Cairngorms: Overnight ski mountaineering trip

Coire an t-Sneachda

The fickle nature of Scottish winter conditions has been beautifully illustrated by this season. It got off to a promising start, but a thaw over Christmas took its toll and despite some further snowfall it all ground to a halt at the end of February, the earliest end to a season since lift-served snowsports began 50 years ago. I gave up and went skiing in France at the end of March. When I returned I waxed my skis and put them in the loft. That did the trick. The snows returned in late April, and they kept coming, allowing deep snow cover to build up over the Cairngorms. People always express surprise at April snowstorms, but they are are in fact a normal and reasonably predictable part of our weather, so much so that they have long been known in agricultural circles as 'lambing storms' for their propensity to appear, inconveniently, at the same time as the year's delicate crop of lambs.

What was unusual about this year's lambing storms is that they culminated in a week or near-constant snow over the tops before giving way to a weekend of sunshine. What's more this was not just any weekend, it was a weekend that had been reserved, months in advance, for outdoor sport. I had hoped that it might be spent be camping by a crag, climbing sun-kissed rock by day and drinking round the campfire by night, but this was not to be.

There could only be one choice of activity given the conditions, an overnight ski mountaineering trip taking in the big four tops of the Northern Cairngorms, Cairngorm itself, Ben Macdui, Carn Toul and Braeriach. I had first embarked on this route six years ago, almost to the day, when I'd only been skiing for a year. On that occasion  we decided to truncate our round by overnighting in the Garbh Coire Howff and accessing the Braeriach plateau via Garbh Coire Mor, missing out Carn Toul and Angel's Peak. Part of this decision had been driven by a reluctance to spend the night in the Corrour bothy, at the time notorious for overcrowding, mice and for being located in an area festooned with human excrement. All has changed since then, the bothy is now a cosy wee place, wood-lined with a stove and sleeping platform bunks. In order to address the jobby issue a composting toilet has been installed in a wooden outhouse. 

Pete, Stu and Colin on the steep section at the top of Allt Clach nan Taillear. Avalanche debris to the left.

After a couple of runs on the horrifically crowded piste we struck off from Cairngorm summit at at around 1300 hrs, bound for Ben Macdui. Reliable snow cover makes the jaunt to Macdui and back by far the most popular ski tour in Scotland, but it is most certainly not one of the best. The terrain is too flat, and flat terrain is the least enjoyable for touring on alpine kit. In truth lighter weight nordic gear is a far better choice for this particular tour, obviating the need to repeatedly affix and remove climbing skins. While such lightweight kit is advisable for the skier whose ambition is to bimble on the plateau, it is not the best choice for ski mountaineers seeking what the admittedly rather dated SMC guidebook describes as 'one of the finest and most challenging ski-runs in the Scottish mountains', the descent of the Tailor's burn (properly Allt Clach nan Tailler, the burn of the Tailor's Stone). My previous descent six years ago was a trying and exhausting one, the snow was heavy and the visibility was poor. This year it was revelatory, a pleasant glide on beautiful snow with the sun on our faces. I have been concentrating on improving my skiing this season and it had paid off, I'm now capable of enjoying skiing black with a pack.

Corrour Bothy and the Devil's Point

A light pack is critical for touring, but the activity itself requires so much equipment; shovel, avalanche probe and transceiver, skins and harscheisen, that I was unable to get the starting weight of my pack below 11.25 kg, including all overnight kit, food, camera and half a litre of water. Our packs were lighter back in 2006 because we didn't have any avalanche safety equipment, not that the spring conditions required them. This year, after a week of snow, it would have been rash to leave the safety gear in the car. In truth I am dubious of the benefits of transceivers in Scotland, having heard neither of anyone being saved due to having one nor of anyone perishing through the lack of one. For this trip I left crampons at home, unwilling to carry a kilo of ironmongery that wood almost certainly remain in my bag, reasoning that I could cut steps with an ice axe should I find myself on steep, icy, unskiable ground. I am glad that I didn't have to cut any steps and am now very tempted by lightweight crampons, the best of which are under 300 g. But perversely, investing in lightweight crampons would increase rather than decrease the weight of my pack, for I would actually carry them rather than leaving them at home.

The ice axes did come in handy at Corrour, where we found, to our surprise, a substantial log, over 2 m long and about 15 cm diameter. A previous visitor must have carried it in, hoping to find an axe or saw in the bothy with which to process it into stove sized lengths. We spent a at least an hour and possibly more taking turns at hacking away at the log, covering the surroundings in wood chips as if a group of beavers had picniced outside the bothy. There were three other residents who were, I think, rather bemused by the this prolonged bout of frenzied hacking. They seemed glad enough of the resulting fire though.

I was delighted to get a chance to inspect the famous Corrour toilet, an ingenious contraption that has two seats side by side. I didn't actually use the facilities, a surprising omission that I attribute to too consuming much oatmeal and not enough beer. At first it appears to have been designed with tandem crapping in mind. However on closer inspection it became clear that only one was in use. I recall reading somewhere that the toleys fall into a sack. Only once the sack is full and the hatch battened down to allow the composting process to take hold does the second seat come into play.

The day in prospect from the summit of the Devil's Point

The distant Southern Cairngorms, Carn a'Mhaim, Angel's Peak and Lochan Uaine from near the summit of Braeriach

It was wonderfully exhilarating to start another blue sky day out in the heart of the wilds of the Cairngorms.  I was outside with my porridge waiting for the sun's warmth to sweep down the flanks of the Devil's Point towards the bothy. I was the only member of the party who had any enthusiasm for starting the day with an ascent of the Devil's Point and so I strapped my skis to my pack and set off half an hour ahead of the rest of the party, ascending from the boreal spring into Scotland's island of Arctic tundra, the Cairngorm plateau. From the summit the day's sport was laid out before me; the peaks of Carn Toul, Angel's Peak and Braeriach are well defined and each provides a worthwhile ski run from its summit. The snow level was 700 m, reaching down to the high point of the Lairig Ghru. The transition between deep skiable snow and heather was a sharp one. The relatively high snowline accentuated the contrast between high and low ground, the col connecting Carn a'Mhaim and Macdui was highlighted beautifully. The distant peaks peaks of the northwest stood proud against the foreground of a practically snowless Monadhliath. The northerly Munros, Ben Mor Assynt  and Ben Klibreck,  were clearly visible, a full 80 miles to the North, as was the full length of the Caithness coast. Also clearly highlighted was the path of the Dee, the glen of which separates the northern and southern Cairngorms. 

Content after two runs of fresh tracks down Coire Gorm on the the best snow of the year

Approaching the teetering torture of the Chalamain Gap

There was a price to be paid for the wonderful descents from Sron na Lairig into Coire Gorm (it was so good we skinned up for another run), the walk out. We managed to ski to the lip of the Lairig Ghru but thereafter had to strap our skis to our packs, grit our teeth and dig deep for the descent into the gorge below, then the ascent to the torturous bouldery bed of the Chalamain Gap, a glacial meltwater channel carved in times past by vast volumes of melt water released by the Strathspey Glacier. We teetered our way through on empty legs to a soundtrack of plastic and buckles grating on granite.

Every single step required conscious effort. I constantly fought the urge to take off my pack and lie down on the ground during the toe mashing march below the Northern Coires to the Sugar Bowl car park where my van, comfortable shoes and orange and mango juice awaited. Above us the piste bashers groomed the slopes of the ski area ready for another day's skiing. The prospect was not appealing, it seemed more fitting to end the season with this unsurpassable phoenix of a trip.

Another MTB traverse of the Cairngorms: Aviemore to Blair Atholl

Former bridge at Carnachuin in Glen Feshie

In 1971 the Italian alpinist Reinhold Messner wrote an essay entitled 'The Murder of the Impossible', in which he criticised the trend among some mountaineers of the time of drilling holes in the rock to allow the fixing of expansion bolts. His objection was that, by using such means, men were able to get up routes that they would not otherwise have been strong or brave enough to climb. In doing so they not only disfigured the rock, they were depriving the stronger, braver climbers of future generations of the challenge of climbing such routes cleanly and in good style.

Singletrack in upper Glen Feshie

In this internet age we face an even graver threat, that of the murder of adventure itself. Nowadays almost everything - excepting the most contrived of challenges - has not only been done, it has been photographed, documented and published on blogs and web pages. Worse still, the tracks of others that have gone before can be downloaded onto GPS enabled mobile devices and slavishly followed.  What was the stuff of adventure only a few short years ago might be found today packaged up as a product and offered for sale by adventure tour operators. Even routes that have not yet been widely publicised can be researched into submission using Google Earth. 

My weekend's sport was the 75 km mountain bike ride from Aviemore to Blair Atholl via Glens Feshie, Geldie and Tilt. If you plan to take this ride on yourself I recommend that you stop reading now so that you can savour its delights through fresh eyes, untainted by the experiences of others.

Fording the Geldie Burn. Donald demonstrates the technique of removing shoes and socks in mid-stream, the biking equivalent of changing horses in mid-stream,

The plan had been hatched by a serial plotter of cycle trips that involve trains.  Last year, while cycling near Linn of Dee, Donald had met two bikers who had cycled through from Glen Feshie. They reported only around 2 km of pushing and the seeds of our adventure were sown. We studiously avoided any further research, keen to maintain an element of surprise. A look at the map revealed about 9 km of single - or no - track between the head of Glen Feshie and Geldie Lodge, with a further 12 km leading in to Glen Tilt. The rest was on landrover tracks. Based on my recent traverse between Tromie Bridge and Dalnacardoch I predicted that the journey would take no more than six hours and we set off from Aviemore at 0930, confident that we would comfortably make the return train from Blair Atholl at 1800.

A snake in the grass near Bynack Lodge. I was surprised to see adders out and about on such a cool and damp day. Perhaps the moisture makes it easier to shed skin.

We had originally planned to take the train all the way from Inverness, but traveling by train is a frustrating pastime for the cyclist, with room for only two bikes on the smaller sprinter trains and room for a paltry half-dozen even on the mighty Highland Chieftain. The bike spaces were already taken on the southbound train, forcing us to drive to Aviemore. This lack of bicycle capacity is all the more infuriating when you learn, as I did on Saturday, that intercity services have an empty compartment at the rear of the power car which would be capable of accommodating countless bicycles. That this commodious compartment remains closed to bicycles is one of the great scandals of our age and I urge you all to write angry letters to the railway companies. 

A decomposed deer provides an unusual bit of surface interest on the approach to Glen Tilt. At this point I had a pretty good idea how the deer must have felt before it lay down for the last time..

Inconvenient though this lack of bicycle carrying capacity may be, it did add to the commitment of the journey. The penalty for missing our intended train would be having to attempt to board a later train onto which our bikes had not been booked. An ugly scene could have developed had we been turned away from this later train, for we would surely have attempted to storm the secret compartment at the rear of the power car rather than face a difficult hitch back up the A9.

The rocks in Glen Tilt are of great interest, for here James Hutton found "granite breaking and displacing the strata in every conceivable manner", proof that granites were originally in a molten state. This helped to overcome the prevailing theory of Neptunism, biblicaly inspired mumbo jumbo that held that all rocks had been deposited from the ocean (see 'Land of Mountain and Flood' page 115). It would have been good to spend longer exploring the Glen, but by then time was short.

This was tough route; a damp day meant that we didn't stop for any longer than was necessary to keep ourselves topped up with calories, yet we arrived in Blair Atholl, caked in mud, with a mere 20 minutes to spare.  The ride itself was phenomenal; we experienced the delights of the incredible upper reaches of Glen Feshie; we numbed our feet on countless river crossings; we watched an adder shed its skin while its companion hissed angrily at us from the heather; we rode singletrack that was equally unpleasant in or out of the saddle; we pounded our hands and cricked our necks on 25 km of almost continuous descent in Glen Tilt; we became acquainted  with a 1:50,000 sheet's length of fresh and wild country. We found the adventure that we sought.  

Cairngorms MTB traverse: Tromie Bridge to Dalnacardoch via Gaick

Campsite by Loch an t-Seilich. The waves give an indication of the invigorating headwind that I enjoyed on the cycle out.

When travelling between Blair Atholl and Kingussie I have never previously given much thought to hinterland that lies to the east, an area roughly the size of the Monadhliath that extends between the A9 and the ski centre at Glenshee. All that will change henceforth following a highly enjoyable bike traverse from Tromie Bridge to Dalnacardoch via the Gaick Pass.

As has become my custom of late, I left home after dinner on friday. My cycle had started from Tromie Bridge near Ruthven Barracks and was surprisingly on tarmac all the way, allowing me to make my rendezvous by 2000 hrs with friends who had cycled in from the south. This allowed plenty time to enjoy our scenic campspot on the northern shore of Loch an t-Seilich, yet another fantastic wild and remote place that can be reached from my house in under two hours.

North to Gaick Lodge with Loch an t-Seilich beyond

The banter round the campfire was excellent. Three bouts of hilarity stick in my mind. The first was at the expense of Pete, who had for some reason or other removed the pannier rack from his bike. Unfortunately he remained oblivious to this modification until the start of the ride, when unloaded his panniers from the car and found he had nothing to fix them to.

The second fit of giggles resulted from some discussion about whether or not it might be possible to cook a pizza in the campfire. I opined that a Dutch oven may be the best option. This confused Neil no end. He had previously only heard the phrase 'Dutch oven' used in a euphemism that was as unfamiliar to me as the conventional definition had been to him. For those who have led lives as sheltered as my own, a Dutch Oven is when you fart in bed then hold your partner's head under the covers, thus ensuring that they experience the full force of your flatulence.  I subsequently confirmed Neil's version on urbandictionary.com. My favourite example of its usage was the following. 'Did you see the ambulance round Big James Kendall's house? Aparently he 'dutch ovened' his girlfried on the back of a night out in a curry house. She nearly died, twice.'

Loch Bhrodainn

The lavatorial theme continued as we discussed a youtube clip parodying bushcraft clown Bear Grylls entitled 'Bear Grylls; Born Shit Eater'. This is without doubt the funniest thing I have seen so far in 2011. I will warn you that it is not for the easily offended. While coprophagia is prominent  throughout, it is neither the funniest nor the most tasteless aspect of this comedy masterpiece.

Divers on Loch an Duin

We swapped car keys and parted after breakfast. An unrelenting headwind did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for the route, past Gaick Lodge and Loch Bhrodainn. I paused to watch a pair of divers before tackling the singletrack section beside Loch an Dun. I was puzzled by a large weir above the dilapidated Sronphadruig Lodge (bothy closed - unsafe) that served no obvious hydroelectric or drinking water reservoir purpose. On my way down the glen I surmised that it was for flood control. The route was littered with the remnants of bridges and fording points, the legacy of generations of attempts keep a road open up the glen in the face of the vast quantities of shifting glacial material, sand and gravel, gradually making its way towards the sea.

North towards Sronphadruig Lodge 

I almost got my comeuppance for laughing so heartily at Pete's pannier problem. After blasting down the final descent to the A9 at top speed I arrived at Pete's car without a stuffsac that had been bungied over my rack. The sac contained a number of essential items including the keys to Pete's car and the spare battery for my mobile phone. I had been listening to some rather nice deep house on my phone throughout the ride and my battery was shot. Thankfully I only had to retrace my steps a few hundred metres to locate the missing items. It would have made a far better story if I had been forced to cycle all the way back to Gaick.....

Cairngorms: Camping in Glen Quoich

Camping amid the remnants of the Caledonian Forest in the Southern Cairngorms

Of the many outdoor blogs that I read Will Gadd's is one of my favourites. He did a post of top tips last year that stuck in my mind. Not because I agreed with it most of them but because I agreed and disagreed in equal measure with one particular tip.

'Camping is vastly over-rated. Most local trips can be done without camping.'

Gadd, like many enthusiasts of the outdoors, is an activity based person. My impression is that the outdoors is primarily an arena in which he can strive for excellence in a variety of activities, each of which he practices to a very high standard. At the other end of the spectrum is someone like Ray Mears. When I heard him speak last year he modestly described his lifelong devotion to bushcraft as an excuse to spend time outside. I have a foot in both camps. For instance, I will admit that it is usually a mistake to attempt to combine camping - or bothying - with climbing, particularly in winter. So often the effort of humphing the huge bag that such a combination trip requires reduces or eliminates the possibility of actually doing any climbing. What you are left with is a camping trip that would have been more enjoyable without the climbing hardware in the bag. On the other hand, camping as an activity in its own right is my favourite way to spend time outdoors. That was the sport for the weekend past, a pure and simple camping trip.

Beinn a'Bhuird from the south

The best camping in Scotland is perhaps to be found in the glens of the southern Cairngorms, accessed from Braemar.  On offer is an unusual combination of upland forest, mighty Scots pines that need the linked arms of a whole family to hug, rivers and flat green grass on which to pitch. I had my first taste of it last year at Derry Lodge in Glen Lui and resolved then to bring the family along. Having found Glen Lui to be patrolled by officious representatives of the National Trust I decided to try nearby Glen Quoich instead.

My first glimpse of the pinewoods of Glen Quoich was on just the type of combination trip that I mentioned as being often unsuccessful above, a cycle and skitouring trip to Beinn a'Bhuird. When Pete proposed the idea to me I had scoffed that there was no snow and that he must be insane to consider such a plan. After some rumination, however, the audacity of the plan took hold of me. The absurdity of biking with ski and overnight kit into one of Scotland's most remote Munros, in the full knowledge that there was no snow, became an irresistible proposition. I mustered my family, at that point consisting only of partner and dog, and departed for Invercauld. After a moonlit cycle we passed the night in a place that shall remain nameless but that will no doubt be known to many readers of this blog. We woke to a fine and still spring day, the distant pinewoods of Glen Quoich looked so tempting, like a tiny oasis of North America lurking on the fringes of the Cairngorms, that the idea of camping there lodged in my brain. Life being what it is it took 5 years to return, my original party enlarged by the addition of a 3 year old daughter.

Evening light on the pinewoods below Beinn a'Bhuird

The glen did not disappoint. After a distinctly moist cycle in, the weather dried up and we passed two very pleasant nights amid the pines. The nearby summit of Beinn a'Bhuird tempted me but I did not give in, this weekend was all about chilling and simply spending time in the outdoors.

Finally, a plug for a new blog that I have found, devoted to this tremendous area of Scotland, Cairngorm Wanderer.

Cairngorms: Carn A'Mhaim from Lin of Dee

The southern approaches to the Cairngorms have a charm all of their own, the crunch of granite gravel under the mountain bike tyre, camping amid great stands of Scots pine. All in all a more leisurely and dignified experience than rushing towards the ski infrastructure from the Coire Cas car park to the north.

A fresh perspective on a familiar hill. Ben Macdui from Carn A'Mhaim.

Heading east was the only sensible option given the weekend's weather forecast and what a treat it was, a chance to spend time on some previously unseen country and to catch up with some old friends at the same time. A pleasant change from last weekend's solo trip, and my first visit to the Cairngorms since the last ski trip of the year in May - it seemed incredible in the cooler days of spring that such as vast quantity of snow would simply melt away, but melt it has in this particularly warm and dry summer. 

Campsite in Glen Derry, more reminiscent of North America than of Scotland 

There is something wonderfully subversive about drinking in the great outdoors, free from the roving eyes of CCTV cameras and the influence of authority figures. When you strip away the commercialism and regulation of city fleshpots – the queues, the curfews, the dress codes, the cover charges - all that remains is a raw, primal drinking experience. 

Or so we thought. Imagine our surprise when our camp was visited not once but twice by just such an authority figure, a representative of the National Trust for Scotland, owners of the Mar Lodge Estate. On his first round of the various campsites scattered round the glen he passed on his employer's objection to campfires. On his second visit, an hour or so later, he was armed - almost unbelievably - with a bright yellow bucket full of special ember-dousing water. It must have been special water for it to have been worth his effort to carry his full bucket several hundred metres from his Landrover, rather than using the water from the burn adjacent to our camp.

Back to reality: from one outdoor paradise to another

During my visit to the Grand Canyon I was reading John Wesley Powell's account of the original exploration in 1869 (I think). In his summing up he suggested that, should one be desirous of a full appreciation of the vastness of the canyon and of the variety of its landscapes, it would be necessary to spend an entire year within its confines. Accordingly I'm not going to bother describing my superficial brush with the Grand Canyon's South Rim. Suffice to say I will be back. The idea of a rafting trip or a through hike from rim to rim is very appealing.

Not being a believer in the phenomenon of jet lag I found the invitation to join an overnight skitouring trip in the Cairngorms that greeted my arrival to be irresistible. Less than 24 hrs after arriving home I looked out my National Park pass and drove down to the Park Headquarters to see if they had any wilderness permits remaining for the Coire Cas trailhead. We hoped to reserve one of the highly prized backcountry campsites in the Loch A'an Basin, but what were our chances on a Bank Holiday weekend?

What relief I felt when I remembered that we do things differently in Scotland. Our access legislation means that there is no requirement for a Park Pass; no need to obtain a Wilderness Permit; no need to book a campsite or even decide in advance where we would stop for the night.

This will seem strange to any North American readers, but we simply parked our cars and wandered off into the wilds of the National Park without processing any paperwork or paying any fees.

Upon arrival I found that the rest of the party had decided to accommodate themselves in a 3 man tent. With characteristic generosity Mearnsey offered to share a second tent with me; the only slight snag being that due to his already overflowing bag I would have to carry the whole thing myself. I declined his offer, gambling that the weather would be suitable for simply dossing down in the open.

And what a fine bivvy it proved to be, I excavated a depression on a relatively flat snow patch beneath the Shelter Stone. The howff below the stone itself was as commodious as I recall from the last time I overnighted there but some residual snow inside, the melting of which had resulted in muddying of the floor. This made a bed of clean snow in the open air a far more appealing prospect.

And the consequence of the permit free access to the Loch A'an Basin? Far from being overrun we saw the torches of only two other parties shining among the moraines and boulder-fields.
In Powell's book he discusses the indigenous inhabitants of the Southwest. In keeping with the language of the time he describes them as savages, but he does concede that some had almost effected the transition from savagery from barbarism.

Come morning Neil was kind enough to use his shiny new avalanche probe to transfer a bacon roll from the tent to my nearby bivvy. I felt like a hungry savage receiving a handout from benevolent barbarian neighbours.

Great Toilets of the World Part 1: Is this Scotland's only squat toilet?

A preference for a hole in the ground style toilet is regarded by most British people as backward and downright uncivilised. I don't subscribe to this school of lavatorial snobbery however, having recognised the benefits of the squat toilet while travelling in Asia some years ago. It was during this time that I practised and perfected the art of the relaxed squat. It is a sad reflection on the health of our nation that many of us are simply incapable of squatting. This is the first benefit of the hole in the ground toilet; regular squatting promotes hip flexibility, and flexibility is a Good Thing. The second benefit is to the act of stool passage itself. I expect that an appropriate anatomical drawing would highlight the improved alignment of one's colon with the anus that squatting confers. Try for yourself, your output will slide out smoothly and continuously like a well-oiled piston. I have read that back pain was practically unknown in Thailand until the European chair was introduced. Perhaps a similar tale could be told about haemorroids and western toilets?
Despite my enthusiasm for the squat toilet I do have a regular unit installed in my own home. I have been quite tempted by the hybrid units that one can buy; effectively a standard western toilet but with footplates that permit squatting at seat level. A nasty injury could result were such an elevated squat to be attempted after a few refreshments, so I am inclined against such a compromise.
I occupied myself on saturday with a stroll up Glen Feshie in the Cairngorms and was surprised and delighted in equal measure to find a functional squat toilet in an outbuilding adjacent to the Ruigh-aiteachan bothy. To the best of my knowledge this is the only example in Scotland. As illustrated by the photo above, the simple hole has been complicated unnecessarily by the addition of a seat-less chair and a wooden toilet seat, no doubt to accommodate the inflexibility of the average user. The eagle-eyed amongst you may also have noticed that a misalignment between seat and hole has resulted in some nasty smearage.
It is the inevitability of this type of ad hoc customisation by houseguests and the attendant risk of smearage that puts me off discarding my white porcelain throne. Perhaps a hybrid is the way forward after all.

Road Rage in Glen Feshie

A top up of fresh snow meant that we had to dig our way into the car park at the Red Burn, much to the consternation of a couple of innocent motorists who were trapped in the midst of our skitouring convoy. One was on his way to work and the other felt that his 4WD car would succeed where one of our party's Subaru had failed. Nothing could be done to relieve their frustration until sufficient trenching had been done to shuffle the cars off the road into the freshly cleared car park. We must have made an absurb spectacle, stooping low as we dug feverishly using our short-handled snow shovels, like a troupe of dwarves.
Car to car skiing and cutting fresh tracks on Sgor Gaoith in the sun amply repaid our efforts. A great end to the winter? Maybe not, it's only Friday!