{"id":17888,"date":"2018-03-12T08:30:57","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T08:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/?p=17888"},"modified":"2021-01-19T13:41:25","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T13:41:25","slug":"back-to-beinn-a-chaorrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/back-to-beinn-a-chaorrain\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Beinn a’ Chaorrain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David
\nDawn leaked over the roof of the Rec’, a pale blue canvas, a promise. I was already late but it would do. I crept out of the still sleeping house, hard frosted back garden grass, hard frosted windscreen glass. Newtonmore stirred, turned over and went back to sleep as I passed, Laggan still rested, afloat in a frozen floodplain. To the west, a milky gauze lay softly, poised between out breath and in breath, a stillness I\u2019d forgotten existed recently. Our human world can be so self-involved, I\u2019d not had time to look around me this winter. As the road wound around Loch Laggan and I saw Meagaidh, I swore out loud to myself, grinning widely, my scalp prickling with excitement. Today I had the time. I was checking in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was heading back to Beinn a\u2019 Chaorrain<\/a>, named for the Rowan, the mountain ash. There\u2019s less evidence of the mountain ash at its base and much more Sitka, but I find a way through alongside a steeply side burn with a distinctive wishing-bone-split waterfall. There\u2019s a fire tower, framed between my ash mountain and the rounded shoulders of Creag Meagaidh, still heavily at rest, maybe snoring a little. Then slippery rocks to cross, the burn surprisingly lively for this time of the morning. It\u2019s not quite dawn, I\u2019m in the mountain\u2019s shadow. It\u2019s out in the clearfell that the sun breaks behind me over the Alder hills, calmly stowing away that misty muslin blanket for the day\u2026 but nothing is rushed. There is stillness still, only broken momentarily when something heavy and military rumbles past, flying into the gold down the glen.<\/p>\n

The forest further up is mixed pine. Sunlight catches still frozen branches as I labour up the track, now down to my baselayer, postholing. I make a turn left, following the source of the burn. Aside from the Pine Martin droppings, fox and deer tracks, I am the first this morning, and maybe for a few mornings, although I find traces of human footprints further up. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The east ridge is supposed to be an easy mountaineering route, but from here it looks beyond my abilities. I check the map; yes, on the north of the coire, leading down from the highest top of three, that was it. I am on top of the snow now, the going easier, and as I approach I scan ways through; up gullies, around bands of rock. Maybe it would go, after all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The last time I was on the hill of the Mountain Ash, I came with a Mountain Friend – Chris Townsend. If you don\u2019t know of Chris, then seek him out electronically. Break him in half and it says mountain man all the way through, he\u2019s the nearest we\u2019ve got to an Edward Abbey, a hippy from the days when the hippies were punks too. I was checking in then, too \u2013 with him, with the hills, with myself. We sweated up the walker\u2019s route, the top part clagged in, wide ranging in our discussion and a little lazy in our navigation. We\u2019d not seen each other for a few years and there was some catching up to do. In the interim I\u2019d suggested him for the board of the John Muir Trust (an obvious choice), and wanted to make sure the sometimes-weighty responsibilities of that kind of role were not too much. They weren\u2019t, of course. Chris is leavened by years in the wilds, and the kinds of judgement calls that will shift your priorities forever. Or at least, that\u2019s how things seemed to me, less secure in my own skin. Then, as now, I\u2019ve been away from the hills, my confidence lost overboard this last year of family, births and deaths. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Back in the present, I prepped my kit at the foot of the route \u2013 helmet, harness, a couple of slings in case I need to anchor myself to rest, sharp metalwork, tea and a sandwich \u2013 I thought on the local man who\u2019d lost his life in the coire just below me a few weeks before, at that point still unfound. The crescent moon shaped summit plateau of this mountain is a known blackspot. Later, as I climbed, I watched RAF mountain rescue conduct their line search, combing the avalanche debris for clues. I thought on what Heavy Whalley, ex RAF mountain rescue team leader, had said at his talk the previous evening. \u201cEveryone is someone\u2019s son or daughter\u201d. I thought on my own father, whose time with us was now over and is really a story of missed opportunities, and of my own newborn son, who clawed his way fairly desperately into the world\u2026 and asked myself again what I was doing here, about to claw my own way up a grade one ridge as a way back to myself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of RAF, Mountain Rescue and SARDA here tonight\u201d Heather said after the talk. And yes, the place was heaving, and the feeling of community palpable, a background hum in the room, people for whom the mountains have quite literally changed everything; most often for good, but sometimes for ill. We don\u2019t choose our immediate family and they can\u2019t choose us, but we do choose to hear the call of the mountains, and we do choose to go. It\u2019s not inevitable, though it might feel like it. With freedom of movement and self-expression comes responsibility; to our loved ones, who might not always fully understand the draw, and to our other family; our mountain friends, who always do. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The climb is straightforward and without drama. There\u2019s a couple of brief moments of mild exposure in the middle of the route; first a kink in a gully over some ice, next an airy traverse out to the right. I\u2019m glad of my twin axes, but otherwise, I\u2019m surprised at myself in an off-handed sort of way. I\u2019ve been away, but I am fitter than before from a little more running and a little less drinking \u2013 and somehow more relaxed, even\u2026 assured? I\u2019ve waited all season to do this right, and this morning is crisp and clear, the easterly has firmed up the slopes and avalanche risk is minimal. I am learning by increments to watch and to wait, to bend and not break. I am not safe, but I am safer. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The hills are many things, but today they are a benchmark by which I track my own brief transit through the world, a measure for measures. I walk down from the top, content to have checked in, before shopping for the family on the way home for tea. Today, the sun shines and I am grateful for clean air, clear skies, a little space beneath my feet and a whole lot more above my head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dawn leaked over the roof of the Rec’, a pale blue canvas, a promise. I was already late but it would do. I crept out of the still sleeping house, hard frosted back garden grass, hard frosted windscreen glass. Newtonmore stirred, turned over and went back to sleep as I passed, Laggan still rested, afloat in a frozen floodplain. To the west, a milky gauze lay softly, poised between out breath and in breath, a stillness I\u2019d forgotten existed recently. Our human world can be so self-involved, I\u2019d not had time to look around me this winter. As the road…<\/span> <\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":17895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17888"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17902,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17888\/revisions\/17902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}