Mostly Wildfires, plus a Cairngorms camp with torn trousers

The Abernethy-Ryvoan Fire Day1. View from Craigellachie

On July 15 I was driving to Aviemore when I saw smoke billowing up from behind Meall a’Bhuachaille. I was heading for Coire na Ciste and a walk on the long north ridge of Cairn Gorm, a favourite quiet place. Approaching Aviemore the smoke looked thicker. Stopping, I consulted the internet. A fire had broken out near Ryvoan Bothy. Going that way seemed unwise so I walked up Craigellachie above Aviemore instead. The wood shone in the sunshine. The sky was blue. It was a lovely day. Except that once out of the trees I could see the smoke again, more smoke now, filling the sky above the Ryvoan Pass. This looked bad, this looked serious. It was.

View of the smoke from home. Day 7.

Over the next few weeks whenever I looked out of my study window I could see the smoke. Every day I thought of all the people fighting the fire and felt thanks. Every day I felt sorrow, knowing that a place I love will not look the same the next time I visit, will be burnt, blackened, and scarred. I think of the wildlife that will have perished. And I think of climate change and of the fires burning all over the world and wonder what have we done?

Those weeks it was hard to concentrate on anything else. Every day I followed the story on social media and on the news. I’ve watched videos, looked at pictures, read reports.

Dava Moor after the fire.

A year ago it was the same. Then a much bigger fire, the biggest ever in the UK, burned Dava Moor to the north of Grantown-on-Spey. That fire was out of sight of home but much, much closer. We could smell the smoke and at times see it drifting low over the nearby forest. Not knowing how close it might come we made plans to evacuate quickly. It stopped five miles away. I wrote about it here.

Dava Moor detail.

Although far larger the Dava Fire didn’t attract the same attention as the Abernethy – Ryvoan fire. It wasn’t in a popular tourist area, it was mostly outside the Cairngorms National Park, although it did just cross the border (see map here), it didn’t threaten communities, though it came close. It was on low gently undulating moorland mostly used for grouse shooting and sheep grazing with some areas of planted forestry (it’s noteworthy that the areas of muirburn didn’t stop the fire). The main attraction for visitors is lovely Lochindorb with its ruined castle on an island and its birdlife.

Lochindorb with smoke from the Dava Moor fire

The Dava Fire was declared out after just four days. The Abernethy-Ryvoan Fire lasted over four weeks and even after that there were hotspots. Two months later and the core area of the fire is still closed to the public as dangerous trees and debris are cleared. Looking at the map it’s easy to see why the much bigger fire could be dealt with so much faster. Dava Moor is almost flat open terrain. Much of the Abernethy-Ryvoan fire was on steep slopes and narrow valleys covered in dense forest or heather and rocks.  As I know, this is difficult ground to move over away from paths. Fighting a fire here must have been extremely difficult.

The much greater attention given to the Abernethy-Ryvoan Fire means that much discussion is being given to what needs to be done to reduce the likelihood of future fires – and there will be future fires as the effects of climate change grow – being so devastating. Plans are being drawn up which I hope will actually lead to action. This should really have been done after the Dava Fire but nobody outside the area was much interested in that. I’ve talked to a surprising number of people since who hadn’t even heard of if but knew about the Abernethy-Ryvoan Fire.

Cotton grass on Dava Moor a year after the fire.

In May this year I walked the Dava Way from Grantown-on-Spey to Forres as part of the Moray Way (see this post). This took me through the area of the fire. Whilst there was much blackened ground and many burnt trees I was heartened to see that much of the open moor was white with one of the most extensive areas of cotton grass I've ever seen. Life was returning.

Two months after the Abernethy-Ryvoan Fire I returned to the area. Until then I’d walkd in other areas of the Cairngorms. (Despite what some news reports said the fire was only in a very small part of the national park). Part of me was reluctant to go back. The pictures were horrific enough. I couldn’t go into the fire area itself. This was still closed. But I could go up Meall a’ Bhuachaille, right on its edge, and look across it. I took camping gear, deciding to combine the visit with a night out in the hills.

View back down to Loch Morlich

The sky was cloudy, the forest stuffy and humid. I was glad to feel a breeze as I left the trees. There were many fungi lining the path. The heather was a brilliant purple, at the height of its summer display. Across Loch Morlich dark clouds tore across the hills. Soon I could look across the forest to blackened slopes around Coire Laogh Mor. The burnt area stretched up to the Coire na Ciste car park. Higher up it stopped at the path up the ridge on the east side of the corrie. The fire must have been weakening here for a narrow footpath to block it.

View from Meall a' Bhuachaille to Coire na Ciste

From the blustery summit of Meall a’Bhuachaille I could see more of the extent of the fire, how it had spread across Strath Nethy to the lower slopes of Bynack Beg and east into Abernethy Forest. I knew it had burned in the Ryvoan Pass, on the eastern side of Meall a’ Bhuachaille, and along Strath Nethy but these were hidden from the summit. Notices on the path down to Ryvoan Bothy said that way was closed. The view was sobering but not unexpected. The year before I’d seen the aftermath of the Dava Moor fire. This looked the same, just on steep slopes.

View from Meall a'Bhuachaille to the edge of Abernethy Forest

I’ve been up Meall a’ Bhuachaille many, many times over the years. This was the first time I hadn’t gone up or down via Ryvoan though. I turned away from the devastation and headed down the hill. A couple of runners passed me. A lone backpacker with a dog was sitting in the heather. “I think they’re crazy, they think we’re crazy” she said, seeing my big pack. This, she told me, would be only her second night wild camping. Before I dropped off the wide ridge I could see her pitching a green tent high on the hillside.

With the wind picking up I was looking for a more sheltered site. Finding one was not as easy as I hoped. The tussocky heather high up I expected. Not far down though I came across an area that had been clear-cut so many years earlier that the tree stumps and whitened dead branches were half-buried in thick heather and long grass. Crunching through these was slow and arduous.

A somewhat sheltered, somewhat flat camp.

When I reached the burn that would be my camp water supply I was still in the felled debris. I had to descend a fair way before I came to actual living trees and a small patch of not too bumpy ground that would just do for the tent. Down here it was now calm and rain was starting to fall. As soon as I stopped the midges came out so I was inside with the doors closed as quickly as possible, especially as I was showing rather a large amount of bare leg, my admittedly ancient trousers having split almost from waist to knee as I pitched the tent.

Oops!

The trousers were clearly unrepairable, or at least well beyond skills. My only spare ones were my waterproof overtrousers so I’d have to wear these. I was glad I’d had to come further down the hill to find a site as this meant a shorter walk the next day. I was also, for once, hoping it would rain. At least I was comfortable in camp.

It did rain too, most of the night, but it stopped soon after dawn. However a gusty wind had sprung up which kept off the midges and which I hoped wouldn’t make the overtrousers too unbearable. The trousers did have full-length side zips and leaving these open from thigh to knee kept my legs cool. In fact the trousers were quite comfortable, though I expect they wouldn’t have been if it had been calmer and warmer.

Fly Agaric.

The walk back to the car through the forest was uneventful. Near the camp there were some sizeable deciduous trees still in cracked and splitting plastic tubes that should really have been removed long ago. The trees, mostly willow, seemed healthy enough though. Lower down more fungi, especially Fly Agaric, decorated the sides of the forest track. It was peaceful down here. I relaxed, forgetting for a short while fires and the future.

I made a video of the trip, mostly about the camping.