free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Cairn of Claise from TyndrumMarch 16 - March 25
Contents
- Auch Estate: A temple under snow
- Loch Lyon Corbetts
- Ben Lawers 5 from the north
- Glen Loch and Ben Vuirich
- Glen Shee hills from the west
From the airplane window I can see Ben Nevis, Ben More, Cruach Ardrain, the Trossachs, the Arrochar Alps. The inconceivable happens: booked months before, I will land right in the middle of a weather-window. From the train this is confirmed. Approaching Tarbert there's Ben Lomond shining above the rugged lochside. I can't wait.
What's that hill in front of me?After a stop at Brodie's in Tyndrum I exit the village along the West Highland Way. Ahead, blocking any view, is a hill. The sky is blue and the hill is close. The cookie jar is open, no-one around. Therefore, not even warmed up from walking through Tyndrum, I leave the rucksack on a hillock and climb Beinn Odhar. The no fuss sweep of its south ridge. Easy. The legs, long held unused in the office, recognize the routine and before long I'm on top. In blazing sunlight, in the company of More, Cruachan, Nevis, Lui, Dorain and Heasgearnich. I look down Loch Lyon but do not recognize those hills yet.
The West Highland Way is wet wet wet. Near Auch the sun has melted the snow away and I walk lazily along the track. The estate is doing some 'development' which sure does not look good yet. It's not the last time I come across seemingly random digging. I walk up Auch Gleann till it gets dark and pitch the tent on the river bank. The moon is out, and bright. Beinn a Casteill looms over me like a giant wave.
- Beinn Odhar from WHW at Tyndrum
- Ben More and Stobinian from Beinn Odhar
In the morning everything is rather wet and grey. Rummaging about in the tent, trying to get organized. Away by eight, sentenced to daylong deep snow. Towards the Achaladair-Mhanach col the snow is half a metre deep, and there's drifts a lot deeper. I leave the pack on the col and eat the fruitloaf my girl made for me. Based on the Irish Barm Brack, it's full of whisky soaked fruits and chopped marzipan. It is of nuclear density, how did it ever get through customs? Inside is a fortune coin, which I clip onto my map case.
Beinn Mhanach takes some perseverance, but higher up the snow gets firmer. On the summit dome some icy patches have developed. The wind is strong and cold, it closes my footsteps within half an hour with a thin snow lid. On the top, the see-through views are wild, bustling cloud drifts by and snow is blown up. Beautiful. Very real.
- Nuclear density cake
Next is one of the main goals of my walk: a visit to Tigh nam Bodach, a pagan shrine halfway Gleann na Cailliche. Down from the col a snowshower envelopes me, and the same recipe of floundering through snow continues. Wish I had taken the snowshoes with me. Peering along the stream and up the slopes I am anxious to find the temple. I know what it looks like and where it should be. It measures only some 1,5m square, 0,7m high. Its small size does not matter because it manifests itself by being very different from anything else. It is a house for several statue-like stones, to worship the Sun God and fertility. At Samhain they are placed inside and the house sealed up. At Beltane (May 1), someone who watches over its wellbeing, opens it up and puts the statues in front. I'm impressed by its serenity and the fact that it has been there for ages. Will a planned Hydro scheme go around it?
Within sight of Loch Lyon I drop down behind a boulder to cook lunch. Bacon and beans. Yummy. A deer-counting helicopter counts me, and I wave. The first bigger river coming from the north is my cue. It leads to Meall Buidhe, the corbett. I pitch the tent on a shoulder somewhat higher up while the sun is still there to dry it off and call it a day. Heasgarnich is the eyecatcher here.
- Tigh nam Bodach, Beinn Mhanach in background
Chant the wordsThere is a general problem with this snow cover. My usual tactic is to follow a path or track on the floor of a glen or corrie, and when I feel like it, go up higher. This time the floor of a glen or corrie is the worst place to be. The river and its tributaries have all their folds and cuttings filled to the brim with windblown snow. The lowest level route available is contouring a hill's flank away from this zone. Tiring! On my way to Meall Buidhe I loose my sunglasses, but know where that would have been so retrace my steps. Thirty minutes of climbing redone. At 650m I reach the highest fluid water and a good starting point for the climb up to Meall Buidhe. On the summit a cairn is built using fencepoles. Love that remoteness. It's cold and I cannot see much of Rannoch Moor, so I descend quickly. After a bite it's on to the next col, the one before Sron a'Choire Chnapanaich. To reach the foot of the summit slopes, a flattish peaty area has to be crossed. Once more a fencepole-cairn. Looking west, north and northeast one sees unknown lumps and a lot of emptiness. I spread my arms, scan all horizons, and chant the magic words SRON A CHOIRE CHNAPANAICH twice. How I sound just like the WH-pronounciation-button-voice. Love this hill. On the col between SaCC and Stuchd an Lochain the weather deteriorates as summits to the south are engulfed in a yellowish grey and Heasgairnich throws up a spindrift really high. I decide against being on an exposed ridge also because I'm getting tired. Not even hundred metres away from the col a snowshower sets in.
- Head of Loch an Daimh, Sron a'Choire Chnapanaich right (summit not visible)
- Stuchd an Lochain from Sron a'Choire Chnapanaich
- This is what you will do this afternoon
The shores of Loch an Daimh look bad news: deep snow and filled streambeds down to the very shoreline, then a fringe of wet blocks, and then the dark grey water, wild horses and all. As an eight year old I was fond of tiptoeing across the blocks of many a French harbour pier. The skill remained, and the two hours of boulderhopping around a stupendous amount of peninsulas are done without frustration. What else can you do eh? The dam looks like a U-boot, seen from the loch. After a mile of roadwalking there's an information panel. Let's make a phonecall to the postoffice, see if there's a B&B down here. No coverage. The sun returns, and lights up Glen Lyon. Postcard beauty. Miles of drystone wall, lots of trees, a winding river. Estate keeper Derek picks me up and takes me to the post office. Just this 2 mile lift saves me from getting there after closing time. I buy food from the shelves, and Becky asks if I would be the one to take away the leftover carrot cake. Yes! And do I have a flask? It is filled with homemade organic mushroomsoup. Would I like a slice of leftover bread with that? Yes I'll relieve you of the entire split loaf. Walking through the fields along the track on the south side of the glen is just bliss, and I'm glad I do not have to cook. No B&B so I wash by the river and put on a clean shirt.
- Loot from Bridge of Balgie Tearoom
- Beware of the Pink Sheep
The end of multifuelNot having cooked in the evening, I only discover the state of my MSR Whisperlite in the morning. I cannot get it to start, even after the usual disassembling and fiddling. All stinks of fuel and nothing works. Yesterday's snow wallowing and boulderhopping have taken their toll, so I might as well take a day off. I hitchhike quickly to Aberfeldy, where Derek the keeper pulls up in front of the small outdoor shop. I buy their only gas canister stove. Look how small it is! Hitchhiking back from a town to some small road is always hard, so it takes hours. I do a lot of roadwalking (10k) in the meantime, but finally end up at Camusvrachan where I was picked up earlier. I go look for a camping spot near the mouth of the grand nameless (!) northern corrie of Ben Lawers. The sheep are bright pink, and I cross the Allt a'Chobhair away from them before pitching on the corner of a wood above Balnahanaid Farm. The stove works like a charm. Multifuel no more. I read 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad. 72 pages of brooding wilderness and the dark side of man.
Lawers 5On march 20 I leave the tent in place, and walk south up the stream a couple of miles to the foot of the left hand ridge of Coire Ban. This is a fine way up Meall a'Choire Leith, the start of the shortest loop to connect 5 or 6 of the Lawers munros. How even spaced they are, how neat this range looks compared to say map 40. Not too deep snow and boulders make for steady progress. At over 850m I am taken aback somewhat by the total whiteness of a walk on snow in mist, but find the cairn. On the connecting ridge to Meall Corannach I am too purist and disregard the footprints of others. I mess around a lot with map and compass in this whiteout (and it doesnt even snow!) and find that cairn too. A steeper, running and glissading descent to a huge boulder for tea. People ask me directions, and I give directions. Even to a mountain guide who does not need them, though his overdressed panting followers might. On Bheinn Ghlas a sort of flash mob crowds my summit pic, some with skis. I quickly descent and ascent to Ben Lawers itself, much quicker than the groups, because they are groups. They talk a lot and echo each others insecurity. Oftne enough I'm not at ease and sometimes downright scared, but I keep my mouth shut and let the fear intensify the walk. Keep to the next ten metres, it clears the mind.
After Lawers' double trig point I'm alone again. The solitude returns. Between Lawers and An Stuc is a small outcrop (Creag an Fhithich), which really confuses me. I wish I could see a path. If slopes are the same in all directions, which one leads to the col and which one leads off the ridge? Time after time the compass is alined with the map. On An Stuc my route is alternate. The steeper east face I'm in no shape or mood to go down. It's two o'clock and I'd like to leave this place after five munros. The north ridge points straight to my tent, now to find the start of it. I do, and soon enough I pop out from under the cloud blanket. Note: the route down An Stuc's north ridge and the traverse southeast under its east face to the col under Meall Garbh can be blocked by a cornice in winter.
- My Lawers five from Beinn Dearg
- Off An Stuc's north ridge
- Praying Hands of Mary, Glen Lyon
An Stuc's north ridge is a quick way off, at a gentle angle, and the crags at the north end are no problem. Lower down I meet the magenta sheep again. The river that separates me from my tent is a lot higher. Cannot spot the stepping stones no more. I cross it across a rather wobbly treetrunk. After bacon and eggs on bread I make an afternoon stroll to the Praying Hands of Mary, a christianized megalithic spot comprising two giant flat mitt-shaped stones standing close together. "Hard to find, till you spot them".
Kneel!Next day it's warmish. I take off the smock whilst going up through the plantation above Camusvrachan. Through Dubh Choirein I walk to the col between Carn Gorm and Beinn Dearg and climb the latter after having a bite. I love these little, stocky hills. The Corbett is flat-topped and yes indeed has a grand view of all ranges around it, and they're clear too. I can see my Lawers round, The Tarmachans, Meall Buidhe in the west, across Rannoch Moor and towards Cairn Mairg. Cloud seems to be coming down so I climb Carn Gorm without much pause. The ridge is bliss under foot but hell above. The soft moss and grass cannot compensate the horrendous wind that builds up to storm force near the 1028m summit. The wind forces me on my knees and pulls at my windproof pants and rattles my cheeks. I think this 'blow job' by the wind god is very unpleasant. Knowing for sure the weather is to deteriorate further, I crawl down wide legged like a crab, not to the next col, but further on to the southwestern rim of Gleann Sassunn. Unexpectedly, it gets lighter, and I look up to see clouds part and lift. The opportunist I am climbs Meall Garbh anyway, unladen. An arty cairn of hundreds of poles crowns the hill.
- Holding on to Carn Gorm for dear life
I beeline towards the Gleann Sassunn bothy through the ever obnoxious combi of deep heather, meltwater, bog and snow. I cross numerous tributaries to the main burn, it's a true meltwater feast. Schiehallion, a hill omitted this time, peeks above the eastern hills. In Kinloch Rannoch I visit a standing stone and hurry to the store, run by a Dutchman and his wife. These people are the true village store: the heart of the social life, source of food but also the main information point. I benefit from their generous service to the point of taking profit. I don't mind asking questions as long as they are answered by a Russian (?) girl with yellowish eyes. She fixes a B&B and I tell her she's an angel, but someone immediately replies 'you don't know her'. Only a devil would put up with my smell anyway.
At Bunrannoch House, the food is good, local game and fish, home-butchered. Sweets are Jamie Oliver's idea. Only a hillwalker or stalker can put away that amount of calories without fattening up. The view is grand and the rooms have an air of Victorian times updated to 2011. I'd call it 'selective traditionalism', which applies to the convictions of the owner too. Upstairs, the bedding is soft, the shower endless and the clothes clean again.
The owner of Bunrannoch House puts a couple of books from the well stocked hillwalking library on my table. I choose W.H. Murray's autobiography. He writes "there's two kinds of humbug one has to avoid when writing about climbing. One is the exaggeration of danger, two is the understatement of difficulties". SMC does not seem to know this. It always claims plateaux to be 'vast' or 'windswept', and cliffs to be 'towering', at the same time tallking about a 'tourist route' or 'easy way up'. Lists of accidents and deaths as far back as the 1800's are faithfully reproduced in every SMC book. I think that as long as I keep away from Five Finger gully, I'll be allright. Holland too is a vast windswept plateau after all.
Note: I measured the daily distances on the WH-map. The maps included here have a crude route to reduce size. Added to the distance is some roadwalking on day 4.
Schoolbus to the empty farmsAt 7.30 Ben of Bunrannoch House drops me off at the bus-stop. An hour later I'm in Pitlochry, to buy a gas cartridge and a loaf of bread to add to the food already bought. I hitchhike out with the first car that I stick my thumb up to. An older lady, a volunteer for the golf club in Blair, pushes her tapestry-cleaning apparatus aside to make room for my rucksack. In Killiecrankie I get out, and walk uphill through pastures and birch woods. Higher up it becomes lonely. Against a backdrop of cloud-veiled Beinn a'Ghlo several derelict farms are passed, their gigantic trees witness of the age of these settlements. The sun comes out and it gets warmer. I make a navigational mistake and end up at Loch Valigan, off route, but pretty close to the summit of Beinn Vuirich. I rest at the loch, leave the pack and climb the hill. From the front edge of the summit plateau the view is superb across the length of Loch Loch and into the Lairig Ghru. Originally, the plan was to walk up Glen Tilt to the Fhealar Lodge, but this is more remote, and new to me. On Ben Vuirich, a well kept trig point sits further south. I reach it, pick up the pack lower down and beeline toward my next camping spot along a green grassy shelf and across some moraine hillocks. The place I chose is situated inside a ruin (at 994729), above the crossroads of glens to the northeast of Ben Vuirich. Lovely spot, my guess is right. The tent is on flat ground, sheltered a bit and the view towards Daldhu, Ben Vuirich and Beinn a'Ghlo (glowing) is convincing. A wideopen space and a big sky.
- Loinmarstaig farm and Beinn a'Ghlo
- Loch Loch and main Cairngorms from Beinn Vuirich
- Beinn Vuirich
Loch an Eun's cold welcomeBetween the camp and Glas Tulaichean is a near-Corbett set of ridges and hillocks, interspersed with peat hags and deep heather. It's okay. The weather will not be nice today as mist and wind are soon encountered. I cross the Fhealar track and hear an Argo coming. I'm gone when it arrives. This is grouse-shooting country. Does that explain the conspicuous absence of birds of prey? On Carn an t-Sionnaich is a pretty pagoda-style cairn. Soon enough I reach the track up Tulaichean, which begins a lot further down than my old map shows. I wait for the sun to pop out, and find some empty batteries at the trig point. Has someone lost them, or has someone hugely overrated the importance of his hillwalking hobby? I take the 80 grammes of chemical waste with me. It weighs nothing, the stuff people leave lying around on summits. The sun does not come out and closing in on Loch an Eun I feel not very welcome. I round the Loch and see the perfect camp spot: the small green jetty. Not this time. I continue down towards An Socach and pitch my tent inside a bellyfold the stream has cut, filled with impressive snowbanks (074790). All surfaces are transporting meltwater. Digging a ditch the way dutch do does not help, this is Scotland. After a thorough lunch of fruitloaf, bread, eggs, bacon and apricots, I fill the little nylon roped rucksack the children use for their school lunch and head out back to Beinn Iutharn Mor. I keep thoughts about climbing Carn an Righ to myself, if that is physically possible. I might want that hill, let's just wait and see if I get it.
- It weighs nothing, the stuff people leave on hilltops
- Chilly Loch an Eun
- Beinn Iutharn Mor summit and Ben Avon
A lot of contouring is on the menu, kicking steps in the snow and avoiding some of the slippery ice-skirts the snowfields all seem to have. I like the bouldery, mossy hairdo of B.I.M and love the views toward Ben Avon. I see some sun and decide to head for Carn an Righ, almost crossing Mam Carn Ban in the process due to contour-fatigue. Two Typhoon jets play around. They look oldfashioned, I bet a commission has been working on them since the seventies. As always, just in time some dictator or other pops up to give them a reason to exist.
Since I'm as far west as the west-ridge of Tulaichean, the consequences sink in: it's a long way to the tent. Halfway this wet, muddy plod, I stop to drink. Standing in front of a small trickle, my left legs shoots through the snow crust, I grab hold of ... the stream, and my nylon sack fills with water. It does not matter at all, but it signals tiredness. I round Loch an Eun again (lots of hares) and reach the tent just before sunset. A 10 hour day, but having Carn an Righ makes me feel proud and the weather looks promising. I'm on a waterbed, off the mat it is cold.
Shee crossingHowever deep I'm hidden in the folds of the stream, the west summit of An Socach can be seen from my tent door, and it is visible too. I leave for the high ground between this spot and the hill at 7.25 and reach the summit by 8.20. The end of my journey near, I grab the chance to try on the crampons on a long snowfield on the flank of An Socach. I cross the heathery terrain to the foot of Carn Gheoidh. Looking back at Socach one can see how transverse it really is. Like a large living room sofa rotated to block the room. Coire Clachach is climbed on heather, and higher up on firm snow. This hill is as laid back as can be. One seems to never reach the summit, and the slope endlessly eases till it's finally flat. A pair of Ptarmigan moves around me in this typical circular way, refusing to fly.
- Crampon fun on An Socach, last camp in red circle
- Cairnwell, Glas Maol etc from Geoidh
I heard all kinds of comments on Carn Aosda and The Cairnwell, so expectations weren't high. The ridge towards them is beautiful though. I leave the pack to climb The Cairnwell as swiftly as possible, then bag Carn Aosda without paying much attention to the hill. The Cairnwell looks quite a real hill from the west, but Aosda has lost all mountainness to the ski-slopes. The bigger restaurant at the roadside is open for haddock and chips, not unexpectedly of low quality at 650m, but still devoured.
I speak to a gentleman about hillwalking. He has been skiing, but is chewing on a problem: how to bag Carn an Righ. My advise is no surprise: make a trek. He asks me where I go next. I have not decided yet. Will it be Glas Maol and Creag Leagach and then down, or will I skip the latter and include Carn of Claise. I favour that one because its pronunciation sounds like the diminutive of my name ('Klaasje') and since it feels the better hill to finish on. Also, Caenlochan Glen looks promising. "I was just about to recommend Caenlochan to you", the gentleman says. I reply "then it is decided". I go and sit in the sunshine to dry socks and think about nothing. However, I must leave for Glas Maol round two o'clock, to be off the plateau before six. On the way up on a service track I sing Neil Young. "Burnt my credit card for fuel and headed out to where the pavement turns to sand". In no time the ramp up the summit dome is in view. It looks okay, while just to the left and 700m to the right a lot of avalanche debris is visible. An older, fit, couple look at me as if I am a tourist. I conform by behaving like one. "It is steep up there". "Ah, yes, well... [thinking: it is less steep than Socach this morning]". "May I ask where you are staying tonight" (worried look). "Caenlochan Glen". This confuses them and they walk off talking to each other, looking back once at my shiny youth-hostel-like sleeping mat.
Further up, I meet another, much older couple coming down. On crampons. The man clearly is in his mountain leader role. However, they use no ice axe, but poles instead. I am on the verge of asking "what will you do when you slip" but I shut up and watch them come off the end of the snow slope. I know what happens when they slip worst case. They would slide till they would try braking by digging their heels in. Then the crampons would snag, catapulting them over their feet, possibly breaking a bone or two, before going down into the corrie head first without any means of arrest. But hey, do I really have any winter skills? I grab the ice axe and walk to the summit no problem. After finding a coin and a perfectly fine pencil, in the summit cairn I find four discarded teabags (why leave them there?) and on top of the trig point I find a house key. Not able to call the ski centre, I leave them there to be picked up by someone going down the hill that way.
I find the stream that connects to Caenlochan Glen and leave the rucksack to finish the journey at Cairn of Claise. Along the wall I zoom to the summit cairn. In the book I'm reading, the chapter called 'The Mountaineer' says:
"Practice boulder hopping a thousand times and it is difficult. Practice it a thousand times thousand times and it is easy. Practice it a thousand time thousand time thousand times and it is done through you. Frater Perdurabo crosses the boulder field without ever casting his eyes upon the ground."
Two guys are already at the cairn, one of em is in shorts. Style! The other carries a multi-camera bag on his chest like you would carry a baby. This time I do not act the tourist knowing nothing, but act the other role: that of the foreigner who names all summits, which is equally nutty. Lochnagar looks fine. Just after five I leave to discover if the way off down the Glas-allt burn really works. It does. A hare's path on a moraine-ridge between a cliff and a snow filled river gorge leads right to the floor of the secluded glen. Monega Hill is all cliff from this side and Druim Mor impresses. The floor of the western branch of the glen is riddled with mini-mountains of moraine. Frogs are busy, very busy. When I reach the path, I pitch the tent right on it. The shallow curve of one side of the double grass track seems just the cure for my tired back.
- Into Caenlochan Glen, Monega Hill in front
- Last hill: Monamenach seen from Caenlochan Glen
Aftertought = transportOn this last day in Scotland I have to hurry to make it to the road, hitchhike to any station and get to Glasgow before the evening. I walk off at 6.45, the earliest so far, and turn the bend of the glen. I look straight at a hill. The motto still holds true: 'do not ask what it is called, climb it'. Off course I know it's Monamenach. Sneaking through Tulnach Lodge I climb this last corbett. Nice name, lumpy hill. I eat the last of my food and leave the pack at the Glaick of Glengairney.
To my surprise, just as I reach the summit, another man comes up. He's surprised too. We chat and he suggests that I come along down to Auchavan to drive out in his car. I say, well my pack is down there, and I will go on to the A93. He ups his bid and says he'll take me to Dundee railway station. This offer I cannot refuse. I get the pack, walk round the northeast flank of the hill, come down to the river, have a wash and a clean shirt, and walk my last steps of this trek just before 10.30. I'll be back in 2012, no doubt.
Out of the hills, into the city the most difficult bit is yet to come: buying presents for the children. A present for my wife, as a thank you for the gift of 9 days off, is easy. I just go to a store filled to the brim with gear. Baking gear.
*****************
GearI replaced my late eighties rucksack (a 2,7kg bomber) with an Osprey Exos 46 (large). It weighs 1 kilo. It is very fancy, with a platypus-pouch, pole-loops and belt-pouches neither of which I'll ever use. I replaced my nineties tent / bivybag+flysheet with a Tarptent Scarp 1 with extra poles. It weighs 1,75 kg, but is a good compromise. On a 9 day trek, one needs some room, and the two porches two doors are handy. Very quick pitching. I replaced my old goretex bib / dungarees, the skiing type (1,0 kg) with a pair of Pertex waterproofs by Go-Lite weiging only 215 grams. They were excellent.
At home, I weighed every single item (and was laughed at) down to the spare batteries, and it added up to 11,8 kg (no fuel, no food, excluding clothes worn) which is pretty good, considering that there's crampons, winter clothes, four maps, documents, two books, spare clothes and a small frying pan in there.
I'm jealous of the car-based bagger for having the boot of his car as a gear repository. For instance: I did not wear my 575grams GoreTex jacket. No rain!! But I could not have left it at home. I did not use my 600 grams crampons, but icy summit domes are not uncommon in March. I did not use longjohns and hardly used my warm mitts, though I know it can freeze ten degrees, and then I would have needed them. All in all, going in May would save me 2-3 kg no problem.
FoodI prefer real food. When away for 3 or 4 days to the next shop, I might take 6 eggs, 200 gr of bacon, a paprika, spring onions, possibly canned fish (kippers!), apricots, fruit loaf, bread, 200gr of strong cheddar, a small pie if available (chicken curry or steak and kidney) chocolate (100gr a day), cookies (100 gr a day), oats for porridge + powdered milk and a pasta or rice meal in the evening plus a selection of teas and a squeeze bottle of honey. I never eat 'sports food/drinks' because first it is meant for top sports, a very unhealthy pastime, and second, it might be an edible substance, it's not food. However, I admire what Bird's can do with modified starch, so I take a sachet of their Instant Custard now and then.