CDs and Scum Lines in Glen Roy

[old danensian]

My geography teacher had a huge zinc bath along one wall of his classroom: a foot deep, three wide and about twelve long. They have whiteboards and PowerPoint now. Fortunately, to accommodate his idiosyncrasies, the school authorities had allocated him a double-sized room.

The bath, along with regular slideshows and rain-soaked field trips, exemplified his teaching philosophy: to understand geography you have to see it.

So, the bath had a tap at the slightly raised end, and a drain hole at the other. It was filled at the tap end with sand. At the beginning of term the tap was opened to release a gentle trickle.

Over the course of the following weeks, this was how we learned about the fluvial processes of erosion, deposition, the formation of deltas and even saw the occasional oxbow lake.

It was with this inspirational teacher in mind that I drove up Glen Roy to visit the remote pair of Carn Deargs and see at first hand the famous Parallel Roads. We’d learned about glaciation while clinging to ridges on Helvellyn and from his slides taken on visits to Switzerland, but I don’t recall these striking features appearing on his syllabus. Mind you, it was almost half a century ago, when Darwin still thought they were raised beaches.

As the single track road snakes up Glen Roy, apparently leaving habitation behind, you enter an environment that epitomises highland Scotland: broad glens, heather-coated hillsides, a winding river racing over shoals of stones, all the while reflecting the sky’s deep blue or catching a glistening reflection. A building beside Brae Roy Lodge is adorned by trophy antlers. Geography hangs everywhere. You don’t just get glimpses of the Parallel Roads, they surround you all the way in, their evidence up, down and across the glen. Parked just before Brae Roy Lodge they surrounded the start to my walk.

Leaving Brae Roy Lodge - with a hint of Parallel Roads in the distance

A distinct lack of imagination has resulted in three Carn Deargs rising in relatively close proximity of each other. Two, their cairns a little over a kilometre apart, sit to the north and south above the head of the Gleann Eachach. I’d originally planned a wild camp on the bealach between the two but, having experienced the strength of the wind a few miles further south the day before, that aspiration was shelved in favour a comfortable night at the Bunroy Campsite.

Beyond the Lodge, as Glen Roy swings east towards Creag Meagaidh in the distance, the River Turret bursts from Glen Turret, under its eponymous bridge, having eroded its way through bare rock and the remains of a low-level Road. The southern Carn Dearg can be seen peeping over the skyline while its neighbour lurks round the corner.

The Turret Bridge - another gateway to geography

The easy track leads up to old sheep folds. Below tumbled stones, long straight walls enclose a flat expanse of ground, clearly the result of sediment deposited in a former lake. Here is yet another clue to the Roads’ origins, as a smaller example of landscape shaped by deposits in hemmed-in glacial waters rather than the brute force of ice. This space, given better soil, even appeared flat enough for a cricket pitch.

Glen Turret - Meall a Chomhlain beyond

Leaving this Highland aspiration to The Oval behind, I headed off in search of wildlife. I’d been told by couple also parked at Brae Roy Lodge, and heading off for the third Carn Dearg, that there had been three large herds of deer seen in the Gleann Eachach the previous day. Twenty four hours is a long time in the movement of deer, and all I saw was evidence of human habitation: an incongruous, solitary fireplace and chimney stack. After then seeing another in a glade of trees further up the glen I gave up looking for stags to stalk. Instead, I had a decision to make.

An isolated chimney - who's nicked my bothy?

Take your choice on the crossing of the Turret - I chose here but had to cross again further upstream

Some route descriptions suggested walking gently to the bealach between the two hills, then going up, down and up before retreating back down Gleann Eachach. However, I was attracted by a horseshoe walk instead. I’d approach the northern top by heading up Teanga Mhor, then across to the southern Carn Dearg before heading down Sron a Ghoill and back down to Brae Roy Lodge.

The steep climb out of Gleann Eachach was a direct, full-frontal approach. Head down. Plod. Get it over with. And to be fair, it wasn’t too bad. It was what followed that made me suffer.

Surely it must get closer - the distant summit of the northerly Carn Dearg

A seemingly never-ending trudge. It could have been worse: I was relieved it has been so dry. The joy of plodding across across peat hags towards a distant cairn that never seemed to be getting any nearer started to wear thin. It took forty five minutes weaving and wandering to finally reach the wind-blasted cairn two kilometres away.

What had started as a bright day, with the promise of rising warmth, was now turning darker. While making my way to the top of the northerly Carn Dearg, lenticular clouds were beginning to form, darkening patches of sky and keeping the sun at bay.

Looking west from the top of Carn Dearg (N) as the lenticular clouds begin to form

As I descended to the bealach, still scanning the hillsides unsuccessfully for deer, more peat hags faced me before the next two hundred metres or so of ascent. Having slumped in a comforting blanket of heather and out of the wind for a munch and slurp, I later discovered that I’d come closer to the deer than I thought: an itch and a quick brush hinted that the season for ticks might have already begun.

The uninspiring approach to Carn Dearg (S)

Looking back to CD (N) from CD (S)

Half an hour later and I’d bagged my second Carn Dearg of the day and began to work out which was going to be the best way down: heading directly south west and over the nose of Sron a Ghoill or find another suggested route alongside the ravine of the Allt Dearg?

Posts marking a route of retreat along a fledgling ATV track

In the end, the discovery of a line of posts split the difference and I followed a vaguely established ATV track as it wound its way back down into Glen Roy. Without the need to concentrate on navigation I had more time to ponder the glacial origins of the Parallel Roads. Their symmetry on either side of the glen clearly the result of water finding its level and leaving its mark like a scum-lines in the bath as each breach in a glacial dam further downstream allowed the water level to drop.

Finally down in the glen, I was up close and personal with the eroded river banks and the scoured material constituting the lowest Road. There was exposed the fairly evenly coloured and sized creamy deposits in the outside of the bends. Lacking were the jumble of stones and boulders that would have been left by moraines, and the ground was bereft of boulders of an alien geology that might otherwise have been left stranded as erratics by retreating ice.

Brae Roy Lodge - where the Turret and Roy meet

Back in the car and driving out of Glen Roy, the geography lesson still wasn’t over. Stretching high up the hillsides, where streams had cut deep into the hillsides there was more uniform evidence of lake deposits rather than the craggy ravines of exposed bedrock.

And that was before I stopped at the information boards.

Yes, to understand geography you’ve really got to see it.

Now, where’s that third CD?

[Graeme D]

Nigel, after my recent day on one of the CDs (don't ask!), this report, nice as it may be, is clearly some sort of p*ss take and underhanded attempt to rub it in!

As for the Geography teacher, I agree with his philosophy. This is why I have little option but to take a group of smelly teenagers away to France next week. Seeing is learning! As for the request for a double sized classroom, my request for such accommodation in order to accommodate the pool table, dart board and mini-bar was regrettably turned down!