up. Yesterday it was not necessary. Today, whilst I did drop 400mg brufen as soon as I got up, it was not so much for aches and pains as prophylactic, to ward off shoulder discomfort later. I took it easy; there was no rush: I was out of my pit before dawn on a very mild morning. I had insufficient water in my tent and could not be bothered to get my trousers on and my boots on and laced up, which would have been necessary to get more water. This meant that I did not have any coffee or hot chocolate. Another advantage of eschewing coffee is that the subsequent need to make use of the sh1t shovel can hopefully be delayed until reaching civilised facilities. Unfortunately, this morning that was not possible.

For breakfast, porridge with melted chocolate and malt whisky, although I had eaten half of it before I realised I ought (at least on the hill) put sugar in it as well! This was followed by a mess of chorizo, spinach, tomato, pitta bread and melted cheese, fried in a little oil. Breakfast of champions! That said, I would not again use pitta bread and will resort to more usual western forms of bread next time. I struck camp in half light and was away hiking up the forest road before 0740. Up to within a kilometre of the Black Sail hut, there is a good road, easily passable in any car. For the last kilometre a 4WD vehicle would be absolutely necessary. This good road does belie the hostel’s reputation as the most remote youth hostel in England. Ennerdale is stupendous in its magnificent wild beauty, even in these heavily clouded conditions, and even though the whole valley is an industrial plantation. The clouds part occasionally to reveal the heights of Pillar and other peaks. Of all the great valleys of the Lakes I like Ennerdale the best; it reminds me of the music of Sibelius. I passed the Black Sail hut at 0800 hours.

A few navigational errors saw me on the path up Seary Knott onto Fleetwith – not what I wanted. I had to turn back, and I found myself wandering through a field of immense drumlins. Part of the problem is that that the path as marked on the OS map, and as it exists on the ground, is different. The path on the OS map is a straight line directly uphill up the tongue between Tongue Beck and the main Liza river. The path on the ground is a windy route up the crest of the “Tongue”. I laboured up this path into the mists, zigzagging through the grey clag, hat on sometimes, hat off when I overheated. In this mist l stuck to the path like it was my only friend. Everywhere, sheepsh*t. I never saw so many sheep, and so much sheepsh*t, as in the Lakes this Autumn. It made me reluctant to drink from the mountain streams without using Puritabs.

After a long plod uphill, I reached a T-junction; the path crossed Moses Trod, a named path weaving across the mountainside from Brandreth to Kirk Fell. Along Moses Trod, counting paces, until I reached the point where I must strike uphill, over red screes and deep in the enclosing mist, steeply uphill to Windy Gap. As I reached Windy Gap, I saw a man with a dog. This was exactly what I saw the last time I was here, in very different weather conditions five years ago. Today we were enclosed in the mist; five years ago I could see the Irish Sea. Windy Gap is a tight and narrow col between Green Gable and Great Gable. I have been here a half dozen times in my life, the first being as long ago as 1979. It was 0930 – slightly under two hours from the Ennerdale valley floor.

Some chocolate and trail mix and the remains of my water to refresh myself and onwards down Aaron Slack. At first, it is a rough but easily manageable scree, but further down it becomes a very good staircase. That said, the stone steps were somewhat slippery in the wet when going downhill. That might be a weakness of these boots. As I moved carefully downhill, four figures appeared behind me, moving very fast. No rucksacks. At first I thought they were runners or perhaps military personnel – but no, they were just young lads. I had a pleasant chat with one of them, who had the grace to dimple when I said (of my slower pace) “Oh to be nineteen”. The four of them were most polite and civilised members of the Praetorian Guard of youth, with all their lives ahead of them.

Down to Sty Head; find the tarn in the grey mist, yomp up to the top of the pass in thick clag. Then, briefly in company with four more youths, one female, I had some difficulty in this thick mist, with locating the Sprinkling Tarn path. Find out using GPS exactly where I am, then, some compass work, some counting paces, and the path was found easily enough. Onwards and upwards, now and for the rest of the hike, on strong Lakeland paths, motorways amongst mountain tracks. Halfway up I was pausing for breath when I was surprised and a little mortified to be overtaken. I was overtaken by a substantial (at least a dozen) party of what looked like U3A hikers to me, not one of them except their leader a day younger than I, and all (except for their guide) carrying tiny knapsacks. I was hauling probably 18kg of wet expedition bag, and had hiked 45 km since Monday lunch time. In fact, starting off again, I kept pace with them and started to overhaul them, but they turned off to the right into the mists.

At Sprinkling Tarn, though it was barely 1100, I stopped for a very early lunch, sat in what little shelter I could find by the brown moor, the steel-grey rippled lake. The clouds lowered. I pushed on, passing through an area where clearly there had once been a tarn. The geography was all corrie, though the only trace of dried up lake was the colour of the grass and a marshy area. Up to a broad col where going wrong would have taken me up to Esk Hause, which was not at all necessary today. Esk Hause is that spot in the Lake District furthest from a metalled road. It’s about 2.5 miles to Rosthwaite in Borrowdale, to the Wasdale Head Inn in Wasdale, and about the same (using Rossett Gill) to the Dungeon Ghyll in Great Langdale – my final destination today. Coming down from the col I passed two young people, a man and a woman, working on some repairs to the path. And so by degrees down to Angle Tarn, my third and final grey lake in the clouds of the day. Styhead Tarn, Sprinkling Tarn, Angle Tarn. To think we camped here when I was but 16! What were we thinking of? In warm and dry conditions, fair enough. In wind, cloud and wet, not so much.

In all this hike there has been no actual rain at all, and it has been mild to a remarkable degree. The wind has not risen so much as to rattle my tent. I could have done with some wind to cool me down, dry my sweaty clothes and dry my tent. I wore gloves for perhaps 5% of the time I spent hiking. From Angle Tarn, along the contours or perhaps slightly uphill , to the right of Lining Crag, and thence down, below the mist line, to the “Pile of Stones” at the top of the Stake Pass.

The top of Stake Pass seen in the distance as the mist clears

In effect, job done. It was just around 2pm. Downward then, along a good staircase down into Mickleden, and then along the flat of Mickleden to the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, whence I arrived, tired and footsore, a little after 3pm.

Mickleden, seen from some way down the Stake Pass

I hiked a little over 55km in three stages over a little less than twenty hours. From Keswick to Pudding Beck was 9.7 km over 3 hr 23 minutes. From Pudding Beck to my camp in Ennerdale was 26.4 km in 9 hrs 16 minutes, finishing after dark. From Ennerdale to the Dungeon Ghyll via Sprinkling Tarn was 19.4km in 7 hrs.

Backpacking the 4000′ tops of the Cairngorms

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What was I thinking of when I (a man 194cm in height) rented a Fiat 500 to make an eight hundred mile round trip drive to the Cairngorms? It is what it is, as they say: the rental cost was modest enough, at least compared to an equivalent train fare to Aviemore. I set off from my home in the English Midlands at 0458, and parked in the scrubland off the road near Whitewell, at about 1350. I stopped three times – at a service area on the M6, at Lesmahagow on the M74 (where there is a very convenient Tesco store literally at the top of the exit ramp) and at briefly at Blair Atholl in the Highlands. Very briefly – there is nothing there!

I was onto the hill before 1430 on a warm and hazy afternoon. I had a heavy carry – almost certainly 20kg; 3 kg of food (for three nights), water, and about 15kg of equipment. I was wearing new boots – Lowa Renegade GTX – and these performed superbly; not so much as a blister over 60km of walking. My route led up into Glen Einich, a route much patronised by cyclists. Several of them came whizzing past including one gentleman on one of those reclining contraptions.

View up Glen Einich

Gradually one leaves Speyside behind and enters a Cairngorm atmosphere. In preparation for this trip I had re-read a favourite of mine, W.H Murray’s excellent “Cairngorm Blizzard“. This is the story of encountering a Cairngorm snowstorm – in May. He writes of Cairn Eilrig as being the “last outpost” of the Cairngorms standing against the pines of the Forest of Rothiemurchus. I passed Cairn Eilrig and eventually could see Loch Einich itself in the distance. The first tactical navigation decision of the trip was upon me. Will I camp down here in Glen Einich, or will I climb into Coire Dhondail, seeking flat ground up there? At this point Coire Dhondail is just a promise on the map, a notch on the distant skyline. At the junction in the path lay two sturdy mountain bikes, completely unlocked.

I opted to climb, and up I went. After a time of climbing in the hot afternoon I was into the flatter ground of the corrie, which was sere and dry grass. There is no tarn – or “lochan” as they say in these parts. The cliffs of the headwall contained a pretty waterfall, as well two or three snowfields. It was not at all clear to me that there was a way up the headwall and onto the plateau. A trip report on https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/ noted that the path “meanders up the headwall”, but was it passable to a man in his late fifties with less than good balance, carrying 20kg?

The headwall of Choire Dondail

I camped by the babbling brook; there was some light rain and there were occasional violent squalls and gusts of wind, followed by periods of complete silence which weather-wise, worried me more than the wind. I slept well enough – there was a sleep deficit to work off after a busy weekend – and was packed and away before 0700 the next morning.

After my breakfast coffee I set off, not finding the path that had seemed so obvious yesterday, and just went up the hillside trusting to luck. I was not hopeful, but fortunately, I soon found the path. Where one can go, another can follow – with care and a measured tread, and judicious use of trail poles. Soon enough I was up on the plateau. The clouds were down and the wind was howling, ripping along, a strong South-easterly. In these conditions up here on the western side of the Cairngorms one finds oneself climbing through an almost featureless landscape, like the surface of Mars or Venus. The only feature is the fact that the land rises. One must avoid cliffs to the left, and there are cliffs far ahead. It was time for the compass. I bore about 65 degrees – that level of accuracy would suffice. I was concerned that the wind would push me constantly to the left, but my subsequent course reveals that this did not happen. To trust the compass at any time is an act of faith in technology rather than human instinct and inclination, but in these conditions, to do so pays dividends and will save your life. In due course the easterly precipice of Braeriach became apparent in front of me, and I then turned left towards the summit. I admit that I did find the actual summit – a cairn in a featureless wasteland – by resort to the GPS on my mobile phone. The wind was harsh and sometimes bore nasty rain showers: at this point I was in full winter gear including woolen hat, snood and winter gloves, and wondering if it was going to get any colder.

This was the first serious compass work I’ve done in decades. I used a tiny (folding up to fitting in the palm of the hand) Harvey’s 1:25000 map, made of polythene. This was a life-saver. From Braeriach, another bearing, about 30 degrees, through the mist and landscape resembling alien planets, to Cairn Einich, thence broadly south to Carn na Criche and then round the ridge to Angel’s Peak and onto Cairn Toul. As I descended from Angel’s Peak, the weather started to improve, allowing me glimpses of immense cliffs and huge relict snowfields, wild ridges and the distant grey side of the Lairig Ghru.

Angel’s Peak (1258m) and Lochan Uaine

In improving weather I continued down to the col above Coire Odhar. I toyed with the idea of leaving my rucsac there and going light to the summit of the Devil’s Point, but it was so windy that there was a high likelihood that even weighing 18kg and with a fixed hip belt, the rucsac would have rolled away. It was no significant challenge to go from the col up to the summit and back down again.

The view south down the Lairig Ghru from The Devil’s Point

From there, I descended carefully into Coire Odhar – at first the path is steep and nasty, but the slope eases further down. By 4pm I was at Corrour. There were four people at Corrour; two in the bothy, two camping. I had met two people on the hill all day and seen a third person in the distance, so this was a veritable crowd. It was far too early to call it a day – though the people at Corrour clearly did not think so. I had a snack and pushed on, through light rain.

I hiked the broadly level path 5km round to Luibeg bridge, in the grey afternoon, sometimes through rain. Here my mental health failed me for some reason, and I became quite anomalously and deeply depressed. I got to Luibeg bridge grumpy in heavy rain, and with some difficulty managed to fill up my water container before pushing on again up Luibeg burn, looking for somewhere to camp. I just kept putting one step in front of the other. Eventually I found a place to stop not too far from the fords at 012952. I was so close to the burn that I could not hear rain on my tent, and the noise of the rushing water enabled deep and refreshing sleep, something I needed after a long and complex day of over 20km of walking over 11 hours.

I had breakfasted on porridge and coffee, struck camp, was packed and away hiking by seven in the morning. The route went up the ridge of Sron Riach, a geography very similar to The Band in the Lakes. The weather improved, and pretty soon, actual sunshine appeared. The primary difficulty this morning was not going uphill – that was easy enough – it were boulder fields. On a boulder field one might easily fall and bend a trail pole, or even break a leg, or worse.

Sron Riach

Above Sron Riach, one does not follow the edge – as one might automatically – but trends left and slightly uphill, and gently by degrees up to the summit of Ben Macdui. On the way, I was impressed to find a significant burn – the Allt Clach nan Taillear – quite high up, well over 3000′ above sea level, which enabled me to top up my water. I was on the summit before 0930, and considered myself early on the hill.

View from Ben Macdui across the Lairig Ghru to the western summits. Note improving weather

As I arrived, I saw another person arrive – a young Englishman with a full beard, followed shortly afterwards by a European gent carrying a full sized umbrella strapped to his rucsac. I say European deliberately – I’d suspect he was from somewhere like Alsace-Lorraine, for he sounded both German AND French. Up here on the summit there is excellent phone coverage, even to a 4G data signal, from the mast at the ski station on Cairn Gorm.

Braeriach – the classic view – seen from on Ben Macdui

From Ben Macdui to the March Burn is about 1.6km. I must have passed at least thirty people in that distance – every one of them day-trippers carrying little napsacks and some wearing trainers. It’s maybe 10km km, four hours hike, from the car park to the summit. I had not realised that the Glenmore road up to the big car parks below the ski station had made this part of the Cairngorms so accessible. In my experience over 40 years as a hillwalker and mountaineer in England, Wales and Scotland, everyone politely says hello when passing one another on the hill. That memo must not have been read by these rancid tourists. Mind I’ll give them their due – it was a lovely blue sky day and if as a tourist you’re going to do such a route as this, it would need to be on such a day. But it does irk me to see people wearing training shoes and light jackets wandering round a mountain top 1300m above sea level. It has been noted that the summit of Ben Macdui is one of the hardest in the Cairngorms to get down from safely in heavy weather.

At the March Burn at around 1115, a second decision. Will I go down off the hill now, or will I make a side trip to the summit of Cairn Gorm? From Macdui it did not look so far away – an example of how the scale of the landscape can trick the eye. The map did tell a different story – a good 6.5 km from one top to the other by path. I decided to go down, and set off thus, but then moments later, repented of the decision and turned back. I would never again be here in such great conditions as this. There might never be another opportunity. The only place to be in weather like this is on the tops. So I went up – best decision made today.

My round trip to the summit of Cairn Gorm took around two hours from the March Burn, including time for my lunch break on the summit. I deliberately pushed it along the wide, clear path, through brown, dry and sere moorland, oddly reminiscent of parts of the Dark Peak. But this countryside is 1200m above sea level – it is not the Dark Peak.

The path led across two big snowfields, and the scenery was magnificent. The secret and hidden valley containing Loch Avon over on the right – the wild heart of the Cairngorms. The high jewel of Loch Etchachan. The cliffs, the sky, the rolling fields of Scotland away to the north. I’d been here twice before – in 1990 and in 2005 – but both times, in thick fog.

The trip was all brown grassland, stupendous cliffs, white snowfields and blue skies…and tourists. There were several parties of soldiers, all conspicuously tough looking young men all with tattoos and identical rucsacs, not all of whom looked particularly in their element, particularly crossing a large snowfield. T-shirts at 1200m – and here’s me in four layers. There was a harsh wind blowing, and only in direct sunshine was there any real warmth. Along the path I rather belatedly found my sun hat and sunglasses and put them on.

Summit of Cairn Gorm

Back at the March Burn by 1400 hours, I started over the shoulder of the descent track, dropping down through the pleasant afternoon to flat ground before Lurcher’s Crag, and then, very steeply downhill into the Lairig Ghru. One might have difficulty spotting that path and keeping to it in heavy cloud – but right now, barely a cloud in the sky. Downwards over grit and rock and boulder field, to the path that leads through the Chalamain Gap. Tired now, left and back up the Lairig Ghru to where the Chalamain Gap path joins the path down the valley itself. The last bit of that was a stone staircase: I was through here in 2005 and I don’t recall that, but that was 19 years ago.

In the Lairig Ghru, off came my boots and I bathed my feet in the stream. I refilled my water container (upstream of my feet, I would add) and pushed on for the last leg back to the car. It was 1700. It had taken me three hours so far to come downhill from the March Burn. Murray wrote of the “nine mile descent to the Spey” as seeming endless. I figured it was 7km from here to the car – all downhill. On the other side of the valley are structures that look like spoil heaps – but there can be no spoil heaps in this wilderness; they are pure glacial moraines. Down and down – eventually one reaches the edge of the woods, and enters once again the Forest of Rothiemurchus, that bastion of ancient and noble Scots Firs and other aboriginal trees.

Forest of Rothiemurchus

I got to the car just before 1900, increasingly footsore, in the delicate light of evening – or late afternoon really, at this latitude and time of year.

At a crossroads in the forest, I’d stopped for a drink of water – and found that I’d left my water container back where I’d stopped up in the Lairig Ghru! Ah well! It could have been worse. Someone will benefit from it. A quick shift of clothes, swig of warm Coca-Cola deliberately left in the car for that purpose, and I was ready for the off. I drove round to the excellent campsite at Glenmore, where I had a long shower, and then, walking quite slowly, returned to my tent to cook my supper, and so to bed.

Geek details

I walked a little over sixty kilometres in a shade over 21 hours, spending from Monday afternoon to Wednesday evening on the hill. The five 4000′ peaks (Braeriach, Angels Peak, Carn Toul, Devil’s Point and Ben Macdui) took me about 24 hours peak to peak but about 48 hours car to car.

I used an Osprey Aether Pro 70 rucsac, one of the lightest expedition bags on the market at about 1.8kg empty. The fabric is unfortunately not robust enough not to get punctured. Everthing is packed in dry bags anyway; it is otherwise an outstanding bag. I have a Rab Skyehigh 700 three-season down sleeping bag, and an Therma-Rest mat. A counsel of perfection is a silk sleeping bag liner. For a few grams, packing down very small, these offer extra warmth and are useful in summer when a three-season sleeping bag has to remain unzipped. I cooked on a Trangia 27 with non-stick pans – heavy and bulky perhaps but so much easier to use on rough ground than any top-heavy miniature gas stove with separate pans. On the hill I wore a merino wool hat, a merino wool base layer and a mid layer, a fleece, walking trousers, and Goretex raincoat, overtrousers and gloves as necessary. Proving unnecessary but had to be carried nonetheless, were spare walking trousers, Goretex gaiters, a torch, and heavy winter mittens. I used Harvey’s excellent polythene Cairngorms 1:40000 and 1:25000 maps. I took two Li-Ion power packs weighing in total about 800g – unavoidable. My mobile remained in flight mode except when needed, and was actually switched off at night. I tracked my hike with a Garmin Vivoactive 4, which will not even last a full day tracking activities without a battery top-up.

I rented a Fiat 500 from Europcar, for a week, at a cost of around £286 including additional (as in beyond the statutory minimum) insurance. I would not have rented such a small car had I thought more deeply when I booked it. The kindest thing I can say about it, is that it was adequate. I burnt fuel worth £101 to drive around 800 miles. Excluding the cost of the various brown food bought to sustain me on the journey, the journey cost around £390 – approximately 50p/mile. As I’ve argued elsewhere, ground-based travel that costs substantially less than 50p/mile, is almost certainly being subsidised, either by the tax-payer, by other passengers, or by the company providing the transport. As an alternative option, the return train fare from Derby to Aviemore (in standard class) is about £220. One has then to add the cost of buses and taxis to get on and off the hill, and take into account the fact that one cannot take additional shoes or clothing without lugging them around on the hill. I also took the opportunity of visiting friends at Ballater whilst I was in Scotland, something that would have been very much more complex, if not impossible within my allowed time frame, had I took the train.

Reading in 2023

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This year we’ve been a little busier, perhaps. “The judges’s scores are in”, as they say on Strictly; I have read fewer books in 2023 than I did in 2022. At the start of this year I was reading two books. One was Nick Hayes’ excellent and inspiring “The Book of Trespass”, an ostensibly scurrilous and subversive work about the countryside and how much if it is not accessible because of the draconian property laws in England. The fact that it is in print at all, and was widely and positively reviewed by various national newspapers representing the Establishment (whatever you conceive that to be) indicates that it is perhaps not quite as subversive as some readers might like to think. The other was “Life in the Far West” by G. F Ruxton. I am a student of the westward expansion of Europeans into the north American continent, and this book is a 19th century travelogue of an Englishman who travelled extensively in the lands that became the western United States.

My wife bought me a copy of W. Heaton Cooper’s “Lakeland Portraits”, completing my set of W. Heaton Cooper’s books. I love his paintings. His writing is delightful, spare and concise, as it must be from someone brought up in more spacious times than ours. There was a time when learning to write good English still mattered in schools. I’m no conservative when I say that that time is long past. To be fair this is not the best of his books – for that I’d look at “The Tarns of Lakeland”.

As noted elsewhere on this blog – reviewed here – I found Alexander Maitland’s “The Life of Wilfred Thesiger” very readable in February. At this point my wife and I moved to the edge of the Peak District. Visiting the local library saw me reading Mark Patterson’s “Roman Derbyshire”, Catherine James “Derbyshire – where writers walked” and Stephen Bailey’s excellent “The old roads of Derbyshire”. Local knowledge – every time. I followed these with Lewis Dartnell’s “Origins” about the origin of humankind, and Ryzard Kapucinsky’s work about travels in Africa, “The Shadow of the sun”. Very entertaining. Of Addis Ababa, he writes, “Bullets were the most valuable commodity in that market place, even more valuable than dollars.” He writes about the fundamental differences in the understanding of time, between Africans and westerners. Years ago working in Nigeria, someone once told me “there is no word in any Nigerian language that conveys the urgency of the Spanish word “Manana“... I also read Kapucinsky’s “The Emperor”, a very informative and warts-and-all account of the reign and fall of the otherwise pretty much untouchable Haile Selassie. Everyone has feet of clay, particularly despots and military dictators.

I had a bumper year indulging my interest in the history of the westward expansion of the United States. I started with two works on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Bernard de Voto’s eponymous history of that trip, and “These tremendous mountains” by David Freeman Hawke. I went on to read “Wondrous times on the frontier” by Dee Brown, which covered aspects of social history overlooked elsewhere – saloons and bars, what people wore, what they had for supper etc. Later on in the year I read the second book of Bernard de Voto’s three-part series on the westward expansion, “Across the wide Missouri”. This deals solely with the fur trade, with beaver trappers – the “mountain men” of legend. Also I found time for biographies of Kit Carson – “Kit Carson: A Pattern for Heroes” by Thelma Guild and Harvey Lewis Carter, and “Daniel Boone: The Long Hunter” by Lawrence Elliot. Finally, Alan Taylor’s “American Colonies”, another book that is part of a well-received trilogy of historical textbooks.

Janusz Bardach’s “Man is wolf to man”, recommended by Jacek Hugo-Bader, was quite a difficult read. Well written – just rather hard on the mental health to read of such terrible goings on. Another book difficult for similar reasons was my first Neal Asher sci-fi novel, “The voyage of the Sable Keech”. Asher is a prolific science-fiction writer and this work has immortals, viruses, some very dangerous animals, and is full of violence. Nearly as violent as Richard Morgan’s “Altered Carbon” trilogy about Takeshi Kovacs, and that’s saying something! I found Neal Asher’s crab-like aliens, the Prador, with their taste for eating living humans, particularly unpleasant. 

I read an obscure work called “Earthbound Astronauts” by Beirne Lay Jr. This was a singing of the praises of all the engineers, scientists and so forth that helped to build the Saturn V rocket that put man on the moon in 1969. Max Hastings’ account of Operation “Overlord – the story of the Normandy landings” came in August. I review elsewhere Peter C. Newman’s book “The company of Adventurers”, being the early history of the Hudson’s Bay Company (still extant in Canada today as a minor department store chain) from even before its inception, through, if not to the present, then certainly well into the late 19th century.

Then there was a clump of railway reading – the every delightful prose of O.S Nock (see above on the writers of old having such delicacy and skill in written English) firstly “British Locomotives of the 20th C, volume 3” and secondly, a really good historical read, “Steam Locomotive”. This book highlights the fact that we’ve had trains in the UK for nearly two hundred years. Christian Woolmar, a worthy successor to O.S Nock in my view, wrote “Broken rails” about how and why the privatisation of British Rail under the Major government was such a disaster. His work on the London underground, “The subterranean railway”, was also instructive. In all that reading one became aware that the heyday of the railway in Britain was not “before Beeching”, but before the Great War – the railways were at the best in Edwardian England and have been in decline ever since. Other rail-related reading included several of Brian Radford’s works including “Midland through the Peak”.

Stephen Alford’s “The Watchers” about spying in Elizabethan England, went down well, as did Monty Don’s autobiography “Down to earth”. John Lydon’s “Anger is an energy” is reviewed here.

Fiction? I also found time for some re-reads; Heinlein’s “Glory Road” – always a pleasure, Richard Morgan’s violent “Broken Angels”, my very favourite book, Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion”, and Iain M. Banks’ “Surface Detail”. New reading included Le Carre’s “Silverview”, Erin Morgenstern’s “The Starless Sea” and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Children of ruin” – all mentioned here. I read my friend Mrs Ruth D’Alessandro’s second very engaging historical police procedural “Calling Detective Crockford”, being a fictionalised account of her mother’s work as the the first female detective in Berkshire. Amor Towles’ top work on the aristocrat in the hotel in Moscow – “A gentleman in Moscow” – is reviewed here.

Also amongst that lot, a short and informative popular science book on graphene, “The graphene revolution” by Brian Clegg. A textbook “Do safety differently” on human and organisational performance (a new way forward in safety) by gurus Sidney Dekker and Todd Conklin. I finished the year with Peter Fleming’s rather weak and largely cribbed account of the never-was Operation Sealion, the German invasion of England in 1940. His other writing is excellent: this is is poor and though interesting and informative in places, it is not his best work.

On foot from Bridge of Orchy to Fort William

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I took train to Crewe, arriving in good time for the sleeper service to Scotland. The train slipped into the platform almost in silence, as if to not disturb the sleeping customers. I boarded, and off we went. In the morning the train stopped for a while at Tarbet on Loch Lomond-side. I could hear the rain drumming on the roof of the carriage – but that was at least forecast. I was allowed by the male provodnik (Russian for “sleeping car attendant”) into the “Club Car” for my breakfast, and told somewhat loftily to sit “over there” clearly away from the very few first class customers. Feeling less than welcome, I had my sausage bap and cup of tea, and left.

At Bridge of Orchy I got off, and under the shelter of the station canopy, prepared for hiking. It was raining. The buildings of the station have been converted into a low-cost hostel, although I saw on social media that this hostel has a poor reputation as being somewhat spartan. The West Highland Way, or proximity to it, is an opportunity to sell excellent services to travelers, or perhaps, in some cases, a magnet to less scrupulous property owners hoping to make a fast buck from accommodation. The railway station itself is uncrewed – as was the hostel, at this time of year.

I left, in the dripping rain, and almost immediately passed the only southbound hiker I saw in two full days on the hill. It was 9.a.m. The initial part of the route lies over the summit of Mam Carriagh and is marked on the OS map as an “Old military road”. It is one of General Wade’s roads from the early eighteenth century, from the years of the Jacobite rebellions. As I walked, the rain rose to a crescendo, and I made full use of my new Mountain Equipment “Lhotse” jacket, which I bought heavily discounted from Cotswold. It is has a great hood, but as a tall man I could do with a waterproof least six inches longer in the body – a coat in fact, not a jacket. Why are modern mountaineering waterproofs all jackets?

I came down to the Inveroran Hotel, all shuttered up now for the winter, in grey and spitting rain. Onwards onto what was referred to on a sign as the “Old Drovers Road” to Glencoe, which was ostensibly the main road before 1933 when the current road was opened. Of the current road, arrow-straight across Rannoch Moor and with sweeping curves down through Glencoe, the Scots mountaineer W.H Murray once said (a propos of complaints that it spoilt the landscape) that the new Glencoe road could “no more spoil the landscape than the facade of Chartres Cathedral could be damaged with a pen-knife”. Murray was quite right – and he was an early environmentalist.

The drovers road across Rannoch Moor

There is no evidence that this road was ever covered in tarmac – it is stones and cobbles now. Ninety years is a long time; the tarmac could be long gone, but I somehow doubt it ever was a tarmac road. I found the road very hard on my feet, but that may be because my current boots are approaching the end of the natural life and may in consequence be a little thin in the sole. But it is a good road, passable by car even today (were it allowed – of course it is not), albeit at not much faster than 10mph. It rises gently from Victoria Bridge at 174m to a summit of 353m over 7km, before falling again down to the access to the “Glencoe Mountain Resort”.

Is there a sport less sustainable than skiing? I am a mountaineer. I seek to cross mountains for pleasure, doing so on foot, doing so safely, and leaving no trace other than footprints. There are few things I find much more depressing than a ski resort in off-season. (Maybe a British seaside town in February…) A ski resort needs good roads, ski lifts, hotels and shops, bars and restaurants, accommodation for staff. It needs street lighting, drainage and all the other municipal services we take for granted. All these things are good things of themselves. But out here in the beautiful autumnal brown of the Blackmount in November, I find it all rather jarring. Even as I stood by the roadside thinking this, a 32 tonne truck rumbled past carrying a snow-mobile and ski-lift pods. I finish where I started: can there be a sport less sustainable than skiing?

Crossing the A82 as quickly as possible, but with great care, I continued. From here to the Kingshouse the way leads along what is clearly a former tarmac road. The Kingshouse, once merely a hotel, is now a small community. One day, it seems to me, it may be an actual village called “Kingshouse” – there are diverse lodgings and houses, and a community centre, as well as the eponymous and famous hotel with its extensive car park. It even had a roundabout. In the car park I had to detour round tourists taking photographs of a red deer which had wandered in. The weather was darkening.

A hundred yards past the hotel, once again in open country, I decided to stop for a snack. My mountaincraft is sharper and better than I know; it works at a subconscious level. I had barely finished my chocolate and so forth, when a squall of rain and hail descended. I was hard put to get my hat, gloves and scarf sorted and my coat zipped up before the onslaught. How had I known that the squall was so imminent? How did I know to take this last opportunity for a snack for an hour or more? It was surely neither luck nor coincidence.

The next stretch of the road was again an “old military road” more or less parallel to the A82, finishing at Altnafeadh. The weather was dreadful; grey cloud and squall, brash wind and rain. I would have taken more pictures of the magnificent towers of Stob Dearg (“Buchaille Etive Mor”) on my left – perhaps the most recognized mountain in the UK. But others have photographed that graceful hill more effectively than I, and I was loth to take off my gloves in this rain.

Stob Dearg (“Buchaille Etive Mor”)

At Altnafeadh it was 3pm. The traffic rushed past; the clouds lowered. Time-wise I was on target. I had thought I might camp here, having at very best maybe ninety minutes of daylight remaining, and not wishing to be caught in the hills above the Devils Staircase. But there was no suitable location, and the rain came down. I had a little snack and a fat little robin came and sat near me; I fed it with some of my wife’s Rice Krispy cake. Onwards: in heavy rain and hail I started up the Devils Staircase. A struggle if you’re not fit, that ascent, but I pushed very hard and fast uphill, to the point of starting to overheat. Time was of the essence now. I had to find a flat and sheltered place in the hills to pitch my tent, and I had to do so pretty much within the hour.

I thought, looking at the wind direction (this is mountaincraft again) that the weather would be better on the far side of the hill up which the Devils Staircase goes back and forth. I was right to think that; so it proved. On the Rannoch/Glencoe side, grey rain, clag and wind, hail and storm. On the far side, calmer, even to some blue sky. I pushed on over as late afternoon became evening and dusk, looking for a camp ground. I had limited daylight and my salutory experience in the Cairngorms two years ago was fresh in my mind. I found a flat place right next to the trail, right next to a stream. Not a place I’d choose in summer. The place was more or less where I had predicted from theory beforehand that I ought to camp, in order to make this passage from Bridge of Orchy a two-day rather than three-day hike. It was the stream of Alt a’ Choire odhair bhig.

My tent went up easily enough, pitched outer first as rain looked imminent. In fact I had not long been pitched when there was a tremendous hailstorm turning the world white. I found it hard to get warm, but once I’d eaten and gotten into bed, I warmed up in due course and slept passably well, being in bed for nearly 12 hours.

I awoke respectably late, but still before dawn. Surprisingly so given that I had been in bed for almost 12 hours. I went through the drill of having breakfast (porridge with an admixture of chocolate, sugar and sultanas and a little malt whiskey) and striking camp. The practice of solo backpacking and wild camping, particularly in autumn or winter conditions, is the practice of detail, the practice of method, the practice of doing things right, in the right order. In other words, it is the practice of mountaincraft. This is one of the reasons why I put myself through it. It is no ordeal; it is a pleasure and a privilege. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be alone in the wild. I can put myself, in an uncontrived way, in a place where doing things right, in the right order, is the difference between, on the one hand, an enjoyable and relaxing experience, and on the other, a dreadful or even life-threatening experience.

I was on the hill, full of breakfast, by 8a.m. I had a long day ahead of me of 32km, but I knew I could make Fort William, if not by nightfall (about 5pm) certainly not much later. I started out in Gore-tex over-trousers but today’s weather was much more forgiving and they soon came off on the descent to Kinlochleven. Early on, I had problems with very cold fingers, as my gloves were wet from the previous day. I had to use my big mittens, which were still dry. One action from this trip is that I need to think carefully about carrying multiple pairs of gloves (as one carries multiple pairs of socks), or, look into waterproof gloves. The light and the views this morning were lovely.

Coming down into Kinlochleven one sees six tremendous pipes marching across the landscape, bearing water from the faraway dam on the Blackwater Reservoir. At the bottom of the hill by the river, an enormous and striking mill, Edwardian architecture with some Edwardian technology inside and out, as the rushing water from the great pipes feed the hydroelectric plant inside. Kinlochleven at 9a.m was quiet and cold, only dog walkers were around. I’d been aware that I could have resupplied here to save weight, but it turned out that I needed nothing, and I walked on out of town without stopping. Kinlochleven is rather sleepy and forgotten since the opening of the Ballachulish Bridge in 1975. Today it seems little more than the start of the final stage of the West Highland Way. That said, its location is stupendously beautiful, central to a wide range of wild country and high mountains. It reminded me, however – particularly in cloud-streaked autumn at that time of day, of the town in the Pacific Northwest in Sylvester Stallone’s film “First Blood”.

I climbed up out of town through pleasant and fragrant managed pine woods, emerging into a higher, colder valley. “Footpath to Fort William via the Lairig” the sign had said. The path runs true up the right hand side of the valley, reaching a bealach at which there is a substantial ruined house. From here, one cannot see where the route goes, but it curves round to the right and to the north. I passed a young woman out from Kinlochleven; she said she was just doing this last stage. Only the second person I had seen hiking for two days.

The ruins at Lairig Mor

The path continues northward, a little open on the left, with higher mountains on the right. Such trees as there were in the area were not entirely consistent with their representation on the map – this is a working plantation. I had been saying to myself, “Ben Nevis dominates Fort William, but I cannot see it yet. When will I see it, and know that I am getting closer to my destination?” The path kinks round to the right, trending more north-westerly, and finally, in the afternoon, I found myself in a place where I knew that just beyond, lay Glen Nevis. At the head of this valley was a confusion of hillside, rather strange looking. Some odd geological effects were at work here. In the heart of the confusion, lies the ancient fort “Dun Deadail”.

Nevis seen from the trail not far from the fort “Dun Deadail”

From Dun Deadail, the way lies along forest road all the way down to tarmac in Glen Nevis. In the deepening cold of late afternoon (that is, 3pm at this latitude and time of year – it’s great to come to Fort William in May when “late afternoon”, from the perspective of the sunshine, is 8.30p.m!!) I trod the forest road down, and then tramped the final tough tarmac mile or so into Fort William.

Glen Nevis

In Fort William I was met by a friend of mine who kindly arranged for me to stay at the excellent Fassfern guest house on the shores of Loch Linnhe. We had a couple of pints and some pizza at the Black Isle pizza bar in town, but to be honest, after my trek I was shattered, and was glad to be in bed by 9.30pm.

A ten-hour train journey

This first leg of the immense train journey back to the English midlands leads through a brown, grey and relict green autumn landscape, towards Spean Bridge. In the distance, cloud-draped mountains have winter’s first coat of snow. Behind me in the tiny two-carriage train, are five mums with at least that many toddlers, dogs, bicycles and pushchairs, all off on a short winter’s day’s outing to Corrour. The toddlers are all of a gurgle; at my feet, one of the dogs has settled down to hide from the youngsters. The train wends its way along a gorge; the frothing river is the colour of Guinness being poured. You can hear the engines straining as the train climbs the grade up onto the moor. I could be on worse train journeys and I probably will be later today.

Crianlarich: nearly two hours out from Fort William. It would take an hour to drive here from Fort William, though to be fair to the train, it does take that huge detour up to Spean Bridge. As someone with a passing interest in railways it is interesting to note that some of these Highland stations still retain a substantial yard with sidings. Generally these are used, on this remote single-track railway, to store modern permanent way repair equipment. In England, many of these yards have long since been converted into car parks, particularly in the metro area where commuters dominate the market. This little train dates from the late 1980’s, and the technology in it is much older than that. Hearing the sound of the antique brakes, though I’m sure they are perfectly good brakes, makes me feel about 12, so much does the sound remind me of 1970’s trains.

At Queen Street station in Glasgow, a delightful Victorian arched train shed, I join a brand-new electric train to Edinburgh. The Scots at least, have a constructive view on railway electrification: that is, do as much as possible, as soon as possible. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that English tax-payers will be picking up the tab for it, even if the Westminster government and the Department for Transport feels it can’t afford the same for England. Who needs joined up thinking? I read that these new and shiny 21st century trains are actually owned by a Japanese bank.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_385). Another piece of evidence of the chronic short-termism of the people who manage and finance our railways.

Arriving at Waverley station in Edinburgh, I had to make a decision quickly. I had a seat booked on the 1707 X-Country service straight through to Derby. It was cancelled. The time was 1636. I might travel at 1710 down the east coast route towards Kings X, and change at Newark, and then across to Derby. Or, I might travel at 1652 down the west coast towards Euston, and change at Crewe, and then across to Derby. Which is better? Six of one and a half dozen of the other…or is it? this is advanced travel knowledge. I opted for the latter and joined an Avanti West Coast Pendolino bound for Euston. That was a good decision. As I’d opted for a very reasonably priced first class ticket, I got a nice panini and at least two Gins and Tonic, thrown in. That enlivened my journey to my home, which took until nearly 10.30p.m. That said, I left Edinburgh at 5pm and arrived at Derby about 9.30p.m, and that involving a change of trains. You’ll nae be driving from Edinburgh to Derby at that time of day, or at any time of day in fact, in four and a half hours.

Loch Nevis again

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28/5/23: Once again I come aboard this vessel as she prepares to cross to Rum. Today is a Sunday, the first time I ever made this crossing on a Sunday. I just bought a sausage bap and a Flat White from a most friendly pair of people behind the counter. I was struck by the friendliness of people here on the West coast of Scotland. The lady at the campsite “Tigh na mara” likewise was quite naturally open and friendly – even more so once I told her I was going to see my sister Fliss Fraser. After nearly twenty years living near London and commuting into the heart of London every day, it is remarkable to be amongst people who are naturally friendly. A similar paradigm prevails in our new home on the sourthern edge of the Peak District – even the teenage boys on their way home from school, nod at you politely and say hello!

I set off on Saturday morning from Chesterfield, in a rented car. I used the “eastern” route up the country, that is, going north up the A1 and west across the A66. I shan’t do that again. The M6 will be almost invariably quicker. At one point on the A66 I had to come off and detour across country to get past a queue following a tractor. One great thing about that road though, is the western descent to Penrith, where one might gaze on the distant but distinctive shape of Blencathra on the northern edge of the Lake District. My second leg, after a brief lunch at some farm shop in the Pennines, was very swiftly up the A74(M) to Lesmahagow, where there is an exit with a Tesco, including a petrol station, right at the top of the ramp.

From Lesmahagow, north over the Erskine bridge and onward through Dumbarton, where I have stopped so many times back in the days when there was such a thing as Little Chef. Once north of Dumbarton motoring actually becomes a pleasure, particularly at this time of day, though there were still plenty of motorhomes and pootlers to get past. I stopped for a brief rest at the Glen Etive crossroads under another distinctively shaped mountain, Buchaille Etive Mor, before plunging down through Glencoe and onwards to Fort William. I camped near Arisaig, at a little place called Tigh na Mara, right at the end of the road, beyond Back of Keppoch. And right good it was too – a lovely family campsite with excellent, even superb facilities.

In the morning early, into Mallaig to park up, and thence across to Rum. I was minded to look back and see when I have visited my sister at Ivy Cottage on Rum. It is instructive.

In 2002 I came here before the jetty was built – I remember trans-shipping from Loch Nevis into a small boat in order to get ashore. A different world then!

In 2004 I came here with our three kids by car from the midlands (that was the year it poured with rain at Camusdarach, and they all sat in the car, as they ought, whilst I struck our tent in the heavy downpour. I can still feel the rain on my back.) That was also the year we played Lord of the Rings Top Trumps, sat in a car park at Crianlarich, resting between driving legs on the way up. Family memories!

In 2005 we came back: I bought the kids by train from London. We travelled in first class for a reasonable fee. My first experience of a Pendolino: I remember an American lady saying “I wonder what Coach is like, if this is First Class?” Indeed.

In 2008 all of us visited for the wedding of my sister. Some of us came by sleeper train, some of us, by car. That was the only time I ever got stopped for speeding…it’s a fair cop, guv. Everyone was nice about it. It’s not as it it was actual dangerous driving – not on that road, at that time of day, in those dry, well-lit conditions – as the policeman himself noted at the time.

Then I didn’t visit Rum again until the modern era: I was here in 2016, 2018, 2019 and now this visit, my first visit post-lockdown. It is an extraordinarily difficult place to reach. In the interim period, between 2008 and 2016, I was very busy every summer with Scout camps.

Here on Rum the May weather is glorious. If the wind drops, the midges bite a little but not quite enough to drive a person indoors. At least two different types of cuckoos are calling, as they do in late Spring. Beyond that, the silence here is palpable, so much so that one can hear the engine noise of the ferry across the bay.

Much discussion of art and craft, of gardening and cooking, of writing and fitness – running and wild swimming. One of the books recommended by my sister is “The Artists Way” by Julia Cameron. She speaks of “morning pages”, writing three pages every morning, just to get the creative juices flowing. I wonder about the security and privacy of my notes – there is none. Anyone might pick them up and read them. I have written stuff that whilst it might not actually get me arrested, would possibly increase the likelihood of a period spent indoors at His Majesty’s pleasure, under the Mental Health Act. Bob Dylan sings “if my thought-dreams/could be seen/they’d probably put my head/in a guillotine” – that’s me.

The Rum Cuillin

In glorious sunshine I ran up into Coire Dubh, passing two parties on the way up. I was able to make use of water from streams right up onto the shoulder of Hallival, which was good news on such a hot and dry day. Thence, up onto Hallival. This wasn’t so easy, though the route was pleasant and dry. From Hallival, down over rocks and boulders and steep, dry dirt, to the col.

Eigg seen from Hallival

Askeval looks very serious and technical, starting as it does with a very steep and narrow grassy ridge. There is a reasonable path winding it’s way up the grassy eastern face, so one is never in danger of losing one’s way. As an older man I find vertigo creeps up on me: I would have raced along this ridge thirty years ago. Today I can see the ground far below in the corner of my eye. My balance and head for heights are not what they were when I was younger. Also, my perception of risk, particularly alone on the mountain, is changed somewhat.

Askeval

From Askeval, down into the Atlantic Corrie, through some tremendous, lonely rock scenery. Few people come here. There is an immense walk out to the Harris road, across trackless moor and knee-deep grass, which in claggy or wet conditions would be a real struggle. Physical fitness rendered the walk out merely tiresome, and I made it the Harris road by 4pm or so. I was even able to run out down the road back to the village.

Last night we saw a Basking Shark in the loch, and at least a dozen deer stood on the foreshore at low tide. The deer, alas, are ubiquitous and everywhere – even in my sister’s back garden. You can’t grow anything in a garden here, except you put up a tall and expensive deer fence.

As so often in the past, I left on a glorious sunny afternoon to return to the mainland. I drove down to the Claichaig and camped nearby, and then set off the next morning very early for the 380 mile drive back to Chesterfield. And this is what I saw on the way:

Snowdon Horseshoe by night

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13-14/7/95 Hill walking in the dark

J. Parkinson and I, at this point in time busy people working for a living and raising kids, wanted to get away hillwalking, but we found that the time could not so easily be spared. After our successful overnight assault on Nevis of the previous year, we thought we might resolve this conundrum (and spend less time away) by the simple expedient of doing some classic hill-walking overnight. On this occasion we did the Snowdon Horseshoe; on another, we made a noteworthy attempt on Idwal Skyline, and bailed after rather too long spent on Tryfan – of which more later.

We left Derby at 7.35pm. We parked at Pen-y-pass and started up the PYG track at 11.30pm. The drive in along the coast road had taken 2 hrs 40 minutes. There was some moonlight on the climb up to Crib Goch. We had of course deliberately chosen a clear night as near as was practical to full moon. I walked in up the PYG track, and out along the Miner’s Track, in trainers, only using big boots for the actual route itself.

Unfortunately the moon disappeared behind clouds and our traverse of Crib Goch was accomplished in darkness without benefit of moonlight. It was windy; both of us found Crib Goch technically very demanding in the dark. Scary, in fact.

Up and over Crib-y-ddysgl, up the railway and onto the summit, which lost it’s cloud cap only while we were there, about 3a.m. We found that route-finding on the ridge was impossible by torchlight; there was no way of looking ahead. The light of dawn started to appear as we crossed from Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) to Y Lliwedd. As we descended from Y Lliwedd, there was beautiful, transcendent morning light. We were back at Pen-y-pass at 6.40am. Seven hours on the hill.

On another occasion – I can’t find any paper notes for this but I remember doing it – we decided on an attempt on Idwal Skyline in the dark. We picked a moonlit night of course, and set off from Derby, arrived in Snowdonia, parked up at Milestone Buttress, and set off up the North Ridge of Tryfan.

The North Ridge…what we hadn’t bargained for, what we had not implicitly understood, was some basic astronomy. The moon shines from the same direction, more or less, as the sun. It is never found in the north in the Northern hemisphere. I ought have known this, having worked at or near the equator and seen the rather odd spectacle of the moon being DIRECTLY overhead – something you’ll never see the UK. Ever tried climbing the North Ridge of Tryfan in the dark? Don’t. A fit party might climb the North Ridge from the road to the summit in slightly over an hour. I’ve done it many times, summer and winter, in between 70 and 90 minutes. It took us three hours. That was a salutory lesson. Wisely we opted not to climb Bristly Ridge. We descended to Bwlch Tryfan and from there straight back down to the road.

The Sharp Edge of Blencathra

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Here are a number of accounts of climbing the Sharp Edge of Blencathra, over thirty years. The first, in the mid-1980’s, and most recently in 2015.

The Sharp Edge of Blencathra - Dave Massey Photography https://davemassey.photography
This wonderful modern (2022) photograph of the Sharp Edge of Blencathra is courtesy of Dave Massey Photography https://davemassey.photography (permission to reproduce, applied for)

25/7/85

From Castlerigg into Keswick. Then we tramped out, eventually hitting the disused railway. It was a hot, hazy, blue sky kind of day. Under the big A66 bridge, and some of the old river bridges had a very Canadian feel to them. Splendid scenery. We left the old railway and crossed several fields to a road, which we followed down into a ravine. We stopped in the shade by the babbling brook, a lovely spot encouraging lassitude, but eventually we had to push on.

Up the hillside as the sun beat down on us. This is your Mousthwaite Combe. We laboured up a grassy path up onto the shoulder, which offered amazing views. FM radio reception was quite remarkable – we were listening to Q102 Dublin on our walkmans – in stereo. We continued onto the summit, not taking the route via Sharp Edge on this occasion. We dropped back down to the road arriving at the Salutation Inn in Threlkeld for an excellent bar meal. From there after a pleasant drink, we walked back to Castlerigg in the gloaming.

13/10/85

A large party of ten for a mass ascent of Blencathra! From the inn we moved along a road and struck left into a short valley, across the headwall of which, could be seen our path, forming a diagonal upwards. Mousthwaite Combe. At the top, we found ourselves on a broad whale-back, with a deep valley below. In it, the gloriously Tolkienesque River Glenderamackin. [Tolkienesque to me that is, not to the younger fellow who wrote this account in 1985; he knew nothing of Tolkien when he was 20.]

Along the left side of this valley, before climbing steeply up into the corrie of Scales Tarn. This is really impressive rock scenery, particularly Sharp Edge. One member of our party, somewhat afraid of heights and exposure, went up the screes to the summit. The rest of us went up Sharp Edge, with K. and R. at the front, and myself and T. J Walmsley shepherding one or two less experienced walkers in the rear.

It was my first time here on what became and what remains probably my favourite route. I found it passably sharp, suitably impressive and very exposed, but too short. It looks a lot worse than it is from a long way off. When you think of the great ridge walks in the British Isles, the Sharp Edge of Blencathra is by no means least among them, though is one of the shorter routes, the crux of it being only a hundred yards long. Even Crib Goch is only a few hundred yards of really sharp rock ridge mixed in with a mile or so of reasonably narrow ridge walking. For sustained narrow rock edge work you have to go to the Aonach Eagach above Glen Coe, which is miles long. But that’s not passable in winter conditions for walkers.

The route lies up over some gendarmes and up onto the summit where we had lunch. To the north there are many kilometres of wild moorland, but not particularly exciting hill country. At the top, it started to mist up. Blencathra has little to recommend it but Sharp Edge, and the descent was tedious. This being a Sunday, it had to be a short day – 4 hours on the hill. But satisfying for all that.

11/2/89

On a windy day, myself and J. Parkinson walked into Blencathra through low cloud. There was a fair amount of snow visible in the corrie of Scales Tarn. Sharp Edge itself was in cloud and the rock was exceptionally greasy to the fingers and to the boots. There was little snow on the ridge itself, but a fair bit on the face at the end.

We did not reach the summit: My friend noted that he was in his element roofing, sitting on the crown of a house in the urban environment, and had no problem with heights, but the conditions here put us both out of our element. The rock cold and greasy, we withdrew safely.

Always know when to turn back. A key lesson for the mountaineer, learned here at no cost. I’ve been fortunate over many years to learn some important lessons in mountaincraft at very, very modest cost.

9/1/91

Myself and R.C.E Ball, in heavy standing snow but clearing weather, climbed up into Mousthwaite Combe. It was windy; spindrift was troublesome to us the whole day. The path round to Scales Tarn was barely visible under the snow. In places, folds in the land caused very deep snowdrifts to form, hindering our progress considerably.

We got into the Scales Tarn corrie about 1.30pm. Scales Tarn itself was frozen. The main part of Sharp Edge was great sport, if spoiled somewhat by constant spindrift storms. There was hard frozen snow from previous falls, as well as fresh snow. The crest up to the summit was technically very difficult in winter conditions, as we neither of us were carrying ice axes or crampons. An axe would have been a great help. The snow was very hard, the rocks iced over to eliminate all handholds, and footholds were hard to make.

The summit plateau was lethal verglas. We got up and off quickly but with considerable difficulty, via Scales Fell, and good glissading (or bumslides in this case) down to Mousthwaite Combe. We were the first party on the hill after heavy snow.

The previous day, 8/1/91, we’d taken a short stroll from our camp at Braithwaite, up Stile End to Overside (1863′), before retreating before a blizzard in late afternoon. A warming up stroll terminated abruptly by a heavy snowstorm.

10/3/92

We were on the hill (that is, into Mousthwaite Combe) by 12.15pm. We arrived in the Scales Tarn corrie around an hour later. There was an attack of hail as we climbed up to Sharp Edge. The conditions were excellent. Up on the top of Blencathra we could see Styhead Tarn glinting in the distance. We detoured around for extra hill-walking – Blencathra is a short route. However, the weather worsened and a snow squall forced us to shelter. So we came down and were off the hill by 4p.m.

I think this is the time we went to camp at Castlerigg, but decided to go to a B&B in Keswick instead. I recall getting wet even opening the car door, at the campsite up at Castlerigg, and we thought, “No.”

26/6/15

We drove through to Scales and set off up Blencathra at about 2pm, in good weather.

As we got into the corrie of Scales Tarn, the weather broke big time, and our scramble up Sharp Edge was lethal. Conditions were very greasy and slippery underfoot. The mist was down, and for a time it rained quite heavily. My young colleague had never been here and struggled with confidence. We got up Sharp Edge only after long meditation and careful consideration. In any case, to withdraw from Sharp Edge in those conditions would have been more hazardous than going on. An ascent of the Sharp Edge of Blencathra is no mean achievement in any conditions.

So, on and up we went, and we were soon finished. We were further encouraged by three friendly men making their way slowly up the ridge behind us with much talk and laughter. After the summit we descended through pleasant afternoon sunshine to the car and drove directly to Honister Hause YHA. We checked in and had the cup of tea we as Englishmen had been desiring for some time. I saw that Youth Hostels are now licensed. Supper was at the Fish Hotel in Buttermere, taken outside, on a very clear and pleasant evening.

Idwal Skyline, summer

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“If it stops raining by eleven, we’re going mountaineering” I said, at about 9.30a.m. My colleague just grunted in reply, his eyes on his book. The rain pattered lightly on the tent; the clouds looked oppressive. Eventually he deigned to put his book aside and get ready, and we set off around 10.30a.m. Measured steps along an old track saw us at the base of Tryfan, my dear friend having tried without success to charm a lone young lady from Southampton who we met along the way. I grinned inwardly and steamed upwards over the heather. It was 11a.m. The lower slopes, heather and grass, give way to bands of cliffs up which we eagerly scrambled. The A5 soon shrank to matchbox car proportions, a thin line winding along the lake.

Eventually the rock proper begins. I clambered onwards, far ahead of my friend who chose to take his time, savouring the delights of scrambling up the best mountain in Wales. Tryfan never fails to delight the scrambler or casual climber – a veritable delight of routes up good, rough grey rock. Quickly I gained height, choosing, as far as possible, the testing bits rather than the worn pathways. The summit of Tryfan is rarely visible whilst on the north ridge, as the ridge is stepped into terraces. Grey towers up ahead are the tantalising target. The cross-cutting clefts – one of them called “Heather Terrace” are one of the few places where everyone follows the same path. I got to the summit in 77 minutes – a personal best for Tryfan. My companion arrived, at a more leisurely pace, almost half an hour later. He polished off my remaining orange and set the food-consumption rate for the rest of the day.

We continued, trying our best to down-climb rather than walk, down to Bwlch Tryfan where my companion insisted we stop for lunch. I gave in graciously and we sat quietly eating lunch at the col. Then, quivering in anticipation almost, for the afternoon’s work, we arrived at the foot of Bristly Ridge. We climbed and climbed, enjoying ourselves. This section was most enjoyable – an almost endless progression of easy rock that grew sadly easier as we approached the summit. Behind us, Tryfan was a tooth. From the sun-drenched summit of Gylder Fach, though, it looks positively diminutive. Strange shards of slate stand up in clusters on the summit, giving it a rather fantastic look, as if in a scene from “The never-ending story” or other such film.

Out in front again, I continued along to Glyder Fawr in warm sunshine, seeing Snowdon dark on the left, and the Nameless Cwm on the right. Arriving on the summit, we met again with the young lady from Southampton, who complained of a painful knee, and continued downhill in her company, ostensibly helping her. My potential philanderer of a close friend and climbing companion abandoned his position as obliging gent as soon as it was clear she was quite happy on her own; he stampeded off down the screes at a suicidal rate. I went downhill a little slower, particularly after falling on my a**e at one point. At the bottom he gazed wistfully up at the slopes, to the girl with the painful knee, and we continued.

Up Y Garn, where there were a few specks of rain out of nowhere, it seemed. Oddly it’s always cold and windy on Y Garn. Today was no exception. We sat at the top, looking down the slopes into Cwm Idwal, noticing the grey clouds swirling over Glyder Fach at 3200′, whilst the Carneddau on the other side of the Ogwen valley, remained clear of cloud at 3400′ and higher. The last movement of the Idwal Skyline is down the sharp arete above Cym Clyd, which is again as on the Glyders, punctuated by sharp upstanding slates. A wise place to walk with your hands out of your pockets. We arrived at Idwal Cottage well satisfied, at about 6pm. Chips and steak pie at Idwal Cottage, made us feel brighter by far, and deeply content, we tramped back along the A5 to our tent on the far side of Tryfan.

A walk on Kinder Scout – but when?

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I’ve just been looking through my old hand-written route books. I have hand-written reports of days on the mountain going back forty years to 1983. I’m in the process of typing them all up and posting them online, here at the plateroom28 blog, in the page Forty Years of Mountains. There’s quite a lot there to read. I am influenced by the writing of the great Scots mountaineer and early environmentalist W.H Murray (1913-1996). As a youth, I obtained a very old copy of his first book “Mountaineering in Scotland”, and deliberately copied his style – though perhaps not his grace – in writing trip reports.

We travel here to the Peak District on a Royal Wedding day. But which one – the reader can be the judge. Two of us left Edale about 10.30a.m and ran off up Grindsbrook. As we neared the top, a rain shower turned heavy, and we waited as it drove down-valley, a grey stain along the skyline.

The peat hags were steaming gently in bright sunshine as we moved over the flat and desolate sea of heather. Up here on Kinder, the flatness envelopes you. We arrived at the “summit”, more of a gentle watershed marked by a cairn, and from there, navigated by reference to the Holme Moss TV transmitter tower, a tall thin mast, its warning lights a-flashing periodically, some 16km to the north. Crowden Head was replaced by the dry bed of the Kinder River, which led us to the Downfall. As we lunched at the Downfall, large and sturdy sheep appeared, until around fifteen of them stood around us patiently waiting for titbits. Black clouds swooped by, darkening the fresh blue skies, soaking the good citizens of Hayfield far below.

From Kinder Downfall, north, followed closely by another line squall. Swiftly, as the skies grew dimmer, we sought shelter under a block of gritstone and waited for the squall to pass. It blew itself out after a dozen minutes or so, and we continued, now again in warm sunshine, advancing along a gentle scarp, past the white front of the Snake Inn far below, past the steep Seal Stones path downwards. We arrived at trig point 1937′ and rested for a while in warm summer sunshine. In the distance, Win Hill was a square grey top. We followed paths downhill through heather past crumbling outcrops, onto the lower moor, Crookstone Hill. In the distance, Ladybower reservoir was visibly empty. As we walked, there were a few mutters of suitably distant thunder. Along the moor, great clouds of blue and grey heaped up behind us, motivating us to hurry. Shelter was far ahead, in the woods at the edge of the reservoir.

A dense squall rushed past on our left, thunder began to crackle, and lightning fork cloud-to-cloud and onto the surrounding tops. Heavy rain began to fall. Lightning flashed again and the rain turned to hail. We flung ourselves into a ditch, hiding our heads from the hail, and then dashed for cover behind the shelter of a stone wall. Hail fell…and when it was over, the world was white like winter. It was amazing to behold. We walked in deep cold past a group of terrified pony-trekkers, their mounts as scared as any of them, down to Hope Cross and along. Fresh clouds gathered, and we tarried a while, hiding from the real risk of being struck by lightning.

Clouds back of us, we continued down the track to Hope. Hail came again, almost painful as it battered our legs, heads and backs. Water ripped at the track, a veritable flash flood, and we were grateful to leap into a Land Rover when a lift was offered. Being driven through the hail-covered lanes to Hope, we reflected that this was the most startling thunderstorm we’d seen for some time.

A trip to Knoydart – extreme backpacking in October

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A trip to Knoydart – extreme backpacking in October

My trip this October, in the planning these last three months, was to walk from the railway at Glenfinnan, through to Inverie on the Knoydart peninsula. Inverie is one of the most remote places in mainland Britain. The walk itself I understand is part of the so-called “Cape Wrath Trail” though there was nary a sign at any point to indicate that.

I took the 48km walk in three more or less equal stages of about 16km each. From Glenfinnan to Strathan, Strathan to Sourlies, and from Sourlies to Inverie. As I was hiking alone, completely out of phone range, I don’t think I’m exaggerating to call it “extreme” backpacking. Conditions underfoot were absolutely dreadful, wet and deep mud and peat throughout. Across that ground, I was walking at barely 2km per hour averaged over the whole day. I thought I’d meet few people if anyone at all, mid-week in October, but eight other people were on the hill travelling more or less the same route at the same time. We met several times, finishing with drinks in the Old Forge in Inverie.

As in the past, my journey north on the Caledonian Sleeper began with a pint in the Doric Arch at Euston station. Virtually deserted on a Monday night, this railway-themed public house has a giant scale model of “Evening Star”, British Rail’s last steam locomotive, strategically placed behind the bar.

It was really rather pleasant to sit in my berth in the morning, watching the West Highland landscape scroll past the window. Breakfast came as the train rounded the famous Horseshoe Curve near Bridge of Orchy. At Fort William there was ground mist. My eye was caught by a Stanier Black Five stood waiting in the mist for the off with the “Jacobite Express” charter train to Mallaig.

After shopping for some minor groceries in Fort William, I took train a little after noon to Glenfinnan. The mist had burnt off; the skies were clear. The train was absolutely rammed full of tourists, and the officials of the railway company, in consequence perhaps, were a little above-averagely irascible. Passengers must not leave bags here…bicycles must be stored front wheel uppermost…

In the most beautiful clear weather, I hiked up through the heather and trees towards the viaduct. It is concrete: anywhere else but in this stunning location it would be ignored as an industrial monstrosity. But here, certainly since Harry Potter, people travel hundreds of miles to visit Glenfinnan viaduct.

The way ahead lay up a tarmac road through Glenfinnan. As a 10k runner I have learnt much about pacing myself this last year – but not enough. Though I consciously tried to keep the pace down, I still went too fast along the tarmac and in only a few kilometres the hard impacts did more damage to my left heel than in the whole of the next three days, causing a small blister. I continued past the bothy at Corryhully, taking a late lunch, and continuing up to the top, the Bealach a Chaorainn. Here there was a rather surreal gate with no fence on either side of it. Onwards, trending north-east away from the setting sun, down into a wide glacial valley, the long and straight Gleann Chaorainn. As the afternoon wore on, the light grew more delicate.

The ground underfoot became boggier and more complex, and I was starting to tire. As the valley came out into the bigger Glen Pean, I fell over in deep mud and somehow managed to buckle the bottom third of one of my trail poles. Ratty, I crossed the bridge over the Pean and approached a band of forest. Here I met the first of the eight people who were crossing to Inverie at the same time as me, an Englishwoman called Suze and her partner Andy, a Scotsman. After a brief chat I left them in peace and sought somewhere to pitch my tent. But the ground was tussocks and hummocks, dreadful, pathless wet ground wholly inappropriate for camping. In the middle distance I spied some different green, and thought, that might a better campground. It did – but it was on an island in the river. I crossed to the island with only minor difficulties (the boulders in the stream bed were a bit slimy). I deemed the risk of flooding on this particular night, to be negligible, although there was clear evidence that the island could and would flood when the river rose in spate.

Next day, the tent was wet inside and out with dew and condensation. In packing, I found that I had inadvertently brought onto the hill, over half a kilo of spare cheap tent pegs which had been stored right at the bottom of my rucksack. Rather too much weight to casually carry around – I had to abandon them. I crossed the river again, noting that the river had fallen during the night, and set off into the forest. The route lay along a track that clearly predated the trees (an industrial plantation) by decades if not generations. Round onto a forestry road and onwards; beyond the woods, the sky was clear and blue. A choice presented itself: I could hike up Glen Dessarry in the woods, or in the sunshine. On such a beautiful morning, it had to be the sunshine, at the expense of a short detour.

There is a reasonable unmade road up Glen Dessarry, up which it was my task to toil. I took an early lunch – or maybe it was second breakfast. I am become a creature of Hobbit on the hill: bread and butter, cheese, tomato, Chorizo sausage, chocolate, date/nut/seed trail mix, perhaps an orange. At Upper Glendessarry the path leaves the unmade road and kinks to the right – “Inverie, 17miles” a sign says. Wet and very muddy, the path continues, keeping another industrial plantation on the left. I reached the top edge of these upper woods and found a convenient flat stone on which to have another snack. A mile or so away below I spied two hikers, presumably the Scotsman and Englishwoman. They saw me clearly against the sky, and waved, but I missed that. They must have taken the route through the woods. As I lunched, a single Typhoon fighter roared past in the distance.

Lower Glen Dessarry
Lower Glen Dessarry
The lodge at Upper Glendessarry and the sign for Inverie
Looking back down the glen from the upper woods

The path continues upwards, always wet, muddy and boggy, over Bealach an Lagain Duibh, which to my unschooled eye looks something like “Black Lake Pass”. One arrives in due course at two linked lochans, dark and forbidding in the lost, high hills. That said, the sun was out and though the water was black, the mood was not too bad. Lochan a’ Mhaim, it is called. On the bank of the second of these, a small boat was stashed, having clearly been laboriously carried up from Loch Nevis.

Lochan a’ Mhaim

On the way down to Sourlies from this lochan, there was at least one significant ford over the Finiskaig river. One has to take care with fords, hiking alone. The trail poles are a great help in safely crossing a river. It was a lovely walk down through variable terrain, but always muddy and wet underfoot. At times the river meandered as a “misfit stream” through the valley, then it dropped down through a gorge to the valley floor proper at the head of Loch Nevis. After the initial significant ford, the path kept to the right all the way, sometimes high on the hillside above the river, other times, lower. I passed three people, the first of whom I spoke with briefly. In a strong Slav accent, he told me he was making for the roadhead at Strathan, and that his friends were some hours behind him. An hour or more later I passed his companions. A lady with a Husky and an older, less fit looking man, labouring slowly up the hill with stertorous breath and a Cross of St Andrew on the back of his rucksack. They had started from Sourlies – and late indeed was the hour for them to be passing me not even close to half-way to Strathan.

The Finiskaig River as a meandering “misfit stream”
The view down towards Sourlies. Note the “roche moutonee” in the foreground, with the scratches from the glacier pointing down the valley, but the prevailing geology at right angles to the valley.

Once on the valley floor I spotted a party of two walking ahead of me. They arrived at the Sourlies bothy a few minutes before I did. Mark and Dave; Dave, a Scotsman, Mark, an older guy from near Manchester. I decided to stay in the bothy and I put my tent up to dry in the stiff breeze, and it dried in minutes. Mark made some tea, and I contributed some milk from the sleeper train. Not long after that, the Englishwoman Suze and her partner Andy arrived, and there was some sociable chat. They opted to camp outside. Then, four Dutchman arrived – going to be crowded tonight! But they also opted to camp, although they prepared their food in the bothy and stayed for a chat. We started a fire, but if there was any wind at all, the chimney didn’t draw properly, and the bothy soon filled with smoke.

I cooked spicy lentils and a “faranata” – a chickpea flour pancake. This impressed everyone, as freeze-dried wilderness meals seem to carry all before them. Just add hot water. But I like cooking, and one-pot cooking in the wilderness is a challenge I cannot resist. It does mean that I have to carry various bits and bobs onto the hill to make such mountain cuisine possible. A small onion perhaps; a clove of garlic, a twist of spices and salt and pepper. It all adds weight but is worth the effort. As I am a big man, today weighing over 90kg, I can afford to carry 20kg on the hill.

From inside the Sourlies bothy
The wild aspect of the bothy (seen the following morning on departure)

During the night it rained for a time and the wind rose. For some reason I did not sleep well, though i was comfortable enough on a little wooden platform with a couple of mats under me. The Sourlies bothy is in a magnificent wild location at the very head of Loch Nevis, a fjord in all but name. The Fort William to Mallaig road is 15km to the south and about the same to the west, over trackless mountains. To the north, across more trackless mountains 10km to Loch Hourn, itself 15km from Loch Alsh, another fjord or sea-loch. To the east, the route I walked – 13km or so to Strathan at the roadhead on Loch Arkaig. In short, as wild a place as anywhere in Britain.

Next day I was away bright and early, on the hill by 8.15a.m. The couple camping had already set off. The first part of the route lay right along the seashore, quite literally on the beach. Would be tricky at high tide, I would think. The path curves right up onto the headland of Strone Sourlies, and round into Glen Carnoch. One is then presented with a dreadful flat salt marsh to cross. At this point, before nine in the morning, the sky was deeply threatening, lowering grey. There were various paths across the marsh, and the light was good enough, but the going underfoot was really slow and boggy, very, very wet. Without trail poles this would be a really challenging walk.

The marsh in Glen Carnoch: note the deer in the middle distance

Looking back down past the deer towards Loch Nevis. Note the mere ghost of a path I was following

I found crossing the marsh not so much the moral low point of my journey, as the moment when the sheer wildness and remoteness of this terrain, came home to me. Fall over badly here, walking alone, and even sprain your ankle, much less break your leg, and you’d be in a world of hurt. There’s no mobile connectivity. At best, at this time of year there might be twenty-odd people a week through here, and raising the alarm, without satellite telephony, would only be after 6-7 hours walk from here. Last year in the Cairngorms, I found the scale of the wilderness there similarly daunting. This West Highlands terrain is more intimate and familiar than the Cairngorms, resembling as it does the Lake District or North Wales, but this particular stretch was the exception, and that sense of intimacy deserted me. It was almost frightening.

Halfway across the marsh, I spied a stag and his harem of does, right in my path. I was concerned that the stag would get edgy and jealous if I came too close, and I tried to give them a wide berth, which wasn’t easy in a marsh. I’d been hearing rutting stags all the way from Glenfinnan. As I pondered the way forward, the deer moved out of my way. I spotted the footbrdge which I needed to cross. The scale of the landscape was so great that I had not seen it sooner. Soon after, I spotted the Englishwoman and her partner some way off course, keeping to the right up the valley. There was nothing I could do about it. I became conscious that I was not even carrying a whistle.

The bridge at Sourlies is new, having been erected in 2019 after the old one presumably collapsed or washed away. In October, one might ford this river only with the greatest possible care, and to do so alone would be foolhardy. Crossing, one then hikes up to the ruins of Carnoch, a substantial village or even township. Strange and ghostly it seemed me under that lowering sky. A substantial community once lived here.

The ruins at Carnoch
The ruins at Carnoch

From Carnoch, the path lies slow and steady uphill to 575m, back and forth in neat zigzags, to the col which is marked only by a small cairn. This morning’s walking, from Sourlies to this col, has been the summit, the climax, the crux, of the whole three days from Glenfinnan. A propos of the wilderness situation, the guy Dave had shown me earlier, some form of satellite-based emergency position-indicating device, for use in such country as this. I may have to consider carefully, obtaining something of that nature.

And on down into Mam Meadail and the rough bounds of Knoydart. The path was straight and true, steadily downhill and on the right of the river, but ever wet and muddy underfoot. Quite some way down – it is not obvious on the OS map, and so is a relative innovation of recent times – the path becomes a rather obtrusive unmade road. There is evidence of digging machinery having been here; the road is graded and passable with great care in a 4-wheel drive vehicle.

Over the top and down towards Inverie
The graded road lower down in Gleann Meadail

The valley narrows into what is almost a gorge as it passes Torr an Tuircc on the right. There is a footbridge and a ford for the tracked vehicles used to make the road. From here, on the left of the river through pleasant woodland, into the wider valley of the Inverie River, to another more substantial footbridge. Thence onto a pretty useful unmade road, past a monument on a hillside. Then – again the OS map has not caught up with reality – past a blasted wasteland of harvested plantation, all giant grey tree stumps and waste timber. I continued along a high forestry road until reaching the edge of the land owned by the Knoydart community, where there was good signage. Along the side of some woods, which were somehow reminiscent of the Dark Peak, and then left, in spitting rain, down a path beside a babbling brook, down to the road.

Down the Inverie River, past the monument to Inverie. The distant mountains are the Isle of Skye.
A substantial road here but I had to come off it to give these horned cattle a wide berth

The West Coast atmosphere here is very strong. These houses and lanes of Inverie very strongly resemble the settlement at Kinloch on Rum, as well they might. I walked out towards the campsite, passing as I did so, a mobile home. As I passed, two little girls leaned out of the window to tell me that the campsite was cold and wet and that there was a bunkhouse. Bemused, I stopped for a moment, and their father appeared to shush them, telling me that the campsite was fine. This pleasant-mannered Englishman sold me a place in the Knoydart Foundation bunkhouse nonetheless, for £22, and with that I was well pleased. The bunkhouse was great: comfy bed, superb showers. I had a cup of tea and sat in a lovely lounge, very high-ceilinged and gloomy. A fire crackled and two visiting old Lancashiremen sat chatting. I made myself some supper in the kitchen, and then walked out through the damp autumn leaves to the Old Forge, the “most remote pub in mainland Britain”.

Today, to walk through from Glenfinnan, though objectively a tremendous achievement, is not unusual. I was the first of nine people to cross today from the Sourlies bothy. This evening, all nine of those people were in here – myself, the couple from Edinburgh, the two guys from Manchester, and the four Dutchmen. Five of us sat down for drinks, and we had as remarkable and pleasant a time of fellowship with strangers, as ever I had.

“Somebody left us whisky
And the night is very young
I’ve got some to say and more to tell
And the words will soon be spilling from my tongue”

(“When ye go away“, Mike Scott)

Local recommendations: I stayed at the Knoydart Foundation bunkhouse. I had refreshments in the Lochaber Cafe in Fort William. I also had coffee at the Knoydart Pottery and Tearoom. Transport back to the mainland in Mallaig was with the helpful and professional Western Isles Cruises.

I would not recommend going on that route without trail poles, waterproof trousers and gaiters. The weather was unseasonably mild, so I didn’t use gloves or a hat at all. I used a waterproof copy of OS “Outdoor Leisure map” #398, Loch Morar and Mallaig, as there does not appear to be a Harvey’s Mountain map of the area.

Inverie
Knoydart receding

On foot across the Lakes: from Kirkstone Pass Inn to Great Langdale

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About eighteen months ago I went to the Lakes for a bit of wild camping. In the final paragraph of my trip report here, I wrote this: “had I known that public transport in the Lake District was so comprehensive and so well co-ordinated, I would never have brought the car at all. From where I live in East Surrey, the train would be about the same journey time, maybe slightly quicker, and a good deal less tiresome than trudging up and down the M40 and the M6. The train might cost a good deal more than the cost of the fuel – but as any fule kno, the cost of fuel isn’t the true or full cost of motoring.“

I journeyed to Windermere by train. Leaving my home in East Surrey just before 0700, I was in Windermere just after noon. It is the Pendolino tilting train that makes this worthwhile and possible, from Euston to Kendal in three hours. The cost was not excessive at £133 return in standard class. After a scotch egg and a bottle of pale ale sat in a sun-soaked corner in Windermere, I took bus 508 up Kirkstone Pass, for £5.10, with a very cheerful and friendly driver who said, “It’s a while since I’ve driven this route. Let’s hope I can remember it”. There were two other passengers.

At the Kirkstone Pass Inn I hopped off in bright sunshine. As I was rigging my bag for hiking, seven or eight motorcycle warriors of one tribe or another roared through on their throaty Harley-Davidsons. It was 2pm. Grinning and confident in physical fitness, I set off up the hill, and was on the first top, Red Screes (776m). From there, along to Scandale Pass and little Scandale Tarn. Here there was a squall and in five minutes I went from using a sun hat to wearing gloves. That’s the Lake District for you – never underestimate the mountains. Further on, to Dove Crag, Hart Crag and finally Fairfield (873m) whence I arrived at 5.10pm. I’d been this way before, some time in the 1990’s. Here you can see the difference between winter and summer conditions:

The first time I was on Fairfield was in shouting rough conditions in about 1979 or 1980, with a school party on a YHA trip. It would hardly be allowed now. From there, down to the somehow ever-gloomy Grizedale Tarn. It is a long way down. Another location with deep memory for me, from that same YHA trip, only the second or third time I’d ever visited the Lakes.

It was with some difficulty that I found a place to pitch my tent. The aspect was geographically similar to that tarn in the Cairngorms (Loch nan Stuirteag) where I’d experienced difficulties last November. A high tarn flowing east down into a wild valley, no obvious camp ground at the outfall and a rising wind. But, a place to camp I found, by the babbling brook, and soon enough it was supper time: fresh tortellini and a tin of 8% stout. I was drowsy; I hardly thought at all. I was in bed asleep well before 9pm. I found that lying in my sleeping bag in the tent, listening to the babbling of the brook, I could be in a place where I was not thinking about anything: awake, but barely even conscious.

I was wide awake by 6a.m and set off at 8a.m, tent dry, ready for adventure. I was on Dollywaggon Pike before 9.30a.m, and from there to Nethermost Pike (891m) and onto Helvellyn (969m) before 10a.m. The first and strongest of the day-trippers were already there, some Scotsmen with good camera equipment. Absolutely stupendous visibility!! Just look at these below. I spent some time talking to the Scotsmen, reflecting that the last time I was here was in winter conditions in 1997.

Ullswater
Striding Edge from an unusual angle
Swirral Edge, Red Tarn, and almost the entire length of Ullswater in the distance

And then, down, through the long morning. Although earlier on there had been few enough people on the mountain, I passed many dozens of folk toiling up the long and arduous ascent of Helvellyn from the Thirlmere side. Why would anyone climb Helvellyn from that side? A dreadful slog, it is. I suppose the ascent from the Patterdale side, involving as it must, either Swirral Edge or Striding Edge, is not for everyone. And not for me, is that steep downhill to Thirlmere: by the time I got to the valley floor, about 11a.m, I was tired and I had stubbed toes. It was very warm and sunny – again, absolutely delightful conditions for photography.

I was starting to think, where will I fill up on water? Odd to be in a reservoir valley, yet for there to be no instantly available drinking water. Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink…there was a long and somewhat tiring slog through admittedly delightful woods up along the eastern shore of the reservoir, as far as the dam, where I stopped for lunch. Boots off, charge my devices, and sit in a sun-soaked corner. Lunch was bread and butter, cheese, tomatoes, and a little Chorizo sausage. An orange, some chocolate and some trail mix. I drank the remainder of my water. Now I really needed to fill up.

As I set off again, a trio of hikers passed me, two young women and a young man, all festooned with clanking cups and pans and camping equipment hung on their rucsacs. I confess I don’t like it for there to be any stuff attached to the outside of my rucsac. I prefer the clean lines of climbers’ rucsacs and generally don’t even do side-pockets if I can avoid it. One of the girls stopped to chat. It seems that they perhaps, did not realise when they arrived last night, that camping is strictly prohibited on the Thirlmere valley floor. I was just pleased to hear someone speak in a Lancashire accent, whatever this youngster was telling me.

At Armboth, I managed to fill up my water bottles, though I deemed it necessary to add purifying tablets. Onwards and upwards literally; the second ascent of the day, from Thirlmere up over the moor to Watendlath. I shouldn’t have cared to come through here in claggy conditions; the moor, as well as being boggy, was pathless and featureless; one should find oneself very soon resorting to the compass in poor visibility. Initially it was a very pleasant walk through steep meadows with unusual flowers, leading up onto a rather boggy moor. I found this hard going as it was now mid-afternoon and I was carrying 3kg of additional water. And so it was that for the first time in my life I found myself visiting the little hamlet of Watendlath, nestled in a hanging valley between Borrowdale and the Thirlmere valley. There was a tea rooms, and I stopped for a pot of some of the best tea I’ve had for ages, along with some rather nice tea bread. It was 4pm.

From Watendlath, one skirts the eponymous tarn and sets off up a good bridleway to Rosthwaite in Borrowdale. This was an ancient, traditional and much-trod road. It made me think of those many passes of Lakeland through which there is no tarmac road. Sticks Pass across these very moors. The Walna Scar Road between Coniston and Dunnerdale. The Black Sail Pass from Wasdale to Ennerdale. The Scarth Gap between Ennerdale and Buttermere, and the biggest and most important of them all perhaps, the central pass of the Lake District, Sty Head between Borrowdale and Wasdale. There will be others. I came down towards Rosthwaite late afternoon, again, in glorious sunshine, with the aforementioned Sty Head pass visible in the distance, as well as the bright specks of distant cars in the Honister Pass reflecting the sunshine. And all the time, the sound of lambs, and occasional cuckoos.

Sty Head is the notch in the middle of this picture, with the dark mountain behind it.

At Rosthwaite I stopped at about 5.20pm for a pint of ice-cold lager, primarily so I could sit in range of WiFi and update my wife on my location. Though the pint was very welcome, it was secondary to my purpose. Clearly EE don’t have a mast in Borrowdale.

Onwards: first, another tiresome road tramp along around 2km of tarmac, before turning left into the fields again on a path to my final destination today, Tarn at leaves, where I planned to camp. Though at best 2km from the road, it was strongly upstairs, really quite steep. The sun was at my back and though I was flagging towards the end of the long day, I knew I needed to get there. “You’ve got this” I told myself, and I had. I was a little concerned though, that there were no paths onwards from Tarn at leaves. This concern had some justification; the map, as far as it goes in terms of detail (which is not far even on the OS 1:25000 sheet) showed none. But this isn’t the Cairngorms in November. I finally got to the tarn and found it very boggy, going in up to my knees and getting my boots wet right in the last two minutes of an immense twelve-hour day on the hill. But it all dried out quick enough.

I was sat down to my supper quite late – about 8.30pm. For supper I had spicy red lentils, and a chick pea flour pancake – a “faranata” the recipe for which I learned from my son Nat. I can’t be doing with not eating and drinking well when camping wild. To wash my dinner down I had some remarkable and very tasty 8% proof “Sling it out Stout” (though to be fair after that walk of nearly 25km, even Carling Black Label would have tasted like nectar. Well, that’s pushing it a bit, maybe…

The place was well deserted. Though I was happy enough, it reminded me of a sad part of Tolkien. Hurin, released by the devil Morgoth after 28 years in captivity, wanders over the land trying to find the hidden city of Gondolin, whose king Turgon, was once his friend. He knew roughly where it lay, but not exactly. And on some deserted moor, where the wind whistled endlessly through the grass while no-one was listening, he cried out in grief and rage, “where are you, O Turgon, in your hidden halls?” But someone was listening…Morgoth’s hidden servants reported those words back, and the betrayal of Gondolin began.

This tarn is one of those past its former glory, slowly drying out. Slow by no human perspective – it’s climate change alright, but not as we know it. It’s nothing to do with man-made climate change. Tarns like these have been drying out in the Lake District since the ice receded these 10,000 years. There are dozens of them. The word “moss” is often a giveaway, for example, at the Great Moss under Scafell Pike: even a cursory glance at the map tells you there was once a lake there. For all the boggy areas in which went up to my knees when I arrived in the evening, it was a dry camp and a dry strike. After a breakfast of mushrooms, spinach and fresh coffee, I was away again by 8a.m the next morning. What I could not do, is find fresh water to drink. I set off onto the hill with less than a litre of water left, but with a few little oranges and tomatoes.

It was not clear to me where to go from the tarn; I did not want to end up scrambling up and down bands of cliffs: unwise at any time if you’re on your own, a recipe for a coffin or worse if you’re carrying a 20kg rucsac. Once you stumble, down you will go. Don’t stumble!! I pressed on, keeping the dark and seemingly endless (and appropriately named) valley of Langstrath on my left. I remember being in it once on a rainy day, thinking it went on for ever. And I found a fence. Where a man can build a fence, I can safely walk. I followed that fence for quite some way before leaving it, saying farewell as to an old friend, and striking uphill towards Glaramara (783m). I was an hour and ten minutes walking this morning before I encountered a path. That is unusual for the Lakes.

Glaramara unfortunately has a short scramble which I did not recall from last time I was here (which to be fair was 36 years ago when I was a callow youth.) But keeping one’s weight forward works for climbing with a big bag; slightly less unnerving than climbing downward face-out, when the weight and centre of gravity must be kept back to avoid to avoid toppling over and down. I did not expect to see anyone here this early (9.30a.m) on a Sunday morning – way too early for day trippers to get to this location. The summit was deserted and cold. For a short while it was cold enough for me to wear my woolly hat. On the next summit I did in fact meet and have a pleasant chat with a young backpacker, who had camped on the shoulder of Scafell Pike at over 950m above sea level. We spoke of obtaining water; he noted that water flowing in streams off the central massif could be polluted and a problem: he was planning a two-night Mountain Leader Training exam expedition soon, and obtaining water in summer conditions, was a challenge. I was drinking water I’d carried all the way from Thirlmere.

Again onwards to Esk Pike and Esk Hause, the central col and cross-roads of all the Lake District. Also about as far as you can get from a road-head anywhere in the Lakes, although paradoxically enough, probably not the remotest location. Here there were day trippers, mostly up from Seathwaite, Borrowdale. Round here one reflects on the centrality, not of Esk Hause, but of Great Gable. It’s not the highest mountain of course, but it is the central boss, the ice-worn stub of whatever original mountain stood here millions of years ago. Near here I saw some classic “roche moutonnee” (literally “mutton rock”, rock like sheep) whereon there were clear scratches from the ice, quite at odds with the rock’s natural bedding plane, the scratches pointing towards Great Gable in one direction, and down-valley in the other. I do like the landforms left by the glaciers. The hanging valleys, the corries and cols. Truncated spurs. Misfit streams. Terminal moraines. Eskers and drumlins.

Drumlins in Langstrath

Round to Bow Fell, where I started to feel hungry and took lunch. On Bow Fell I encountered an older fellow with his young son, and he was teaching him the names of the summits on the skyline, testing him so he would learn them. I know them, and no-one taught me their names. But I am an older man and I’ve been coming to the Lake District for over forty years. My first trip was in 1977, to the Newlands valley with the Scouts, and we climbed Dale Head in claggy conditions. I remember it fondly. But it is something that would not be permitted today, for two Scouters with no Mountain Leader certification or formal training to take 16 young Scouts on a hike like that.

From Bow Fell, descending carefully, I went down to Three Tarns, where I saw that fellow again with his young son. I was most careful going downhill, though it seemed straightforward enough. I became aware that having climbed Bow Fell half a dozen times at least, I’d never come down this route, only up it. From Bow Fell, at a little after 2pm, I went down The Band, increasingly footsore, until I found myself very slow and very tired at Stool End Farm, about 3.30pm. A child was playing in the farmyard as I passed through, and my hike was over.

The geeky stuff

On day 1 I walked 9.57km; on day 2, 24.46km, and on day 3, I walked 14.28km, to a total of 48km in just a bit less than 21 hours total. On the second day, the 24km was taken over 9 hours and 49 minutes and involved four separate ascents, three from the road.

I used an Osprey Aether Pro 70 which weighed 14kg laden with no food or water. Add to that around 3.7kg of water, 900g of beer and all my food, means that at the start I was packing somewhere between 20kg and 21kg. This is a lot less than I was carrying with my previous rucsac which was about 10 litres larger but a good deal heavier. I’ve written about this before.

I slept in an MSR Elixir 2 tent, and used an Alpkit Skye High 700 4-season down bag, a silk liner, and a Thermarest self-inflating mattress. I used a small Trangia 27 and a small (750ml) metal bottle of bioethanol. I carried gloves and mittens (and used the gloves), a woolly hat and a sun hat (and used both), Goretex waterproof trousers (didn’t use) and Goretex gaiters (did use). I carried about 800g of Lithium battery power packs as well as a cellphone and a smart watch. Spare clothes, waterproof coat, fleece jacket, first aid kit, small pair of field glasses, and a few other bits and bobs, made up the kit list.

I found the Aether Pro too small for my purposes and the tent had to be strapped to the outside. But the extremely light weight of the Aether Pro carries all before it – I love that aspect of it. After a day or so I became adapt at re-packing and found things fitted better, and eventually the tent fitted inside. I have not yet had the Aether Pro out in heavy weather, so I don’t know how waterproof it is without a rain cover.

Fifty-two shades of…something better than grey

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Well I’ve done it! I’ve read fifty-two books this year! I think I can be proud of that. Some of them I have even reviewed properly. We’ll not go through them all in excruciating detail here, but we will discuss broadly, my year’s reading. I never set out to read a book a week, but I did set out for sure, to read many dozens of books in the year.

Of the 52, 15 of them were in my Kindle – I can do both paper books and e-reading. Eight of the books were re-reads. A few of those only, will I highlight. Nicholas Monsarrat’s “The Cruel Sea” which I re-read after seeing the film one Sunday afternoon. C.S Lewis’ “The Great Divorce” remains one of my favourite reads, being an account of a man who dreamt of going on a day trip to Heaven – from a certain another place. Another re-read was R.A Heinlein’s “The moon is a harsh mistress”, at one level, a story about a rebellion in a prison colony in 2075: at another, the greatest manifesto for libertarian political views, you will ever read. Eighteen of the 52 books were fiction – an oddly low number, although it just means that my interests have been well satisfied by non-fiction.

I started the year reading Dr J.H. B Bell’s “A progress in mountaineering”. Bell, as a 16-year old in 1910, cycled 47 miles from Newtonmore to the foot of Ben Nevis, and climbed Nevis alone. And then he cycled back 47 miles again: the account does not make it clear if he cycled 90+ miles in hobnail boots, or if he climbed Nevis in plimsolls. What seems clear, is that when compared with our elders, we have become a nation of wuss.

I enjoyed Jonathan Nicholls’ “Kittyhawk down”, a well-researched story about RAF pilots in the Western desert during WWII. In February I also read Murray Rothbard’s short pamphlet “The Anatomy of the State” (Murray Rothbard also wrote “The fatal conceit” about the errors of socialism), and a book called “The road to Mecca” by Muhammed Asad, a Jewish convert to Islam, who later became a senior diplomat for the government of Pakistan. In March I read Robert Winder’s “The hidden springs of Englishness”, and started Neil Sheehan’s “A bright shining lie” reviewed here – if you read one book about Vietnam, make it this one.

My sister sent me an old copy of Rich Roll’s “Finding Ultra” about an overweight man who turned his life around and became one of the fittest ultra-marathon runners in the world. As much for the appendices on plant-based diet, did I find that book interesting. William Wordsworth’s original travel guide to the Lake District proved oddly relevant centuries after it was written. Having tried and failed to source a copy of Varlam Shalamov’s rare Kolyma Tales, instead I read Hugo Jacek-Bader’s excellent “Kolyma diaries” and “White fever”, about travels in Eastern Russia – startling stuff about a very different world.

I read some science-fiction: Amongst others, Paul McAuley (“The war of maps”), Iain M Banks (“The Algrebraist” – again), an old Keith Laumer novel and two works of the modern writer Adrian Tchaikovsky. Also Heinlein – “Glory Road” (is that even sci-fi??) and “Harsh mistress” as already mentioned. Becky Chambers’ “The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet” I review here.

I read three books about India: Shashi Tharoor’s (perhaps understandably) bitter and twisted “Inglorious Empire”, William Dalrymple’s account of the East India Company entitled “The Anarchy”, and finally Katie Hickman’s “She-merchants, buccaneers and gentlewomen: British women in India”. All very informative and enabling one to gain a more accurate perspective of world history. The lesson from Shashi Tharoor’s “Inglorious Empire” is that bitterness and negativity, however arguably justifiable, is deeply unattractive.

I have read much about America: I am a fan of America. I believe in what America stands for, though it seem to be in trouble in these times and full of vice and failings. Robert Kaplan’s “Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America’s Role in the World”, reviewed here, proved very interesting at the start but perhaps a little disingenous towards the end. A great interest of mine is American history, particularly the westward expansion. I read Bernard Devoto’s; “1846: the year of decision” and John Anthony Caruso’s “The Appalachian Frontier” , was well as several of Dee Brown’s books – one on the Fetterman Massacre, the other on women in the wild west. Dee Brown’s greatest and most famous book, all should read: that is “Bury my heart at Wounded Knee”, an account of the destruction of the native American tribes.

Later in the year I read Tim O’Brien’s “The things they carried” – the Vietnam war as seen through the lens of what soldiers carried with them. One soldier carried a pair of his girlfriend’s tights as a neckscarf, and wore them even after she dumped him. Also, I read Stephen Hough’s “The Great War at sea” – most informative – and Alice Roberts’ “Tamed – ten species that changed our world”. Self-explanatory title there, and rather a lot of detailed biology which I had to skip.

I read Ed Husain’s troubling account of journeys in certain cities in the UK – “Among the mosques”. In order to get published, Ed Husain has to be upbeat and positive about what is happening with Islam in the United Kingdom today, but I find that he can’t possibly be as naive as he comes across in his writing. A deeply worrying travelogue.

Tim Butcher wrote “Blood River”. The age of great explorers, opines one of the reviewers, is not dead. Butcher attempts with only partial success to navigate overland by motorcycle and boat, from the eastern Congo through to the Atlantic coast. The Congo is a messed-up place, and it is deeply messed up for a number of very complicated reasons. It will get worse – much worse. Certain important minerals essential for modern Lithium-ion batteries, required for what some people call “the energy transition”, are most easily sourced in the Congo. In the coming decades the extraction of those minerals, to salve the western conscience and enable electric cars, will do as much damage to Africans in the Congo as King Leopold ever did in his extraction of rubber in the early 20th century.

I read a useful and informative biography of Sir William Stanier by the ever-readable and prolific railway author O.S Nock. This one I found in an excellent second-hand bookshop in Bridport. I read Ryzard Kapuchinsky’s “Imperium” about Soviet Russia – including an unforgettable two-page interlude on how to make peach brandy. What drives my reading, is this – not what is in plain view, but what is not. Sometimes something tangential – a fact or anecdote of paramount importance or of deep interest, is almost literally found “in between the lines”.

I ended the year with David Halberstam’s “The Coldest Winter”. This is a brilliant account of the Korean War. Another great Pulitzer prize winning author covering vast sweeps of American culture and history. Though some of the descriptions of battles are a little too detailed for me, what made the book is the wide arc of history, the bigger picture. In a book about Korea, I learned much about the “New Deal” and the life and times of Franklin Roosevelt. I learned about changes to domestic politics in the USA that are still very much of importance today. I learned about McCarthyism, and also about Douglas MacArthur – a horribly fascinating, perhaps deservedly reviled, but nonetheless important 20th century figure. What’s it like to have no self-doubt at all? Lack of self-doubt is not one of my qualities.

Earlier in the year, I chanced across Francis Rossi & Rick Parfitt’s “Just for the record”, being an autobiography of Status Quo. This rock autobiography was a disappointment for me; it was potentially great story written in the most perfunctory manner. You would think that lyricists could write! No, obviously not. One thing I recall though is Rick Parfitt writing of himself as a teenager (when his guitar teacher patronised him) “No-one calls me laddie“. See my point above about lack of self-doubt.

Over Christmas I was given “Rainbow in the dark”, the autobiography of Ronnie James Dio. We learn that as a boy he swore to himself that one day he would headline at Madison Square Garden, in his own name – and he did! A readable enough tale of ambition fulfilled, of the virtues of hard work and persistence, and of some of the other less agreeable habits of rock ‘n roll stars. Reading it, I’d like also to read a biography of the guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, if and when such a book becomes available.

This is for balance, for unfortunately, Dio’s account of those years is somewhat self-serving. It is a shame, for I regard him as a great lyricist, and the distinctive sound of his voice, be it in the heavy metal music of Rainbow, or Black Sabbath, formed a background to my youth.

The full list here:

Chris Anderson The official TED guide to public speaking
Paul McAuley The war of maps
J. H B Bell A Progress in mountaineering
Iain M Banks The Algebraist
Jonathan Nicholls Kittyhawk Down
Murray Rothbard Anatomy of the state
Muhammed Asad The road to Mecca
Robert Winder The Last Wolf: the Hidden Springs of Englishness
Adrian Tchaikovsky Cage of souls
Nicholas Monsarrat The Cruel Sea
C.S Lewis The Great Divorce
Neil Sheehan A bright shining lie
Jacek Hugo-Bader Kolyma Diaries
Rich Roll Finding Ultra
William Wordsworth The Lakes
Keith Laumer Doorstep
Jacek Hugo-Bader White Fever
Shashi Tharoor Inglorious Empire
Robert D. Kaplan Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America’s Role in the World
Ryzard Kapuchinsky Imperium
Dee Brown The Fetterman Massacre
Bernard Werber Empire of the ants
William Smethurst Writing for television
William Dalrymple The Anarchy
Sven Hassel Court Martial
Becky Chambers The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Bernard DeVoto 1846:The year of decision
Len Deighton Blitzkrieg
Dee Brown The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West
John Anthony Caruso The Appalachian Frontier
Larry McMurtry Lonesome dove
Larry McMurtry Dead man’s walk
Larry McMurtry Comanche Moon
Francis Rossi & Rick Parfitt Just for the record – autobiography of Status Quo
Michael Bonavia The birth of British Rail
R.A Heinlein Glory Road
R.A Heinlein The moon is a harsh mistress
O.S Nock William Stanier
Katie Hickman She-merchants, buccaneers and gentlewomen: British women in India
Stephen Longstreet War cries on horseback
George Orwell Animal Farm
Ed Husain Among the mosques
Richard Hough The Great War at sea
Tim O’ Brien The things they carried
Tim Butcher Blood River
C.S Lewis That Hideous Strength
O.S Nock The Settle and Carlisle railway
Adrian Tchaikovsky Children of time
Alice Roberts Tamed – ten species that changed our world
Jeff Long Deeper
David Halberstam The coldest winter: America and the Korean war
Ronnie James Dio Rainbow in the dark

Backpacking in the Cairngorms

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Part 1: To the Highlands by Caledonian Sleeper

When I began my journey from East Surrey at 1853 on a Wednesday evening, it was with a heavy heart, for a number of reasons. A lovely old fellow we all knew was dying; he did in fact go home, early on the Thursday morning. A little later, arriving at Euston, I went for a pint in that favoured spot, the Doric Arch at Euston station. This marked the start of my holiday. Later, as I boarded the sleeper train, there was an oddly sudden and very heavy rain shower. My wife informed me that this rain was quite extreme back in Oxted, shorting out house electrics and causing minor flooding.

Arriving in Inverness, I was straight into gloves – it was one of those cold and blustery mornings. The train was almost an hour early. I recommend the Caledonian Sleeper; it is costly, but good value for money when you look at what you’re getting – return travel from London to Scotland, and two nights accommodation. You can of course just buy a seat rather than a berth, and sit up all night. This costs maybe £100 return and would be pretty much the equivalent of taking a 12-hour flight in economy. Sooner you than me: I say, what price money? If a journey’s worth going on, it’s worth going on in comfort.

Inverness is a long way from London and indeed, a long way from Edinburgh. The atmosphere is very different. I started by taking coffee and a breakfast roll in the bus station cafe. You can’t beat a bus station or train station cafe; no-one cares how smart or untidy you are, or how big your bags are. As a very tall man, I do sometimes value not being noticed.

To the co-op to pick up some groceries: I bought bread, butter, cheese, tomatoes, little oranges, an onion, fresh spinach, chocolate, fresh tortellini, and water. I carried in from home, coffee, sugar, spices and salt and pepper, porridge oats, red lentils, gram flour, and chorizo sausage, and also a trail mix of “date, nut and seed balls” – these were absolutely superb. Thence, by cab to the airport to pick up a rental car. Then I motored back into town, swiftly over Slochd and down into Glen Feshie, to park up at the road head and prepare for hiking. Leaving home, my rucsac was 16kg: now with food for three days and water, it must have approached 20kg.

date, nut and seed balls

Part 2: Glen Feshie to Glen Geusachan – across the Great Moss

After a climb through some pleasant woods, the route to Carn Ban Mor goes up the left-hand side valley of the Allt Fhearnaghan. I was feeling very fit and strong as I climbed, and I did notice far more snow than I had thought there would be. This seemed to be more than the Autumn icing-sugar dusting of snow I had anticipated, and was closer to real winter conditions. Up onto the Great Moss, I did not go to Carn Ban Mor, and also made the error of leaving the track, and thus wading through heather and fresh snow occasionally drifting a foot deep. It was blustery, showery weather. One moment, I could see Angel’s Peak and Cairn Toul, the next, there’d be a squall and a snow shower. I made my way to the summit of Tom Dubh – just a slight top in the midst of the Great Moss, though at 918m as high as most Lake District summits.

View from Tom Dubh

From Tom Dubh, downwards into an area of fens, marshes and little tarns where I found myself going in circles and doubling back away from half-frozen watercourses I could not possibly ford. It was an oddly blue-grey world, and the snow started to pile down. I got on down to Loch Stuirteag, where I had hoped to camp! This was a wild and inhospitable place, wholly unsuitable for camping in anything but summer conditions. In any case, a howling wind was at my back; I sought in vain for shelter. Lower down, at the very top of Glen Geusuchan, I thought I found shelter, and laid my tent out in a flat spot. But the outer was nearly torn from my hands in a violent gust. What was I thinking of? I should have been in grave trouble had I stayed there. I packed up again and struggled on downwards into a glen of deep, trackless heather. I fell over and picked myself up again; I found myself on the edge of steep slopes down into the river; my feet fell into hidden water; I stumbled, carrying 20kg. To be fair, I had bought a new rucsac, an Osprey Aether Pro 70, and it was an exceptionally good carry. Nearly 2kg lighter than my previous rucsac, this one sat very comfortably and caused me no problems at all.

I could find nowhere to get out of the wind. I didn’t feel desperate, but it was quite a desperate situation. Darkness was impending; I was already tiring. I could not realistically make it to the Courrour Bothy in daylight. I should have been left floundering uphill through the trackless heather, in the dark and the storm, trying to find Courrour – an unlit speck in the mountain fastness.

Eventually I found a place in the river bed – can I pitch a tent on sand and pebbles? Yes. At least this place was sheltered by an old river bank, a six-foot wall of peat and heather, and was as out of the wind as I could find. I struggled with the wind whilst getting pitched, and pitched the tent outer first, though it wasn’t actually raining at that point. Almost the last thing I did outdoors as darkness fell (apart from getting water from the river) was collecting heavy stones to pile onto the guys and tent pegs. Well that I did so now rather than in the dark. I had a good camp – I cooked dinner, ate, and turned in soon after. I certainly slept some, though the noise of the wind and the frequent rain showers kept me awake much of the time.

I was awake at 5a.m when the storm reached its crescendo. Lucky I was that it had not been earlier. The wind redoubled in strength and tore out the pegs on the windward side of my tent, though the guy-line held. This made the outer tent flap in the wind unto destruction, unless it was fixed. The noise of the tent flapping wildly in the gale, particularly in the dark, could easily induce panic if you allowed it to. I managed to fix it from the inside, with rocks and moist sand. Then the pegs on the lee side came out, then on the windward side again. Four or five times I had to jam the pegs back in again, getting wet sand all over my hands and in the inner tent. By this time I was awake and dressed for the day and had started to pack up against the possibility of ultimate catastrophe. I did manage to make porridge and coffee, and dress a pre-existing cut on my forefinger, whilst using one of my trail poles to keep one peg in place on the lee side of the tent. This was a remarkably difficult moment and I seemed to get through it without too much trouble. The tent flapped; I was somehow able to rise above doing so. Panic, worry or getting things wrong was just not an option in these conditions: everything had to be done quickly, methodically, correctly, and in the right order. I packed up, dropped the inner, and took down the outer, but by this stage as daylight strengthened the storm ebbed; the worst of the squall was over.

From Achlean to my camp on Geusachan Burn at around 974943, was about 17km, which took about six hours. It is a very great shame, but buried somewhere in the sand of that river bank, or blown off into the wilds, there is a small slice of thin flexible polypropylene chopping board, bright blue, about 6″ x 6″ – for I never saw that again. Breaks my heart to leave litter, but the wind must have carried it away. There was some slight damage to the ends of my tent poles, which was easily fixed.

Part 3: Glen Geusachan to Glen Feshie

Let’s look at the positive – remember that bit in “Apollo 13”? “what have we actually got on this spacecraft that works?” …er, let me get back to you on that, chief…actually quite a lot. I was warm, dry, clean, my kit was packed and complete and dry, I’d had a hot breakfast and even some coffee. The world was at my feet.

Glen Guesachan at dawn

In the glorious light of dawn, I walked out of the side glen and round into the Lairig Ghru. Fording streams and rivers is a serious challenge in the Cairngorms – it is rarely an issue in the Lake District. One cannot ford the Dee even this high up, certainly not in cold weather, though one might try in high summer. I had to detour all the way up the the Courrour Bothy to cross the river. It was an uphill slog through heather, with only the occasional hint of a path. I reached Courrour on a bright and pleasant morning, about 10a.m.

Courrour

I crossed the Dee on the footbridge, and had brief converse the only hiker I saw for two days, an older man from Edinburgh. He was in for the day to climb the Devil’s Point and Cairn Toul. Approaching Courrour at 10a.m in late October, he must have made a very early torchlit start from the Linn of Dee – that’s a long walk in. God only knows what time he started from Edinburgh! He did mention that there had been driving rain on the drive in – probably about the time my tent was getting hammered by the gale.

Bod an Deamhain – “the Devil’s Point” (although I understand “point” is a Victorian euphemism for another quite different word beginning with P.)

I powered on down the valley, consciously keeping the pace fast. I was fortunate in being very fit: when backpacking, many issues conspire to slow you down. Hips hurt, shoulders hurt, feet hurt, blisters, hungry, thirsty, exhausted etc etc. The last of these, when you’re very fit, is almost an irrelevance. Walking at 4km/hour all day long while carrying 20kg becomes merely doable rather than requiring a mighty effort.

A chopper searched the surrounding summits as I walked south. Early afternoon, I came into phone range and also into sight of the White Bridge across the Dee. I saw a couple with a pushchair and a dog – I didn’t realise how near the Linn of Dee car park was at that point – about three miles away. I saw two estate workers. The next part of my route lay for many miles along unmetalled roads, and in fact I was passed by a car once.

To the Red House, and on up the Geldie Burn – though no burn this, but another wide and deep river unfordable in cold weather or winter conditions. The Geldie Burn is technically a “misfit stream”. The valley in which it lies is glacial in origin, not carved by this or any river. Geldie Burn has enormous relict banks indicating that at some point in the geological past, when the ice melted, it must have been ten, a hundred times bigger than it is now – a torrent like unto Niagara.

Through the golden afternoon over lovely brown moorland, and endless path, which, once the un-made road ended, was never less than a clear trail. From the White Bridge, up the Geldie Burn and to the unnamed waterfall at the head of Glen Feshie, at least 12 kilometres. I started to experience muscle pain in my left shoulder; I found that Voltarol brought very swift and very effective relief.

Sometime before arriving at the unnamed waterfall, I fell over. I was negotiating some deep and evil-smelling pools of mud in one of the ruts of the road. Whatever…I twisted and slipped. Or I slipped and twisted…carrying 20kg, once you’re going down, you’re going down – there’s no stumble and recover with that kind of weight on your back. I ended up on my back in a foot deep puddle of thick, black runny mud. Desgustang! With some difficulty I got myself up and out again. Strangely enough, I personally was untouched – wearing a Goretex raincoat, gaiters and overtrousers, no actual mud penetrated to my clothes. My rucsac took the brunt of the mud and was very dirty. If I had a minor criticism of the light grey colour of the Aether Pro, it would be that the straps and hip-belt show the dirt very easily.

This remarkable waterfall was, to quote C.S Lewis, “a terror in the woods for miles around”. It was audible long before it could be seen. It has no name on the map; it is comparable to High Force in Teesdale, and were it within a hundred yards of a road in England or Scotland, people would drive 100 miles to see it. In the Cairngorms it is at least five hours walk up-hill from the road head in wild and remote Glen Feshie, and probably five hours walk from the car park at Linn of Dee. So almost impossible to access in a day-trip except in high summer. How remote! How excellent that remoteness is.

I was now in the descent into Glen Feshie and ready to look for somewhere to camp. Trees appeared, larch and other kinds. Suitable places to camp emerged, albeit far from water – the river was running in an inaccessible gorge. I had at this point run out of water, so I needed to camp right by a stream. Better yet, there was no breath of wind. I needed to stop a little earlier to allow enough daylight to ensure that my tent was OK after the beating it took this morning.

I found a place by a ford, and camped right next to the path, in as wild and remote a location as ever I have camped in…except for, oh, last night. The tent went up easily and the ground took the pegs well. Once established, I made a faranata – a pancake of chickpea flour, as recommended by my son. On a Trangia stove it worked a treat. For afters, some chocolate and a sip from the hip-flask. To drink I had litres and litres of stream water: slightly brown from peat. There’s no sheep up here – no need for any purification tablets. Though the colour was off-putting, and the water was so cold as to induce a blinding headache, it was like nectar, like Ambrosia, like ice-cold lager. It is a pleasure to be that thirsty and have a pure mountain stream in which to slake that thirst.

On day 2 I walked 30km in approximately eight hours. I used Black Diamond trail poles, Gore-tex gaiters and over-trousers, walking trousers, merino wool base layers, a thick cotton shirt and Berghaus fleece and waterproof coat. I get cold easily these days: a merino wool hat helps, and gloves are a big deal. I had a thin and a thick pair of gloves, and also some heavy mittens. I wore gloves at all times outdoors when walking; up on the plateau I found it necessary to wear all three pairs at once.

Part 4: Glen Feshie

I packed up in good order as the light started to improve, and was ready to hike by a little after 8a.m. I continued down Glen Feshie, through an absolute Eden, a veritable wilderness paradise. When I was a youth in Derby, I borrowed from the local library, an old book about the Cairngorms. And in that book, there was a snatch of an ancient Gaelic poem, which has remained with me ever since: Glen Feshie of the storms, I had the longing, to be in thy shelter…and now I had the pleasure of walking the whole length of this wild glen.

There were high and low spots to my morning’s walk. It took me until noon to walk out to the car, and on the way I got lost in the woods; there was a rain shower, and there was a washed out bridge over a tributary stream. There was much fording and crossing of streams, brushing through vegetation, and climbing up and down along the side of the gorge. For most – but not all – of the way, the path led along an unmetalled road. In places, where the road had been washed away, the path detoured up the mountainside.

On the walk out I found my hips were very sore under my hip belt. So I stopped on the path and took off my pack, and got out the Voltarol. I dropped my trousers without a moment’s thought, in order to put the gel on my hips. I’ve spent two days on the hill and meet one other hiker; I met no-one all day Thursday, and I met no-one after 10a.m on Friday. I camped in the wildest places where there was absolutely no chance of anyone coming past. Yet, no sooner had I dropped my trousers to apply the medicine, a man and a woman appeared from nowhere to walk past me. They never turned a hair. “Morning!”.

“Morning.”

I arrived at the car at noon: It took just under four hours to hike down the valley – a journey I’d estimated would take at least six hours going uphill. And my hike was over.

Kit

I carried approx. 20kg using an Osprey Aether Pro 70. This rucsac is one of the lightest expedition bags available, weighing 1.8kg – which is why I bought it. It feels lightweight, even flimsy, and I admit I was sceptical when it arrived, particularly given it’s relatively high cost. My scepticism lasted only until I got it packed and set off – on the hill it proved durable and a very comfortable carry, a much easier carry than any other rucsac I’ve ever used. This rucsac has replaced a much older Berghaus C7 1 series 65+10, nearly 2kg heavier, but with a good deal greater carrying capacity. I think we can safely say that when the manufacturer Osprey says 70 litres, that includes the hip-belt pockets.

The hip belt tightening arrangements are particularly inspired, and I liked the pockets on the hip belt. I will say, it’s not quite as clever as the manufacturer thinks it is with regard to attaching things to the outside, in spite of a wide range of straps. I could not easily see how to attach trail poles, and I still can’t obviously see how to put an ice-axe on it – the big first rucsac I’ve ever had where this is not completely obvious. Heavy items – tents, tent poles etc – may have the tendency to slide through the straps eventually. Also – as I found when I fell over – because the rucsac is light grey, it does show the dirt, particularly the straps and the hip belt. Getting it back home, it also became the first rucsac I’ve ever had to strip down and wash. Overall though I would highly recommend it.

I used a Trangia 27 (the smaller Trangia). I’ve been using Trangia stoves since the 1980’s and have never had a problem with them, nor been tempted away from them. Durable and reliable if a little heavy and – at least some say – a little slow. Two things I like about the Trangia – it has a low centre of gravity, and all the pans are included as part of the stove. I slept in an MSR Elixir 2 tent using a Rab Alpine Pro 600 down three-season sleeping bag.