And now in colour: on Ben Avon & Beinn a'Bhuird

Sunset in Glen Quoich

Following my last monochrome post here are some colour photographs from the walk over Ben Avon and Beinn a'Bhuird. Apart from brief touches of yellow, orange and pink on both evenings plus a patch of blue sky on the second one the dominant colour was green - green woods, green grasses, and green tent. Sometimes the green was tinged with the brown of heather, sometimes tinged with yellow on the tops, but the overall impression was always of a subdued green landscape under a grey sky and broken up by grey and brown rocks and grey and white water.

Camp in upper Glen Quoich

Stob an t-Sluichd, an outlying Top of Beinn a'Bhuird

Ben Avon

Coire nan Clach, Beinn a'Bhuird

A distant late shaft of sunlight, camp on Beinn a'Bhuird

The brightest colours of the trip well after sunset on the second night

The Linn of Quoich

Under the Clouds: Camping & Walking in the Eastern Cairngorms

The green landscape says summer, the brooding, dark, clouded sky says November. July in the Highlands. And much of June this year too. Rise above the trees and the hills are almost colourless, the flat grey light subduing and overwhelming any brightness. Monochrome mountains.

With this in mind here’s an account of a trip from a few days ago with black and white pictures. I’ll do another post with colour ones – the two don’t mix well.

With the forecast for clear tops though the sky remaining overcast I went to the Eastern Cairngorms for the first time in half a dozen years to walk through the splendid pinewoods of Glen Quoich and then climb to the vast plateau-mountains of Ben Avon and Beinn a’Bhuird.

The first night I camped in Glen Quoich, above the trees and in the wind to keep off the midges. Across the glen Coire na Ciche rose to pointed A’Chioch and the South Top of Beinn a’Bhuird. The only sound was the wind in the grasses and the soft trickling of the burn.

On the way up the glen to The Sneck, the narrow neck of land separating Ben Avon and Beinn a’Bhuird, I passed a backpacker resting by a burn and then stood aside for two day walkers hurrying down. They were the only people I saw on the hills. Then it was up onto the vast and always slightly strange Ben Avon plateau with its many isolated rocky tors. There is no other hill like it.

At the summit the wind was strong and cold so after sheltering briefly for a snack behind the rough granite rocks – coarse enough to rub skin off your fingers – I was soon on my way back down to The Sneck and then warming up on the climb to Beinn a’Bhuird, staring out over the great eastern corries back to Ben Avon and across Deeside, where the clouds were thicker and swirling round the tops.

My second camp was high on the mountain near the headwaters of the Alltan na Beinne. Here there was just enough of a breeze to keep the midges away. To the west I could see the tangled mass of the central Cairngorms, the broad dome of Ben Macdui dominating the lower summits. Specks of snow dotted its flanks, very little for this time of year. Maybe this summer it will all go. As I watched the mountains a distant shaft of sunlight cut through the clouds and lingered for a few minutes, the only sign of the sun all day.

Sleep was disturbed by the popping of bits of my air bed, which sounded like an explosion when happening under my head, so I had a very early start the next day. The clouds were lower now, my camp only just below them.

Over Deeside strands of mist drifted across the land, white and ephemeral. Somehow during my descent I managed to stay out of the clouds though patches were often below me. Once back in the trees I admired the old pines and the new growth but kept moving after one brief stop brought the midges out.

Glen Quoich & The Eastern Cairngorms

Beinn a'Bhuird

An chat on Twitter with @CairngormTreks about Ben Avon reminded me of trips to this fine mountain and it's equally fine neighbour Beinn a'Bhuird so I dug out this piece on an overnight trip to these hills that first appeared in The Great Outdoors several years ago.

The big hills of the Eastern Cairngorms, Ben Avon and Beinn a’Bhuird, form two huge plateaux between Glen Dee in the south and Glen Avon in the north. They lie far from roads and the round of the pair in a day is a long, strenuous undertaking. A two day trip with an overnight camp is a far more enjoyable way to appreciate these magnificent hills. Being in the hills early and late means experiencing the sometimes subtle, sometimes spectacular, light of dawn and dusk as well, with no worry about walking in the dark.

  

Double rainbow in Glen Quoich

Glen Dee gives the quickest approach to the hills via Glen Quoich or Gleann an t-Slugain. I prefer Glen Quoich, mainly due to the splendid ancient pine woods, though it is also slightly shorter, and it was up this glen that I set out from Linn of Quoich under a dark sky with heavy showers hammering on my waterproofs and pack. Underfoot the ground was sodden and the streams were all bursting with run-off.  A cold north-west wind had me cinching my jacket hood tight and striding out fast to warm up my muscles. I reassured myself that the forecast for the next day, when I would be on the summits, was for sunshine. There was little sign of the sun that first day though as evening drew on short bursts of light pierced the clouds and brought rainbows curving over the forest. 

 

Camp in upper Glen Quoich

Leaving the trees behind I reached the heathery slopes of the upper glen and found a grassy spot near the stream for my camp with excellent views down the glen and into Coire na Ciche on Beinn a’Bhuird. A chilly night with the temperature dipping near freezing showed that the clouds were dissipating and I woke to a calm, clear dawn and warm enough temperatures to sit outside. Off early I was soon climbing the path between the encroaching slopes of Beinn a’Bhuird and Ben Avon to the narrow neck of land between the two called The Sneck. Here the wind caught me again and I had to don my windshirt. Rough slopes led to the Ben Avon plateau where, as always, I marvelled at the vast space and the scattering of rough granite tors, the highest of which, called Leabaidh an Daimh Bhuidhe (bed of the yellow stag), is the summit. After the short, easy scramble to the top of this tor I returned to The Sneck and headed up the slopes of Beinn a’Bhuird, a smoother, grassier plateau with no tors and just a small cairn marking the North Top, the summit of the hill. The glory of Beinn a’Bhuird lies in the great cliff-rimmed corries that cut into its eastern slopes and the best walk on the hill is along the edge of these. Here I met the only other walker I saw on the hills. Clouds were building up from the west as I turned away from the cliffs for the path down the spur of An Diollaid back to Glen Quoich, a path that has replaced the old bulldozed road that once scarred the hillside here but which has been removed by the National Trust for Scotland. 

The Eastern Corries of Beinn a'Bhuird

After fording the Allt an Dubh-ghlinne at the base of the hill, a stone-hopping exercise during which I just kept my feet dry, I followed the track on the west side of Quoich Water down through the pines to Linn of Quoich. The first rain was just starting to fall as I finished the walk.

Almost Ben Avon, With Rainbows

Sunday morning. 8a.m. Driving over the winding, hilly road to Tomintoul. Gusts of wind buffeting the car. Dark clouds hanging over the summits. I wasn’t feeling optimistic about leading a group up Ben Avon for the Tomintoul and Glenlivet Walking Festival. But the six would-be ascentionists (plus one dog) and my co-leader were enthusiastic and cheerful and keen to make the best of the day, whatever the weather.

After the long drive up Glen Avon to Inchrory (a privilege accorded to the Walking Festival as this private estate road is normally closed to vehicles) we assembled on the grassy expanse at the base of the mountain. The wind was chilly and the air damp. I think I was the only person not wearing hat and gloves and we all had waterproofs on.

Slowly we plodded up the gradually more indistinct track into an increasing wind and showers of horizontal rain. Great curving ridges and blurred rocky tors appeared and disappeared in the hazy light. Over Glen Avon patches of blue sky appeared but the mountains remained hidden. The rain grew harsher, lashing our faces. Walking became difficult with gusts threatening to blow us over. Eventually we took shelter at the base of Clach Bhan, the first of the big tors. We’d reached 900 metres. With no sign of the wind lessening and another 5 kilometres plus over 200 metres of ascent to go, all exposed to the weather, continuing seemed unwise. Being blown over onto the rocks was too great risk. I went back up into the wind as a last check to see if it had eased. My anemometer recorded gusts of 42mph and an average speed over 30mph. Higher up the wind would be stronger. The way to go was down. Rather than retrace our steps we descended directly into Glen Avon, down steep rough heathery slopes. Throughout the descent rainbows curved over the glen, their ephemeral beauty a contrast to the dark greyness of the sky and the subdued colours of the hillsides.

The world was different down in the glen; the rain gone, the wind greatly lessened and the roaring sound that of the swirling brown river rather than the rushing air in our ears. The bank above the river made for a fine lunch spot before we ambled back down the glen to the start, a fine walk above the waterfalls, rapids and dark pools of the River Avon. We hadn’t reached the summit but we had made the best of the conditions and had a good day out, a better one than I’d expected.

Outdoors Station Podcast on New Gear & GPS

A few days ago I did a podcast with Bob Cartwright, for The All New Podzine for 10/12/2007 on The Outdoors Station, talking about some interesting new outdoor gear and telling a story about a problem I had with a GPS unit earlier in the year. The same podcast also has Andy Howell talking about some outdoor books, including The Wild Places, which I reviewed in my last blog (6/12/07). You can find the Podzine here.

The photo shows the wide open spaces of the Ben Avon plateau in the Cairngorms on the morning when I couldn't get a GPS signal, as described in the podcast. Photo info: Canon EOS 350D, 18-55mm lens at 27mm, f8@1/160, ISO 100, raw file processed in Capture One Pro.