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My first visit to Ben Alder Cottage on the shores of Loch Ericht in 2021 had spawned the report
"When you bite off more than you can chew in an October day" -
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=108800 On that occasion, John and I had left my car on the road along the north shore of Loch Rannoch on the Saturday afternoon and walked in to the bothy via the dam at the southern end of Loch Ericht and the subsequent bogfest that led us out onto the track a short distance south of the large hut on the bay near the inflow of the Cam Chriochan, from where we carried on up the west side of the loch to our home for the night at Alder Bay.
The plan had been to do the Munro triple header of Geal-Charn, Aonach Beag and Beinn Eibhinn the next day with just daypacks, before returning to the bothy to collect the big overnight packs and return to the car. We knew it was going to be a big day and after an initially promising start, the weather had deteriorated badly by the time we reached the Bealach Chumhainn and we bailed after only having managed Geal-Charn via the Lancet Edge, despite our tantalising proximity to the other two summits. As is the way with Sod's Law, by the time we were sat back in the bothy gathering our gear and our thoughts ahead of the long walk back out, the weather had brightened up and the low autumnal sun was making its presence felt through the windows. On the long walk back out later that evening, we elected to carry on down the track to Rannoch Lodge and then back along the tarmac to the car rather than retracing our inward steps through the quagmire and across the dam. It was a long walk, mostly done by headtorch, but not unpleasant. Once we had gotten ourselves into that Zen-like state of pushing through and simply putting one foot repeatedly in front of the other, it was quite bearable. That night there had still been a sense of autumnal warmth in the air beyond the reach of our beams of light.
It was from this trip and previous wanderings around Culra and Loch Pattack that I got the notion of a 3 day Silver DofE route running from Rannoch Lodge through to the A86 near Kinloch Laggan. The only problem was that back in late 2021 and indeed for much of the following 2 years, our DofE programme was in the doldrums post-pandemic and by 2024 it was almost dead in the water. As I said in my report
"Every journey starts with a step - rebuilding from the ruins" from May of this year
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=124355, I had taken on the role of the school Outdoor Education Coordinator (officially from the start of this current school year in August) and the primary objective in the short to medium term was to get our DofE programme back to pre-pandemic levels. There was a fair bit of residual mopping up to be done first though - that S6 group back in May for starters, then another couple of Silver training expeditions in late September and early October, all on the by now very familiar Rannoch to Laggan route.
When I wrote my "rebuilding from the ruins" report back in May, I referenced not just the rebuilding of our Outdoor Education programme but also the rebuidling of our school which has been my professional home for the last two decades. I see it inching its way on its own long and complex journey to compleation every day from my second floor window in the old building and have been regularly taking photos to document its journey. My most recent was taken back at the start of December.
New Perth High School - 6th December 2024I was keen to get out over the Christmas holiday fortnight and preferably before the end of the year. My Munro tally for 2024 was sitting at a paltry
THREE and I was staring down the barrel of my worst ever Munro tally. Even in 2008, when I had started my Munro journey pretty much by accident, I had managed
four. Even in 2020 with lockdown and widespread travel restrictions, I had managed
five! This was unacceptable! The glass half empty me needed one more to avoid my worst ever tally and match my previous low! The glass half full me needed two more to take me to the 90% mark!
So on the fourth last day of 2024, I set off from the end of the track at Rannoch Lodge for the fourth time this year with the long road ahead as familiar to me as the back of my hand. The whole route through to Kinloch Laggan works very well as a 3 day Silver route (training or qualifying) and I will always associate it with the rebuilding of our programme that I have instigated and overseen over the past 6 months or so. It is like an old friend to me now (and Ben Alder Cottage almost like a second home!)
Saturday 28th December 2024 - Rannoch Lodge to Ben Alder CottageDistance - 13.7km
Ascent - 410m
Time taken - 3.8 hoursWe shouldered the overnight packs with the usual array of bothy essentials in them and set off. On my two most recent walks in to Ben Alder Cottage on DofE duty, I was carrying a bit of coal and firewood for that first night and so my 3 day pack carried a fair weight at the outset. Today I had even more coal and firewood as well as several cans of beer which do not get to accompany me on DofE gigs and the weight was noticeable! Still, we made good progress, soon passing a couple of lads cycling out who had spent the previous night in the bothy and reported everything as being in order.
Apart from an open stretch of moorland which (weather permitting) grants decent views west over Lochan Loin Nan Donnlaich and Sron Smeur, the initial 8 or 9km or so of this route in are pretty mundane. It is only really when you exit the forestry at Dun Daimh, turning the corner through the gate and over the cattle grid, that the wow factor kicks in with the view of Loch Ericht, hemmed in tightly by the hills on either side, stretching northwards and disappearing into the distance.
That view back in May - tentatively rebuilding from the ruinsNot looking quite so appealing today but 7 months down the line and with the rebuild going well and in full swingThe large estate hut a short distance off the track has become a regular DofE staging post on this route. Understandable given its position about half way to the bothy and the fact that it has a bench on a covered verandah with views up the loch. Today however, John and I plodded resolutely on past. We knew we still had the bogfest of the last few kilometres to come and being late December, the light would go early and go fast! We wanted to get as close to the bothy as possible before having no choice but to put the headtorches on.
The Cam Chriochan in full spate as it empties into Loch ErichtThe boggy section on the thin strip between the deer fence and forestry to the left and Loch Ericht to the right was worse than I have ever experienced it and every bit as bad as the two chaps earlier had warned about. John had his headtorch on first in the fast descending darkness and despite my efforts to forego it for as long as I could and allow my eyes to slowly adjust to the failing light, I eventually had to relent and admit defeat.
Even with the light of two headtorches and having walked this exact route 3 times in the previous 7 months, I managed to lose the thread of the boggy path as it meanders its way over the little forested knoll before dropping down to the metal coathanger bridge over the Alder Burn a short distance from the bothy. We duly appeared at the river but no bridge. In the darkness and with our beams of light picking out no more than the river before us and the constant driving drizzle, it was unclear whether the bridge was upstream or downstream. We opted to track upstream but pretty soon we were confident that our crossing was downstream from us. Right enough, there it was, a couple of hundred metres downstream. I don't remember the climb up onto the bridge itself being quite so difficult in previous outings but eventually we were across and shortly after 6 o'clock, we were getting safely set up in the bothy with beer, music, fire and food. Two young lads turned up about 20 minutes behind us having come in from Dalwhinnie. They took the RH room and kept themselves largely to themselves, popping in just the once to ask if we knew where they could get mobile signal! Apart from Luna sitting bolt upright at one point from her slumber and looking for a moment or two like she had just seen a ghost (
) it was a fairly quiet, uneventful night (if you ignored the howling of the storm from outside!)
Sunday 29th December 2024 - Ben Alder Cottage to Beinn Eibhinn and Aonach Beag return, then back out to Rannoch LodgeDistance - 32.8km
Ascent - 1580m
Time taken - 11.8 hoursSunday morning - something tells me this is going to be a long day for a short day!Returning from a short constitutional with the bothy spade!Is this a hint of blue sky I see above me or just someone playing funny buggers!!!???Breakfast and ablutions taken care of, we set off just after 10 o'clock. We had been slow to get going this morning. Understandable really, all things considered. The two young guys had set off back for Dalwhinnie and looked at us like we were unhinged to be thinking of doing anything other than hightailing it back to the car. They had a point. They might have been young but they clearly weren't entirely daft! I was silently kicking myself that after bailing on two thirds of our plan three years ago, here we were back to finish the job in even worse looking conditions!
We set off up the familiar long, gradual incline to the Bealach Chumhainn, consoling ourselves that if nothing else, the views of the sun's rather pathetic attempts to rise over Loch Ericht were quite photogenic!
Early days but John has the head down already!As good as it gets and a clear winner of the view of the day prize!Bealach Cumhainn here I come again!BehindAheadAlder Burn as I have never seen it before!John in the rear view mirror - unclear from this distance whether he is wiping his nose, calling mountain rescue or praying!Looking back from the Bealach CumhainnThings were grim but they were about to get much grimmer! For starters, I could no longer mindlessly follow the well kent path as it dropped down to the headwaters of the Uisge Labhair before climbing up to the Bealach Dubh and then taking the long plunge down towards Culra. We were going to have to go off piste. It would have been a thought on pretty much any day - even more so on what was already shaping up to be one of the most miserable, wretched hill days ever!
After a few hundred yards of procrastination, we could procrastinate no more. We could have turned around and retreated. Believe me, that thought was increasingly occupying the space between my ears, but instead we plunged into a few hundred yards of uneven, wet, tussocky, peat hag strewn hell that eventually had us standing staring at a crossing of the Uisge Labhair. And it didn't look appealing. At all. That thought again - it was now all but bursting out of my inner thoughts and going public! I tried to read John's thoughts. He was being inscrutable! I think I might even have muttered a few expletives and thinly veiled suggestions myself, but John wasn't biting. He had been less keen to bail than I had been the last time, and I could tell that he was once again far more committed to this purgatory than I was.
Crossing here didn't look like a wise lifestyle choice. We trudged upstream hoping to find a less bad option but none was readily forthcoming. We trudged on further. Eventually we trudged up a tributary and then a tributary of the tributary. I've been in this sort of scene before - before you know it you have multiple crossings to undertake just to get back to where the first one would have taken you! Eventually there was nothing else for it but to plough through and try to sustain as little damage as possible! I had already dispensed with gloves. Every pair I had with me had been found to be utterly useless against the conditions and did nothing but chill my hands further. The seams in my jacket and trousers also seemed to have succumbed and my Asolo boots and Sealskinz socks are not what they used to be. I had become a human sponge and was making a mental list of new gear that was urgently needed.
When you're already drenched, there's nothing to lose from posing for the camera mid-crossing!With webbed feet and gills now forming, we trudged solemnly towards the south eastern shoulder of Beinn Eibhinn, the featureless southern slopes of Aonach Beag to our right across Coire a'Charra Bhig. We figured it was probably best to tackle Eibhinn first before beginning the long return to the bothy by descending SSE from Aonach Beag and skirting around Sron Ruadh. That would hopefully take us on a curving line that would put us somewhere upstream of our original crossing point on the Uisge Labhair. Maybe it would have narrowed sufficiently by then that we could leap across without having to take a dunk!!??
Beinn Eibhinn and Aonach BeagTowards the Bealach Dubh and the scene of the 1942 Wellington bomber crashWhat joy there is to be had from trudging the sodden hills of a post-climate change Scotland in December!John the human sponge, still looking utterly inscrutable!Anyway, that was all for some point in the future if we didn't drown in our gear first. More pressing was the need to cross the Allt Coire a'Charra Bhig. I'm sure on most days of the year it would be an easy step or leap across but not this day!
To be fair, it doesn't look too hairy from here!Now it looks a bit more hairy!Oh just get on with it you ridiculous bi-pedal fool!Once safely across, we trudged even more solemnly up the south eastern shoulder of Beinn Eibhinn, basking in the expansive views that opened up with every...... oh, hang on a minute, don't know what happened there - I seem to have lapsed into an entirely different report!
Now giving serious consideration to renouncing all hillwalking activity and googling contact details for carpet bowling clubs in and around Perth!As we gained height the expansive views continued to open .......
STOP IT! That didn't happen! Deal with it!
Ahem, as we gained height, the wind would increasingly catch us unawares and give us a good kicking, then temporarily disappear again as we found a little bit of shelter from the slope. Then it would return for another quickfire round! As for the views........
There was this one looking up the way.......There was this one looking down the way.......And there was this one looking across the way!Having skirted round the section of crags that drop into Coire a'Charra Bhig, we eventually reached the summit ridge where there was no escape from the ferocity of the gale. Standing was a struggle, let alone walking forwards! Any sense of enjoyment was utterly out of the question!
Luna demonstrating the advantages of being low-slung and four legged on an exposed, wind lashed ridgeApproaching the little false summit to the east of the proper summitLuna and the Human Sponge approaching the summitWe eventually clocked in at the summit, which to be fair could have been a pile of rocks pretty much anywhere in the country. All that effort, all those kilometres, all that trudging - for this! Mark my words - things will be very different when I have joined that carpet bowls club!
Luna appears reluctant to be associated with this particular bag!Still, we congratulated each other on a) not having drowned or succumbed to hypothermia and b) each hitting a significant milestone on our respective Munro journeys.
50% for the sponge on the left, 90% for the sponge on the rightI guess a real purist would have thrown the towel in at this point and walked off back to the bothy, leaving Aonach Beag standing unclaimed and all alone. Wouldn't it be fun to come back and try this for a third time? I actually did suggest it but John said something about there not being enough money........... and something else that I hesitate to repeat on a public forum!
We retraced our steps back along the ridge and then dropped down to the high bealach between the two Munros. At the bealach, the wind was being funnelled through with a ferocity that I have seldom felt in the hills and at various points we could do no more than turn our backs, lower our heads, plant or feet wide apart and brace against the onslaught!
Descent to the bealachThe climb out of the bealachAonach Beag - sponge bag #2There may have been more optimal descent options available but I couldn't have cared less. I took a bearing just off due south and we began the long, painful process of hauling our sorry asses back to the bothy and from there back to the car.
The descent into Coire a'Charra Beag was horrific. I have done far trickier and more technically demanding descents but this was still up there as one of the worst ever, if not the actual worst ever. The Uisge Labhair (and whatever the crossing of that would involve) seemed so far away that it might as well have been in another country. And getting to that point was just scratching the surface of the route we had ahead of us.
The Uisge Labhar seemed even higher than it had been just a couple of hours earlier. We were pushed quite far upstream before we were able to find an acceptable crossing point. It was with relief beyond words when we finally made it back onto the path but again, the realisation hit that we were still a very long way from home. And the minutes were ticking. The December daylight would not last. It would not see us back to the bothy.
One last horrific obstacle remained - the crossing of the Alder Burn. It also seemed to have swelled considerably from our earlier crossing and added to the fact that we now needed head torches to see properly, the crossing was not a pleasant undertaking. In the end there was nothing else for it but to plunge in and take a couple of bootfulls!
A miserable walk had now reached new lows. We hoped that someone would be settling into the bothy for the night and have a good fire going but alas, when we finally rolled in at 17.15, the place was as dark and as cold as the grave. We had nothing else to change into and even if we had, our fingers had lost the ability to function properly. It would have been almost impossible to take clothes off or put them on. Our daypack stuff was clumsily and unceremoniously stuffed into our big overnight packs and we set off from the bothy just before 6 o'clock, headtorch beams full of the seemingly endless driving rain.
This was not the long, relatively balmy night time walk out of three years ago. This was altogether a different experience. We barely stopped. We barely even broke stride the whole way. We made good time and were back at the car about 21.45 with just the long, cold drive back to Perth (and then the not quite so long, cold drive back to Kinghorn from there for John).
So two outliers had finally been nailed. I had finally broken the 90% mark. I had finally done my final two Munros south of the Great Glen with the exception of the two that are being kept for last. But what a price they had come at - the most wretched, miserable, abomination of a hill day that I have ever experienced!
