July 2010 - Walking - Munros, Ben Alder group

(Please excuse the inconsistency between between km and miles)

My first experience of Munros (except bagging the summit of Aonach Mor after an abortive attempt at winter climbing on its crags, which I don't count as we took the gondola up), was in January this year with John Cox. I had been hoping that winter walking would be more my cup of tea than winter climbing, but it turned out I'm still not confident on my feet in crampons on steep icy ground. However the views were fantastic and the hills spectacular so the seed was sown to tick off some more of them. I decided to come back in summer, and in order not to forget I set myself an aim of ticking off 31 Munros by the time I'm 31 (February 2011). Come the end of June I realised I had quite a busy few months coming up and hadn't set aside any time for meeting this target, so I found my next free weekend and started making plans.

I decided that taking a Friday afternoon and Monday morning off work would allow time for stress-free travelling and give me two full days on the hills (my first trip to Scotland that wouldn't involve rocking up at 1 o'clock in the morning), whilst still keeping my leave application at work to a minimum. UKClimbing.com helped me pick a suitable location from my criteria (basically a two day trip with no cows!), and by chance also found me a walking partner. So the plan was set. Leave work at 12:15 on Friday 16th July, pick up John from Crewe, and drive to Dalwhinnie. Cycle into Culra bothy and spend the night there. Walk up 4 of the 6 local Munros the first day (Carg Dearg 1034m, Geal-Chàrn 1132m, Aonach Beag 1116 and Beinn Eibhinn 1102m), stay in the bothy again then bag the remaining 2 the next day (Ben Alder 1148m and Beinn Bheoil 1019m). Cycle straight out and drive to Glasgow and spend Sunday night there with a friend, then face the rest of the drive the next morning, making it back to work for 13:15 on Monday.

Crossing the suspension bridge

The drive went smoothly and we arrived at 19:30, so cooked up some dinner and were ready to set off by 20:20. The first challenge was 10.75 miles by pedal power from Dalwhinnie Station to Culra bothy. I expected the bike ride to be either easy or tough, I didn't expect it to be exciting and memorable. Even to start with it was quite special - there were startled red deer running across our path as we whizzed alongside the impressive Loch Ericht, followed by a little animal I couldn't identify, a stoat or pine marten, cute fluffy brown fellow with a white face. We did the 5.7 miles to Ben Alder lodge in 45 minutes, 7.6mpg average which wasn't too bad with heavy sacks on, mine with a plank of wood against my back slowly bruising my spine and John with two carrier bags of firewood swinging off his handlebars.

Wading the loch edge

We turned off toward Loch Pattack and reached the choice of paths. Our slick and semi-slick tyres didn't take well to our intended option across 'level wet moorland' so we quickly chose the other option, which turned out to be a continuation of the good track, which seemed great... until we reached the suspension bridge. That was quite novel, although fairly straightforward. Then there was a beach, which tyres wouldn't grip on again so we pushed the bikes. Until there was a large puddle to ford, so we took our boots off and waded (the alternative seemed to be cycle through, and given the bikes wouldn't grip on the gravelly sand we didn't think they'd grip on gravelly sand underwater either). Phew, obstacle course completed.

Me at Culra bothy

All that was left was to cycle up a bit of a hill, then follow a loose track which contoured round the hill and went on forever, straight into the wind which caused me to explore the full width of a path every time a gust caught me. My sense of humour had failed by now and I was pretty glad I wasn't on my own, it was quite lonely out there especially as it was starting to get dark by then. We were so glad to see a little white roof pop onto sight round the corner. We arrived at the bothy at 10:25pm having averaged only 4.8mph on the bikes. I was even more joyous when I saw two other bikes propped up against the wall - company! I was quite surprised to find 10 other people in there. It's incredible that you can cycle for 2 hours 11 minutes into the Scottish wilderness, arrive at a dark hut and find 10 like minded companions. Fantastic. After a brief natter (in the process discovering that we weren't the only ones to find the ride adventurous and slow) and unpacking, we got straight into our luxury beds - wooden plinths, I'd expected a damp concrete floor! Fortunately there was plenty of space for us still as Culra bothy sleeps 22.

I didn't actually sleep that well, nor fall asleep particularly fast - in the room next door it sounded like they were constantly stomping up and down the stairs - only there were no stairs! I popped round in the morning curious to find out whether they'd been dancing or something. Yep, two standing on each bed throwing shapes until 2am! And I think they were all in their 40s and 50s, cracking.

River split in front of Ben Alder

They recommended a different route to us for the day than the one we'd planned, which sounded sensible, so off we set right on schedule (9am). Up Lancet edge onto Geal-chàrn, across the ridge to Aonach Beag then Beinn Eibhinn, then back the same way as far as Geal-chàrn and onto Carn Dearg via Diollaird a' Chairn. Lancet Edge took us some time but we knew that was the only substantial ascent of the day so it was easy to cope with. It all felt very much the way walks in the hills 'should' be - no big path, no directional cairns, no obvious way on, a bit of nouse required to get anywhere. The weather was quite cloudy but we could always see far enough to get a sight of the next thing we were aiming for. We could sometimes see only 100m, sometimes down to the valley floor. We had to take constant bearings, and followed standard practice of finding something on that bearing to walk to, walking to it, then doing the same again. With distances we allowed about 10 mins per km adjusted with Naismiths, and if we felt like we'd reached the next change of course we'd checked the watch to confirm whether we had or not. This worked spot on... until we were looking for the spur down Geal-chàrn towards the end. This was the point I had been nervous of all the way through the day as the book had said to be careful to take an exact bearing in poor visibility. So we did, and we walked on it methodically (picking things to aim at one at a time again), and it brought us almost right to a spur. We couldn't tell if it was the right one as could only see one lochan below us, there was meant to be one each side of and where the other one would be was shrouded in cloud, but our choice to descend there was sealed by the fact that even if it was the wrong spur we could still get round to Carg Dearg. So we started down and it quickly became apparent that it wasn't the right one as it was obvious no-one went that way, it was rocky scrambly ground covered with green vegetation. Fortunately the mist cleared then and we could quite clearly see the ridge we were meant to be on so reversed and adjusted course for that and it turned out to be about a km away, which is about as far as we'd walked on our bearing for! How could we have been 60 degrees out?! I later checked the bearing (still on the compass) and found it to be quite wrong even though I'd taken it very carefully, the only thing that I could think was that I must have knocked the compass. School boy error. Still navigation is as much about correcting mistakes as about not making them and we corrected fine. The ridge down gave us nice views of the waterfalls above Loch an Sgòir. Unfortunately at this point my knees, which has been niggling since the half way point, started to hurt as badly as they ever do, despite dosing up on the ibuprofen before descending, but I gritted my teeth against the pain as that was the only option. After summit number 4 we dropped right off the steep edge of Carg Dearg straight towards the bothy as directed. We rapidly lost height down steep scree and soft ground coverted in heather and bilberry bushes, using a kind of crab walk then bouncing gait respectively, which were surprisingly healthy on the knee with no pain whatsoever. Total distance covered was 19km in 8.5 hours.

John heading back down Beinn Eibhinn

The bothy had got even busier with the exterior littered with bikes. We washed in the stream, wolfed down our pasta and sauce, then lit the fire as entertainment and chatted to various other walkers. Just as our donation to the firewood cause had depleted two Scots dropped down a couple of bags of coal so we were kept luxuriously warm all evening, and my sodden boots had a chance to lose perhaps a quarter of their liquid, enough that dry socks wouldn't get instantly soaked at least. I hadn't taken any spare shoes and whilst waiting for my boots to dry I was desperate for the toilet, but was already wearing my second (and last) pair of socks which I didn't want to get wet. (A trick I learnt on a snowboarding holiday - after showering after a day out on the hills, change into your socks for the next day as you're not going to get them very soiled over the course of an evening. That way you don't need to take 2 pairs per day). Eventually I couldn't wait any longer so borrowed some shoes from someone in order that I could take the shovel for a walk. Unfortunately though they were Crocs which aren't designed for damp moorland and I got wet socks anyway... typical.

I finished off the evening with a few sips of some 10 year old Glenfarclas, all I drunk between when I left the van to when we returned to it was whisky and burn water. Then I put my head down before 10 as we were planning a slightly earlier start the next day - I don't normally like to be the first to bed in case I miss anything interesting but you can't miss much in a bothy, you're no more than 2 metres from all the action. This time I slept like a log and was up and ready for 8am raring to go.

Bunny rabbit

It was another day with poor visibility, but I knew I wanted to carry on with the plan regardless, even though when we started walking my back and right shin muscle were vying with my left knee for the title of most troublesome pain. The back and shin weren't too worrying though, and as far as my knees were concerned I knew I could get up the hill without any trouble so I figured I'd just do that then cross the bridge of excrutiating pain if I encountered it later. We walked in enforced silence though persistant wind and rain, and when we reached Loch a Bhealaich Bheithe there was nowhere to cross the stream without getting wet feet (an experience I didn't intend to have so soon in the day). We retracted along the stream looking for rocks that spanned it entirely. Most people I know would have jumped from boulder to boulder leaving me standing on the bank worrying about my lack of balance and inability to jump but John seemed even less happy with the steppingstone experience than me! Fortunately we finally found somewhere feasible and were then able to start off up the scramble ridge onto the Ben Alder pleateau. I just kept telling myself that there was always the possibility that the visibility would improve and the sun would come out, and if not we'd still have done the walk. The scramble was fun with the occasional technical move, and at the top we got a few temporary glimpses of the way on while I stopped to wring out my socks, now sodden by the rain which was soaking straight into my sponge-like boots (so much for staying dry).

Summit no. 5, Ben Alder

We found the summit without too much trouble, but didn't want to hang around in the wind and rain so after the obligatory summit photo (and a trig point pose too, the first and only of the trip!) we took our bearing and set about attempting to find where we were meant to 'descend steeply to the South West over bouldery ground' to Bealach Breabag (bealach = pass). We mistakenly walked along the ridge too far (I think we were distracted by the fact that the steep drop away to the east was the only thing we could confidently identify). We picked a point to descend then started to worry about dropping over the top of a waterfall, so countoured rightwards to compensate for having overshot, still losing height fairly rapidly whenever we could do so safely. It was quite mentally challenging - we were unsure of the terrain and had to just trust our intuition and judgement to carry us on safely. The further you went the more you felt like you were taking a leap of faith rather than an educated choice. Our commitment paid off, as the clouds lifted just enough for us to orient ourselves when we needed it... We could see a mirage-like lock inlet so we grabbed the map and while were were panicking to locate it the clouds continued to clear and we could see more and more objects in every direction. It was like a divine event and I felt giddy as not only we were in exactly the right place but we could see a feasible way down, then the entire of the extensive saddle we were aiming for, and also we realised the big bulk of mountain that suddenly loomed ahead of us with a amenable looking path leading up its back was our Beinn Bheoil, our final Munro.

Ben Alder

We walked to a pond at the point where the path started to ascent again (less we lost clarity again) and had our lunch feeling considerably calmed. The weather seemed to have decided to stop testing us now and for the first time we were able to put away the map and compass and we strolled to the Top then all the way along the 3km long ridge (all above 800m) to the summit with horizon to horizon views. It was quite spectacular - we could see all the way to Dalwhinnie station to our front, down to Loch Ericht on our right with countless nameless peaks behind, and left to yesterday's peaks. My knees were once again agonisingly painful on the gentle descent off the summit, but yet again once it steepened and we could bound down damp springy ground they were thankfully pain free. The approach of the Scots to descents seems to be 'right, you've ticked all the Munros, now just find the bothy and head straight to it', so we did. Day total this time was 16km in 7 1/4 hours, almost exactly the same speed as yesterday. I was especially proud that we'd managed to find our way with just map and compass, especially as every one else we met seemed to be devotees of GPS.

The better track back

The rest of the day went without a hitch. We packed and were on our bikes again by 4pm. We took the alternative path and although I'm not experienced at mountain biking so was concentrating 100% and emitting squeals and squawks every time there was mud or stones or my pedals caught in the grass, it was a fantastic path considering the alternative and we flew along it. We then zipped along the bigger track as before and made it back to the van in exactly half the time of the cycle out (9.8mph average). The roads were clear on the drive to Glasgow and we were an hour early to meet Fiend so we followed up on his recommendation of Di Maggio's in Shawlands and tucked into very welcome pizzas (cajun chicken for me) followed by luscious desserts. Fiend joined us and squeezed two courses in in the time we ate our desserts, then we nipped round the corner to his, had a good catch up fuelled by a little more whisky, then put our heads down onto the soft, soft bedding. We slept a bit too well and failed to hear either alarm but I guess my subconscious heard it as it eventually relented and released me from the grip of deep slumber, and I woke me up three minutes before we wanted to be walking out the door. Traffic was quiet again though and even travelling at the speed limit we made up time, and I was back at work at 1:15 as planned.

My dessert!

What a weekend. The plan had seemed amibitous but it *worked*. We were tired but not shattered, navigation was hard but successful, the distance was taxing but possible. My injuries didn't cause me to abort or making driving back an ordeal. Even my packing choices proved successful as I used everything I took (bar midge spray and midge hat - one advantage of the grey weather was no midges but wouldn't have dared leave those behind). I could have done with more things (I forgot a hat, scarf and gloves for example) but they weren't essential and I had no room for them anyway.

I wonder if I've found my real passion in hillwalking. I love the mountains in this format. Winter climbing didn't float my boat (too cold) and in my climbing days even though my year wasn't complete without a multi-pitch, single pitch cragging was my main love... but the prospect of plodding up mountains in summer seems to bring out a real determination in me. When I used to go out climbing, I'd find any excuse to back off ('I've done one hard route, I can leave the rest for another day, another visit'), but not here, every challenge is something to overcome - the river crossings, the navigation, the rain. I certainly can't wait to get back.