1998 Pt 3

Goodbye to Braemar

My final Munro to complete everything in the Braemar area was Carn a' Mhaim which involved another bike ride to Derry Lodge and beyond to the Luibeg Bridge. As I set off I noticed a sign in the car park at the Linn of Dee saying that they are going to 'Phase cycling out' in the area. Firstly I thought that it is a good job that I am getting my cycling in before the ban comes in. Then I thought that the Mar Lodge estate might be shooting themselves in the foot because if you ban cycling then people are more likely to go and rough camp to avoid more than one trip in. There is often friction between estates and walkers, they have rights and we have rights. I think it is just a case of getting a healthy respect for each other. If the estate can show me a good environmental reason for not cycling up a pre made Landrover track then I'd gladly give up the mountain bike. If it is just a case that they do not like cyclists using the roads that they have prepared then they can take one of three actions: (1) Ban it, (2) Charge for it by some form of permit or (3) Look at the over all picture and accept that banning cycling will reduce the number of people in the area, effect the local economy and increase rough camping so therefore allow cycling to be retained.

It was a dull day and it started to rain as I reached the steepest section of the climb up, I managed to haul myself on despite the heaviness in my legs and ever frequent stops to catch my breath. The top was in mist and I had to walk along the entire ridge to convince myself that I was at the summit. On the way down I either made a navigational error, or there was iron in the rock which may have effected the compass, for I ended up on the Coire na Poite which is a very steep section comprising of rock and wet ground over looking the Luibeg Burn. From a distance it looks like a steep set of cliffs with no way up or down. I realised that I had the choice of back tracking or picking my way through the rocks and steep slopes, squelching through the water logged peat and moss ridden terrain. I decided to make my way down the steep face, a face on the angle of a steep staircase without the steps - 'I'll be okay.' I managed about a third of the way, constantly holding to rocks, digging my trekking pole in to gain security. Suddenly I was falling. Things whizzed past me, or so it felt as in fact I whizzed pass them. I accelerated on my bottom and spun through 180 degrees, my arms yearned for a hold. Grasping for anything. Suddenly I stopped. I am on a ledge, moss covered and oozing water like everything else apart from the rock. Water soaked into the join between my glove and my arm, it gave me rapid composure. I realised I was okay and got up, shaken and unsure. I walked to the edge of the ledge and slowly lowered myself back to the stairless case. I looked to my left and saw that if I had not stopped on the ledge I would have shot off the edge of a massive slab of rock and had about a fifty foot fall onto rocks below. I have had numerous minor tumbles on the mountains before, but this was by far the scariest. I had learnt a very important lesson which is don't take risks just to save time. From that point on I resolved to keep that in mind, to listen to those deep inner voices saying 'this does not feel right.'

I enjoyed my stay at Braemar. The length of time I spent there allowed me to feel a little more part of a community, more so than the sometimes false image of a hotel or the excessive tweeness of a B&B - put together by middle aged people with a target market of middle aged people. Getting to know Dave the assistant warden was good, visiting him at his digs in the village. I also made friends with two other hostellers: Tony Wood who I have already mentioned and Mary Spurr a Canadian lady who spent a few nights at the hostel.

Normally I feel very shy in hostels and often find myself skulking about or reading the label on my marmalade jar to avoid catching people's eye. It takes me time, I am not a born traveller - I need time to bond with people, to feel comfortable, accepted, part of it. I can't just invent that for myself in a few nights stay, it has to be longer, stronger. The length of time I spent at Braemar gave me that and I enjoyed it. Sometimes I can have too much of being sociable, during school and degree summer holidays there was a pub we used to meet at on Friday or Saturday evenings, in Chippenham, called the Rose and Crown. In the pub was a fish tank and one of the fish was christened 'Steve' because it would spend ages hiding behind a plant or ornament, suddenly appear, enjoy itself and disappear away again. This was likened, by my friends, to my personality as I would not appear in the pub for weeks on end, then suddenly I would be there, enjoying myself before scuttling off home again.

Goodbye to the east of the A9

Tuesday June the 2nd saw me move on from Braemar and a trip to Glenn Feshie where I was to complete the final two Munros to the east of the A9. My friend Willy, who I called again, said that it sounded like a military campaign. I guess at times he was not far wrong. He is also astute for he asked, "Have you had any accidents then Steve?" He had never asked that kind of thing before, how could he sense that I had had a fall on Carn a' Mhaim? Some people have a knack, an extra sense perhaps, where they raise a subject that is closely relevant to you with no verbal provocation, Willy is one such person. When he worked on the Strathclyde Police Command and Control Project he would have a knack of coming and discussing a topic with us shortly after we had been discussing it amongst ourselves. It became uncanny and we believed that he must have an extra sense, or our office bugged.

I struggled all day with these two, Sgor Gaoith and Mullach Clach a'Bhlair. I took the good path up from Achlean and thought that perhaps a rare bird had been spotted in the area as I passed a few people bird watching. However I did not dwell on this for too long as I had more pressing matters to deal with, there were two Munros to be bagged. After the long haul up a well defined path I broke out on to the broad plateau that makes up this area it hit me just how cold it was. I managed to survive until the top of Carn Ban Mor where I got down below the cairn and temporarily removed my jacket to put my fleece and thick gloves on. This really helped and I could focus on Sgor Gaoith which snouts up from the ridge above the remote Loch Einch. I reached Sgor Gaoith after a total of about three hours walking. I looked towards Mullach Clach a'Bhlair and it appeared very far off. I elected for the very boggy direct route, avoiding the longer tracks until the last half hour of the two and a half hour crossing. From the summit I descended by the track which brought me back into Glen Feshie some two miles south of my starting point. The walk back up Glen Feshie was nice taking in a route by water and through forest.

Is it a hawk? Is it a buzzard? Is it an eagle? No it is a helicopter!

I stayed at Loch Morlich Youth Hostel for the nights of June 2nd and 3rd making the 3rd a rest day. The day consisted mainly of getting a hair cut and buying some extra push together clips so that I could attach my map case and compass to my jacket and rucksack such that they did not flap in my face during conditions of high wind. Both of these jobs were sorted out in Kingussie and I visited the same hairdressers that I had the previous year and was amazed that the lady remembered me. I did reflect that perhaps the "have you been on your holidays yet this year?" question should have been replaced with "have you been on your work break yet this year?"

I drove into Glen Banchor, behind Newtonmore, on Thursday June 4th. This was to walk Carn Dearg and Carn Sgulain, Munros that Barbara and I had to abandon back in April. This time there was no snow so therefore a high chance of success. I took the route along the path to Glenballoch then struck north west up the track along the Allt Fionndrigh stream before heading west through a window in the hillside to emerge in front of the massif of Carn Dearg. From here the going got tough over rough terrain before the pull up on to the ridge and the summit itself. I did conclude another use for the trekking poles, when crossing water they give you an extra few feet of clearance because you can use them to land where your feet would normally land then swing yourself forward on them thus avoiding wet feet. I am such a fan of trekking poles now.

For quite a long part of the walk there was a guy some ten minutes behind me. As he caught me at the top I realised that I'd spoken to him in Glen Feshie on the approach to Sgor Gaoith. I suppose you could say that it is a small world, but not really it was still the same week and we were both Munro bagging. We had a good chat and he was asking me how the Scottish Mountaineering Club validates you before adding you to the lists of Munroists. I said that they do not and just take your word for it. He said "But I could have just got to the end of the road and ticked these three off and turned back." "You are only cheating yourself I guess," I added. It is difficult to fully define cheating in the Munro bagging sense, obviously having never stood at a summit your claim would be cheating but what about taking the cable cars to do Munros where the mountains are on ski ranges? It is always tempting to take this 'helping hand' to get nearer to the summit but I regard this as cheating whereas other walkers regard this as perfectly acceptable. It is all a case of degree I guess, I am perfectly happy to park my car at the most convenient point. A true purist would start from sea level for each walk and where the Munro was bang on 3000 feet they would presumably wait for the tide to be out to be sure. Occasionally I have had the thought of cheating, not that I would but it is one of those horrid little thoughts that go through your head from time to time. It is just like being at a wedding and the vicar says "if any person... for ever hold your peace," you are buttoning your lip whilst your mind is saying 'go on say something.' As a young child I can recall two memorable instances where I cheated and was caught out. They were both at my primary school, the first being in the Maths class. Every Friday morning we had to choose a mathematical task from an array of exercises, each was typed out on a card and you had to select the one you wanted from a carousel type of arrangement. I soon cottoned on to the fact that I could do the same exercise every week and consequently got ten out of ten every time. Even though handing in my work to be marked caused me masses of stress I still continued. Towards the end of the term I thought that suspicions might be becoming aroused so I deliberately made a few errors such that my mark dropped to a more acceptable nine out of ten. I then had to painfully listen to the teacher pointing out the error that I had deliberately inserted. On the last day of term we had to move classes in preparation for the new term. Whilst carrying my tray of personal work across the school playground a gust of wind caught the contents which lifted up in the air before dispersing across the ground. Somebody ran to my aid and helped me pick up the dozen or so identical mathematical exercises! I think I denied it despite the overwhelming evidence.

The second example of cheating was when my family thought that it would be a good idea if I followed in my sister's footsteps and learnt the recorder. A suitable relative was selected to buy me the relevant piece of apparatus for my Christmas present. I can vividly remember unwrapping it on Christmas day and staring at this object of stress and hate. All these holes did not make any sense to me. Thursday, after school, recorder classes did not help me understand this implement of torture any further. I hated the thing so much, I used to mime during the lessons and deliberately try and lose the confounded thing on the way home. My teacher, clearly sensing my lack of ability and attitude, selected me for a solo piece during the school concert. In front of my parents and all my friends and their families I stood on a podium and emitted the most painful series of incoherent squeaks that put paid to any idea of my parents claims "of that's our boy." From these two instances I learnt that cheating was more stress than it was worth and signed up to the saying along the lines of 'if you are not cheating somebody else then you are just cheating yourself.'

Before setting off for Carn Sgulain I took in the superb views across to the distant Geal Charn which I climbed on June the 19th 1997. The walk to Carn Sgulain took about two and a half hours covering a distance of just five miles. I was tired and realised that I was still suffering from my fifteen hour epic walk of the previous Saturday and the fact that the day before last was the fourth of four days on the trot. It was not just physical fitness I was struggling with as I realised that I was having problems with my mental fitness, the fifteen hour epic blew me away mentally as well as physically. The last six hours of that walk were against the clock, having to spend much of the time watching my pace and working out alternative plans to bed down for the night. Despite all this the five miles between the two Munros, following the line of some ancient fence posts which would have been very useful to navigate by had it been misty, made it a lovely day. My mind wandered to matters of philosophy, the solitude of the mountains allowing me to decipher the common denominators that sit behind happiness and unhappiness concluding that a happy and contented life requires:

Having sorted out my philosophy on life I returned my attention to the days walk. From Carn Ballach, a minor bump in the ridge between Carn Dearg and Carn Sgulain, I could see a strange shape on top of Meall a' Bhothain (another minor bump on the walk). As I got nearer I could pick it out as a helicopter. Unfortunately it took off before I could reach it. From the summit I walked out along the Allt na Beinne stream back to my car.

The day brought the final and successful attempt at solving the swinging compass problem. It is so annoying because the compass is essential but in wind it just swings about and is very irritating. To get over this I bought a draw tassel and threaded both pieces of my compass string through it. Then I threaded the loop through the waistband of my rucksack and used the tassel to pull the compass tight against the waistband. Bingo it did the trick.

Killin Again

Once I had completed this walk I set off back to Killin where I had decided to stay for three nights to take in An Stuc (the new Munro that Barbara and I failed to bag on two occasions in April). Also I wanted to do a repeat walk of Beinn Heasgarnich which I felt I may well have failed to reach the summit of when I climbed it the previous year. As I drove down I passed through Aberfeldy and could not resist buying a veggie burger and chips, pure fatness food as opposed to fitness food. As I approached Killin it was a beautiful evening with the sun picking out Ben More at the end of Loch Tay. So wonderful that I stopped for photos. I also got the feeling to do An Stuc would somehow be wrong. Firstly I felt that as Barbara and I failed to do it twice then we should do it together. And secondly that Killin would be a good place to do my last Munro from because the town has a nice atmosphere and there is plenty of accommodation if anybody wanted to join me on the walk. In the event I never walked An Stuc with Barbara nor did I leave it to my last Munro. However, at the time, it was for those reasons that I decided to just do Beinn Heasgarnich on the Friday and one of the newly promoted Munros in Glen Coe on the Saturday.

Friday June the 5th therefore brought Beinn Heasgarnich. I set out after a bad nights rest, the dormitory that I was in at Killin could house up to fourteen people and that was pushing it a bit for a good nights sleep. However I had prevented anybody from taking the bunk above me by spreading my things out to such an extent that I created a personal exclusion zone. To bag Beinn Heasgarnich I decided to do it from the highest point in the road that connects Glen Lochay and Glen Lyon. The highest point is just north of where the pylons cross the road and is marked by a small cairn on the west side of the road. This is the road that I previously mentioned that is maintained by the hydroelectric people and is not marked on road maps. The walk across to Beinn Heasgarnich was straightforward taking just under three hours out and two hours back. I delayed the start because it was raining so hard, this proved to be a good decision because the weather lifted and gave me five hours without rain. So had I missed the true summit of Beinn Heasgarnich the first time round? Indeed I had.

On the Saturday, June the 6th, I decided to return to Glen Coe to do Stob na Broige which is at the south westerly end of Buachaille Etive Mor. I took the same route up as I had the previous year, which is via the scree filled corrie of Coire na Tulaich. It was tough going and very misty. I found out today was the day where some charity was aiming to put a group of people on the top of each Munro at about the same time, consequently Glen Coe was crawling with people. As I walked into the mist line things got very surreal because I could hear voices and the clanks of sliding scree but could not see any physical shapes to take responsibility for the noises. Like workers in a fog bound dockyard. Some novice walkers were descending and a girl asked to borrow one of my poles, I declined because I was going up and she was going down it was unlikely that I would see it again.

Once on the ridge of Buachaille Etive Mor things got a bit tricky as I made a small navigational error and ended up traversing the steep scree slopes of the south side. I went wrong because of the mist, or was it Scots mist; cloud; hill fog or just bad visibility! Certainly bad navigation and when I realised my mistake I headed north to regain the ridge. The detour away from the ridge meant that I had another navigational problem as I had now lost count of the intermediate summits on the ridge, which I was relying on to position myself against the map. Therefore I would have to keep walking and work it out for myself when I got to Stob na Broige. I spoke with one old chap to get an exact fix as to where I was, he had his map upside down and started to talk about peaks on another ridge. Clearly he was going to be of little use because he did not even know which mountain he was on. At the final summit of Stob na Broige I spoke with two other groups of people who had met the old chap and confirmed that he did not have a clue. As I descended I found him sitting on his own, I checked up with him and he said he was now waiting for another group who had said that would guide him off. He clearly should not have been out on the mountains, from the way he spoke I think that he had the first stages of dementia setting in. Either that or he was a decoy weapon employed by the Scottish Mountaineering Club to put people off this newly promoted Munro.

One of the people I had met near the top was part of the group positioning themselves for the charity event. As the mist momentarily lifted, revealing the long drop into the glen below, he was overcome with vertigo. As we were both descending I offered him one of my poles but he declined, so I set off on my own. By this time it was raining heavily but I decided not to put on my over trousers. This was because it was to be my last day of walking and I was feeling just too lazy to take them out of my rucksack.

I descended off the ridge into Lairig Gartain, this time I had company of a chap that I had met a couple of times during the day. We walked back to our cars together so it was nice to have the company and discuss the forthcoming football World Cup. Back at my car I felt very wet and as I slowly removed my sodden things I chatted to a guy who was concerned about his party who were now over three hours late. I offered him a lift to a phone but he turned it down. I changed into dry things and was attacked by midges, obviously the season had just begun so I was glad to be setting off home the following day.

The Canadian Rockies

As planned I spent June watching the World Cup, July working and then set off for Canada. Barbara took me out to the Rockies and we did some great hikes. Initially I was worried about tackling such higher mountains but the set up is much different. It is rare to visit the summits, some being technically difficult to reach, others difficult due to the abundance of trees. Therefore most hikes are trails cut through the trees, maybe taking in a ridge. Navigation is easy on the trails as they are marked. In all a much different experience to Scotland where the lack of trees and trails thrusts you into more wild and lonely territory. Barbara tells me that the Munros are much harder than walking in the Canadian Rockies, height is irrelevant she says - it is the difficulty of the terrain, the weather and the challenge of navigating with rare paths and then ones that often mislead. I am impressed and secretly happy, I am doing something in the Munros that people regard as tough. Apparently Scotland has the greatest change of climate per 1000ft than anywhere else in the world - Scotland is untamed. The other great difference between these mountains is the names, the Scottish mountains are all gaelic in origin and very unphonetic whereas the Canadian Rockies were largely opened up by Anglophones and consequently have easier to pronounce names such as 'Mount Stephen.'

Hob-Nobbing With The Rich And Famous

Later in the year I was browsing through a bookshop in Swindon when I saw a lecture advertised where the polar explorer David Hempleman-Adams would be giving a talk on his recent trip to the North Pole. I duly put my name down and attended the lecture held at the Railway Museum in Swindon. I was very interested in the slide show, of the expedition to the North Pole, and bought a copy of his book 'Walking On Thin Ice'. I asked him to sign it and he enquired if I had any special message to which I said, "To Steve, good luck with the Munros." "They are hard," he said. What a intelligent man I thought, he has climbed the highest mountain on each continent, including Everest of course, and been to every point on the globe that has the word 'Pole' in its title and still thinks that the Munros are hard. I then looked at what he had written: 'To Steve, good luck with the Monroes.' Hmmm.

Munro Count: 167 out of 284

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