Small is Beautiful

Last weekend we spent at Glen Affric, at the Alltbeithe Youth Hostel, the remotest hostel in Great Britain. Having walked in the ‘path’ from the Cluanie Inn to the south (little more than a bog for most of its length) on the Thursday evening, upon contouring around the last hill, it was a relief to see the little red-roofed hostel sitting there, slap bang in the middle of that big, empty glen.

The hostel is simple. There is a separate building housing two basic dormitories (the hostel sleeps only twenty people), a single shower, a kitchen and lounge, both with wood-burning stoves. When the hot water runs out, there’s no more for many hours (as happened when a lunchtime visitor left the hot tap in the sink running when she popped to the loo). There is no mobile phone reception.

The warden, Colin, is from just outside Birmingham, but has been coming to this area since he was a child. He just the sort of person you want in a hostel warden; welcoming, friendly, hospitable and determined to make your stay a pleasant one.

Coming back to the hostel after a day’s walking, soaked to the skin, it was so good to arrive to a pot of tea sitting invitingly in the middle of the kitchen table, a hot shower, and the knowledge that the rest of the day and evening would be spent in the company of friendly strangers and good friends, clothes drying around the stove and a whisky in hand.

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Two years ago, I spent a birthday in Loch Ossian youth hostel, a short walk from Corrour train station on the West Highland line (of ‘Trainspotting’ fame), situated on the edge of the loch, near the foot of Beinn na Lap, in the shade of some trees. Like Alltbeithe, this is a small, simple hostel. It is only accessible by train or by foot. There is a kitchen and two dorms. A sign in the kitchen reads , ‘The microwave is next to the television in the lounge’, none of which exist at Loch Ossian hostel. The toilets are outdoors; composting toilets which thankfully (unlike the ones I remember from my Canadian apple-picking days) don’t require the wearing of a gas mask. There are no showers, but the bathrooms are big enough to have a decent wash by the sink, and for the bravest souls, there’s always the loch itself.

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My favourite small hostel so far though has to be Black Sail in Ennerdale in the Lake District. I’ve been a couple of times now. The first time, Jacqueline and I walked in from Borrowdale, talking in a few hills on the way. To save a bit of money, we had decided to go self-catering and carried food in, the usual dehydrated camping fayre, rather than have the meals made in the hostel. However, upon opening the door of the hostel after a long and tiring day, we were met by the lovely smells of a home-made meal and the sight of all the other hostellers tucking in to their dinners. Our hearts sank when we thought of the rice and smoked sausage we had to look forward to. Thankfully, the warden came to welcome us and on seeing the obvious glumness on our faces, was good enough to offer to make us something. It was delicious.

Like Alltbeithe and Loch Ossian, Black Sail is a small, traditional hostel. It sleeps sixteen. There is one shower, around the back of the building,  and to get to it you have to go outside. The shower has a stable-door and, whilst showering, you can look over the top and out onto the hill sides. Magic.

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All these hostels have a special quality, a combination of their remoteness, their situation, their traditional character, and the hospitability of those wardens who run them. They have warmth; big tables to sit around, drink tea and play cards; friendly wardens who understand what hill-walkers need; friends, established or newly-made; quiet.

They are special places and I hope they do not change too much. I don’t want them to be modernised or improved. They are fine the way they are. I cherish the time I have spent in them and look forward to the next time I visit them.

No Messing | ‘Wild’ Camping on the Islands of Loch Lomond

I received a complementary copy of the Friends of Loch Lomond & The Trossachs‘ magazine The Voice through the letter-box this morning, as thanks for volunteering at the recent Caledonian Challenge (ooh, the power of being a parking attendant in  a day-glow jacket).

There’s an interesting (if disgusting) article in written by John Urquhart, who amongst other things serves on the Park’s Local Access Forum, about a clean-up operation he was involved in last September on the islands of Loch Lomond.

In it, he discusses the difficulties the police and park rangers have in controlling anti-social behaviour on the shores of the loch (as I’ve previously written about in The Ban on the Bonny Banks…) and wonders how feasible it would be to do so around Loch Lomond’s many islands. Almost impossible, I’d say.

Most importantly, he calls for a change to Scotland’s access legislation. He correctly identifies that those ‘wild camping’ sites that are being degraded by irresponsible individuals causing vandalism and leaving huge amounts of litter about, have a common factor – motorised transport. The mess that has been left on the islands has not been left by canoeists or kayakers; it has been left by people who arrive in boats, unload their gear, leave a shameful mess, and leave by boat. Likewise, I believe that most of the mess left on the shores will be from those who arrive by car.

John Urquhart’s article finishes by saying:

Those accessing land to camp wild should not be using motorised transport and it is time the law was changed to bring this about.

Having given this some thought, and despite my gut instinct to resist imposing restrictions, I wholeheartedly concur with this appeal.

Knotted Worm

Whilst digging in the garden yesterday I unearthed a worm which had a knot in its middle,  a simple overhand knot. A rewoven figure-of-eight, fishermans or alpine butterfly would have been even more impressive, but an overhand knot was pretty good going nonetheless. I wonder how he managed it.

Midges, Sweat and Tears on Slioch

It was our last day crossing Letterewe forest, from Dundonald to Kinlochewe; day three and we had hardly seen a soul. Letterewe, the largest area of uninhabited land in Britain, is a place you could lose yourself, literally and metaphorically. Far from the road, mountainous, wild and rough, it is a land of grand scale where human beings look ridiculously small and out of place.

The night before we had chosen to camp high in a bealach close to A’ Mhaghdain. It had seemed like a good idea at the time in that being high would hopefully keep us free from the dreaded midge, but we hadn’t counted on the stormy weather that night or that the col in which our tent was pitch made an ideal funnel for the wind. Jacqueline in particular, slept badly, with recurring nightmares of people invading our tent and attacking us.

That night we decided to camp somewhere more sheltered. By the time we reached the foot of Slioch we we tired and ready to stop. We spotted a nice sheltered hollow, which, in our tiredness, seemed like a good spot. With 20-20 hindsight, it wasn’t.

We woke on the morning of the third day, sweating, the sun beating down on the tent. The heat inside rose, quickly becoming unbearable. There was not a breath of wind and the air sat fatly on us, squashing our motivation flat. Outside, a swarm of midges drummed impatiently on the skin of the tent. The horror…the horror…

We decided to make a run for it.

Striking camp and running up a mountain with a full rucksack is not easy. Our red and profusely sweating faces, bursting lungs and gasping were testament to that. I raced ahead, hoping Jacqueline would keep up, kept going; whenever I stopped my ‘little friends’ would catch up to say hello. I rushed on. Up on the spur of the hill, I was greeted by a breeze, enough to keep them away. I waited for Jacqueline. I wasn’t expecting what I was about to see.

Up and over she came, and when I saw her face I froze; her whole face was covered in a mass of midgie bites, a big, red, swollen and bumpy face. I decided not to say anything, thinking that it wasn’t going to help the situation. Relieved at being away from the midgies, we kept climbing, now at a slower pace and at an opportune spot high on the mountain decided to stop for a rest and a brew. It was as I was rummaging through my rucksack trying to find the stove that I heard a squeal from behind and turned round to find Jacqueline staring with disbelief into a compact mirror. “You probably didn’t want to do that,” I said.

By the time we were seated on a bench on the forecourt of the petrol station in Kinlochewe, enjoying a can of Tennants lager each, the midgie bites had died down a little, and we were returned to our pre-midgie state of being smelly, tired and very, very happy.

The Ban on the Bonny Bonny Banks | an Erosion of Access Rights?

At the start of June, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park introduced new byelaws regarding wild camping on certain designated sites on the east shores of Loch Lomond during the peak season for visitors. This has been on the cards for a while, in response to years of anti-social behaviour and littering at these beauty spots, and the inability of the National Park Authority and police to put a stop to it. Does this signal the first in a long line of wild camping bans and an erosion of access rights?

Let’s take a minute and look at the context of this decision.  The Scottish Outdoor Access Code was introduced in 2003, essentially formalising existing codes of practice, and providing outdoor enthusiasts in Scotland with some of the best access rights in the world, along with responsibilities that such rights entail. To my knowledge, the Loch Lomond byelaws are the first time an exception to general access rights for wild camping has been introduced since the Scottish Outdoor Access Code was brought in.

Now, let’s look at what’s actually been going on for some time on the east shores of Loch Lomond between Drymen and Ptarmigan Lodge, just north of Rowerdennan. This is a lovely spot. I remember an old episode of Weir’s Way where Tom Weir, who lived locally of course, interviewed Bob Grieve and Jock Nimlin around a camp fire on the pebble beach, recalling their times in the ’20s and  ’30s when they’d walk or hitch-hike up from Glasgow to Loch Lomond on their weekends. These days are gone. Now, Glasgow is a half-hour away by car, and camping equipment is incredibly cheap, making a drink-fueled weekend of partying outdoors entirely do-able.

I have a friend who was a seasonal ranger in the park a couple of years back and he told me about the fights, the noise, the trees broken down to put on a fire, the drunkness and the incredible mess these visitors left behind. In the morning they would get up and leave everything behind, including cheap tents, mountains of rubbish and human excrement.  How disgusting for other visitors to the park and even more so for local residents who have to live with this. The Outdoor Access Code was introduced to allow people to get out and enjoy the countryside; it was never intended to make it easier for people to have drunken parties outdoors.  Additionally, it requires visitors to ‘leave no trace’. (At the risk of sounding Victor Meldrewish, those who care about the outdoors don’t need to be told this, and those who don’t care don’t give a monkey what they’re told).

For years now, the National Park has tried to control this but have failed to do so. To be fair to the rangers and other park staff, I don’t think it’s through want of trying. I think they’ve just got to the end of their collective tether. I spoke to a man this weekend who is on the Access Forum for the park and discussed this whole issue with him. He told me it was a difficult decision for them to make and one they took reluctantly. I can well believe that. I believe that they wish to uphold the spirit of the outdoor legislation, but feel unable to address this issue without resorting to a ban. Grant Moir, head of conservation and visitor experience at the National Park, was quoted in the Herald at the time as saying, “If we are still having to put in as many resources to our policing and rangers services in 15 to 20 years as we are now, it will not be a sustainable model.”

Personally speaking, I think that simply increasing the presence of park rangers and police, whilst potentially eradicating the problem on the shores of Loch Lomond,  would actually just displace it to other similar locations. In fact, I think that this may be an effect of the ban anyway.

So is the ban an erosion of our access rights? Yes. Is it a necessary step? Probably. Will there be a further erosion? I think so. Already there are calls for similar bans elsewhere in Scotland – if the Loch Lomond ban is effective and irresponsible behaviour is displaced, other authorities will call for similar powers.  So, what’s the solution Dr Bell? I don’t know. I really don’t. If I did I’d be a rich (or at least famous) man. The anti-social behaviour occurring in the park is simply the same sort of behaviour that commonly occurs in towns and cities and which is spilling out into the countryside.  And what can we do about that?

I don’t want to end on a pessimistic note, so here’s a hope – we will, as a nation, educate our young people to respect each other, themselves and land on which they live so that, when they get older, they will be able to experience the great outdoors for what it is, without the need to get blootered.

East is East, West is Wet

A couple of weeks back, after a short jaunt up Ben A’an and coffee in the  Harbour Cafe on the shores of Loch Vennacher with friends from the walking club, we headed over to the east coast in our beloved (but ever-thirsty) Bongo for a change, to try to get away from the horrible, dreich weather we’d been having for weeks, day in, day out. We had originally planned to do some scrambling in Glen Coe, but the prospect of doing so in high winds, rain and driving snow above 800m metres was uninviting. So east it was.

Driving down past Edinburgh at a steady 55, heading towards East Lothian, the weather brightened and as we hit the coast the sun came out. The wet west was behind us.

Soon we were in North Berwick, where we went for a short stroll along the beach, a shorter unsuccessful stroll to find a decent pub and a more successful dash for fish suppers (strolling for a fish supper is just about impossible).

(“Salt and sauce?” was the question, “Salt and vinegar,” the reply, the differences between east and west becoming increasingly obvious, not only in the prevailing weather but in the vital world of condiment choice too.)

Dinner sorted, we headed along the sea front to a cracking spot above North Berwick where we sat in the back of the van, opened the sliding door to get the most of the warmth of the sun, and got tucked in.

The next morning, after an evenful night outside of Dunbar during which we were pestered by some youths who thought giving our van a good old shake would be a laugh (John Muir, a native of the town, wouldn’t have been impressed), we  headed south to Cockburnspath, a small village at the end of the Southern Upland Way. En route we passed fields being watered by sprinklers. In the west of Scotland, we’d had rain every day for three weeks – surely it couldn’t have been that dry over here?

Before this long distance path heads west, across country to Port Patrick in  Ayrshire, it takes a little dog leg east towards Cove, a little hamlet by the cliffs.  It was a lovely day, windy and dry, so we decided to go for a walk in this direction along a section of the Southern Upland Way, passed fields where the rich dry earth was cracked and open, and then cut off towards Siccar Point, a geologically world-famous site, where the geologist James Hutton found an excellent example of an ‘unconformity’ which provided evidence for his theories about the age of the earth.

Hutton’s Unconformity, Siccar Point

On the way back from Siccar Point, the big box of the Torness power station dominated the landscape, like an ugly robotic head. It didn’t fit. It looked alien, like someone had dropped it in from space with a galactic crane.

Before heading home back west, we made a short trip south again to the little harbour village of St Abbs to watch the divers loading their boats with all their diving gear. The village has a feel to it more akin to Cornwall than Scotland, and the beautiful weather contributed to our feeling of being in another country. East is east, west is west, never the twain shall meet.

Jacqueline and I discussed whether we could live on the east coast of Scotland. Plus points? The weather! The coast! The lack of midges! Negative points? It’s too far from the mountains!

Mountain Furniture

In our house there is a toilet. It belongs there. It’s a good place for a toilet. In this toilet is a basket and in this basket are some magazines (yes, my mother thinks that’s unhygienic too, but hey ho). Some of these magazines are Scottish Mountaineer, the magazine published by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, and in this magazine there is a letters page. The letters page belongs there. It’s a good place for a letters page. Frequently, those letters raise the subject of mountain memorials, and whether memorials belong in the mountains.

A couple of years back, I undertook a walk with some friends around Buachaille Etive Beag in Glen Coe, up the Lairig Eilde, down towards Dalness at the head of beautiful Loch Etive, and back up the Lairig Gartain. Coming through the Lairig Gartain, onto the highest point of the pass between Buachaille Etive Mor and Buachaille Etive Beag, I spotted something ahead of us that looked odd and out of place.

Arriving at it, I was surprised to find it was a wooden bench, the sort you might buy in a garden centre or B&Q. Taped to the side of it was a bunch of (long dead) flowers and on it was a little commerorative plaque, made out to someone who had died and who enjoyed the view from this spot. (It is a particularly beautiful view, with the mountains on either side framing an uninterupted view right down Loch Etive). The bench had toppled over and one of the sides of it had rotted and was falling off. I examined it with mixed feelings whilst the others stood back. Whilst I appreciated that friends of family of the deceased had cared for him and grieved at his death, and obviously gone to some efforts to haul a bench up here from the road, my over-riding thoughts were, I admit, ‘What’s a bloody great bench doing up here?’ and ‘Who would bring a bloody great bench up here only for it to decay and turn into so much litter?’

I shared my thoughts with my friends. They weren’t impressed. They were even less impressed when I suggested that, as it was already unable to stand up and was actually falling apart, that we should carry it out and put it in the bin. I don’t think it would be too strong to say that some of them were appalled at this idea, and at me for suggesting it. I tried explaining to them my thinking that, despite the best intentions of those who brought it here, that it didn’t belong here. Although Glen Coe is not ‘wild land’ in any absolute sense, it is, for Scotland, relatively ‘wild’. Like many (all?) places in Scotland it is not ‘untouched by human hand’; it is a managed landscape. However, for those visiting Glen Coe  (like the person the memorial bench was there to commemorate), the management is unobtrusive and the joy of visiting here is to be in a grand and beautiful place, away from towns and cities, away from rubbish and litter. My friends weren’t having any of it. They just felt that we couldn’t remove the memorial as it would be disrespectful to those who who erected. I was going to ask them about the respect the self-same people had shown to this wonderful place, but thought better of it. We left the toppled bench where it lay and headed for home. Within a few metres, however, we came across a huge boulder which had a commematorive plaque super-glued onto it!

The argument about whether memorials should have a place in the mountains is a long-standing one. For my tuppence worth, they shouldn’t. They don’t belong there and can only reduce the quality of the landscape. To my mind, Glyn Jones, an estate ranger at Balmoral Estate sums it up well when he refers to a memorial near the Spittal of Muick car park with ‘Doug’s Favourite Place’ engraved on a stone slab, and asks:

I wonder if ‘Doug’s favourite place’ would have been his favourite place if, when he had first visited, he found a plaque already on it declaring it to be ‘Bob’s favourite place’?.

In Praise of the Scots Pine

Scots Pine

Over the last few weeks, wildfires have raged over the hills in Scotland, as well as other areas of Britain, exacerbated by the prolonged period of dry weather and high winds. Mature woodlands and areas of regeneration have been affected in Torridon and Glen Shiel. It is sad to think of the number of Scots pines, that most emblematic and iconic of Scottish trees, that will have been affected, trees rooted to that same spot for perhaps hundreds of  years.

Above is my word picture in praise of the Scots pine (created using Tagxedo, http://www.tagxedo.com).

The Pleasure of Walking, Part 4 | Food and Drink

Food and drink always tastes better after a big day out on the hill. The exertion, tiredness and joy that a mountain day can bring whets the appetite and makes everything taste good.

The best meal I have ever had was not in some sophisticated restaurant, prepared by a cordon bleu chef. Rather, it was a meal made out of leftovers, eaten in Lochranza Youth Hostel after completing the Glen Sannox horsehoe in Arran with Jacqueline. The day had been warm, long, and at times challenging. By the time we got off the hill in the evening we were shattered, and starving. We stopped off at the pub at Corrie for a lovely cold beer, which we drunk in the beer garden as the sun set. By the time we arrived back at Lochranza we were ravenous.

Now, let me think what that wondrous meal consisted of… There was red wine, of course, which, when mixed with tiredness and joyfulness and good company, made us shine. Then there were oatcakes, bread, pate, some re-heated pasta from the previous night, grapes, hummus, crisps, tomatoes and there must have been some sort of pudding.

We ate greedily at first, our bodies demanding fuel, and once physically satisfied, picked and picked at a leisurely pace. We ate so much! It may not sound appetising, but, believe me, it was delicious!

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The Pleasure of Walking, Part 3 | Being in the World

Your breath is heavy in your chest. Although it is a cold day, you wear a t-shirt and still feel warm – the extertion required to propel your body up this hill causes the your internal engine to turn.  Your face burns hot and sweat gathers on your brow. As you rise, so does the breeze, cooling you.

Your feet skirp up loose gravel. You have a rythm now. The world around you penetrates your senses.  The sun burns at your face and dazzles your eyes. It is quiet but never silent, and the sounds you hear are those of the mountain on which you stand, or the air passing over it, or the sounds your own body is making.

Your heart pumps so loudly you can feel it in your temples and hear its beating in your ears. Oxygen-filled blood races through your arteries. Stop and you will hear it.

You are on this mountain-side. Right here, right now. You are moving over this land. There is nothing in this world beyond your field of vision, beyond this next step. There is nothing to think about, nothing to do, except take one step after another.

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