The TGO Challenge, pictures from the first two events and this year's "virtual" Challenge

Outside the Lochailort Inn about to start the first Challenge in 1980.

Since I wrote about the first TGO Challenge on May 8 I've located and scanned some of the photos from that trip and the 1981 Challenge. Back then I didn't take many photos - film was expensive and I didn't carry many rolls. I wish now that I'd taken many more!

A camp on the first Challenge. I'm not sure where! The tent is a Field & Trek Pathfinder.

Looking at my journal for the trip I see I wore stiff, heavy leather boots and slept on a 3mm piece of closed cell foam. I can't imagine doing either of those!

View from the Mamores over the Aonach Eagach to Bidein nam Bian

At the time of the first Challenge I was on my first round of the Munros and I used the walk to climb 56 new ones including the Mamores, Ben Alder, the A9 Munros, the Southern Cairngorms, and Mount Keen. That first Challenge was three weeks long so I had plenty of time to do this. No-one else took more than two weeks however and the event was shortened to that the next year. In 1981 I climbed 36 new Munros including the Ben Cruachan range, the Ben Starav hills, the Blackmount, the Beinn Dorain hills, the Ben Lawers range, and the Glen Lyon hills.

A camp on the second Challenge in 1981. I really have no idea where this is!

I stuck with a 3mm foam pad for the second Challenge so I must have slept okay on it. I changed the tent for a lighter weight Ultimate Solo Packer though and saved even more weight by not taking the inner. My boots were half the weight of 1980 too and much more flexible. I was learning! I also saved weight with my stove, taking a cartridge one (Alp S7000 - a long gone brand) rather than the efficient but heavy MSR GK petrol/paraffin stove I'd used the year before.

Somewhere on the second Challenge!

As the actual Challenge was cancelled due to the lockdown I've been sharing these and other photos from previous Challenges on social media, along with many others, after Challenge Co-ordinators Sue Oxley and Ali Ogden set off on a virtual Challenge and invited others to join them. People have retraced Challenges they've done and created new ones at home, often amusingly, with garden camps, ice axe climbs, wheelbarrow crossings of Loch Ness and more. Sue and Ali have written about the first week of the virtual Challenge on the TGO website. With 700 posts, 2,500 comments, 23,000 likes and 3,400 photos on Facebook alone in the first week this has been a successful event. Positive and joyful, it shows just how important the Challenge is to many of us.

Challenge camp, 1989

Photography notes.

The 1980 and 1981 photos were taken on Kodachrome 64 slide film. I digitised them by photographing them on a lightbox with my Sony a6000 camera and Sony E 30mm macros lens then processing them in Lightroom. I can see more detail on the digital images than in the original slides. The camera I used in 1980 was a fairly heavy and hefty Pentax S1a SLR with a 55mm lens. This was my first proper camera, bought second-hand. After it was stolen I replaced it, courtesy of the insurance, with a much lighter and smaller Pentax ME Super with 50mm lens. This came with me on the 1981 Challenge and for the first time I had a smaller camera as backup, a Rollei 35 35mm compact.

1989 Challengers

By 1989 I was taking photography much more seriously - my pictures were being published regularly in magazines and had appeared in my first book - and the weight of my camera gear went up. I now had a Nikon F801 SLR (which had the great advantage of a 30 second self-timer) and on the Challenge I also carried 28mm, 35-70mm, and 70-210mm lenses plus an Olympus XA compact as back-up. Film was Fujichrome 100.

Outside the Park Hotel, Montrose,at the end of the 1989 TGO Challenge

Always Another Adventure Podcast: TGO Challenge, Arizona Trail, Pacific Northwest Trail

On the Pacific Northwest Trail

Recently I recorded a podcast with Simon Willis of Always Another Adventure. It's just appeared online and you can listen to it here. In it I discuss planning for the TGO Challenge and my walks on the Arizona Trail and Pacific Northwest Trail.

Corrections: the introduction says I am the first person to climb all the Munros in one trip. I'm not, that was Hamish Brown, who wrote an excellent book about it - Hamish's Mountain Walk. I was the first to climb all the Munros and Tops (subsidiary summits) in one walk.

I'm also not one of the organisers of the TGO Challenge. 

The TGO Challenge: In the Beginning

The TGO Challenge has been run every May since 1980. This year would have been the 41st. Covid 19 has seen to that though and for the first time there will be no Challenge. Having done the 40th last year (my 16th) I wasn't taking part this time. I had other plans, also cancelled of course. But whether I'm taking part or not May is always TGO Challenge month for me. This year I feel really sorry for those who would have been setting off this weekend. I hope they all will be next year.

Before the 40th Challenge I wrote a post about my first Challenge and my plans for last year, with photos of pages of my 1980 journal. I didn't say anything about the role of The Great Outdoors in promoting the event though. This year I've retrieved the issues of the magazine that launched the Ultimate Challenge (as it was then) from my archives (sounds better than the reality -piles of magazines in boxes).

The Challenge was launched without fanfare or even editorial comment in the January 1980 issue. There was just the rather discreet quarter page promotion pictured above. It was enough to excite me though and I wrote off for details, filled in the application form, and in May set off across the Highlands. 66 others took part of whom 56 finished. Today hundreds apply, there's a draw for places, and around 300 start. The Challenge has come a long way.

That autumn the Challenge began to assume its place as a significant part of The Great Outdoors. In the November issue it was the only cover line. The cover photograph by Nigel Lane was taken on the Challenge too. Inside there were accounts of the event from Challengers who'd entered a writing competition. I was one of them and came third in the Mountain Route category (early Challenges had high and low level routes, long ago scrapped). I remember I won an Ultimate Equipment synthetic gilet. My article wasn't published though and has long ago disappeared (which is probably a good thing).

In the same issue the details of the 1981 Challenge were published, with dates this time and a rather more distinguished appearance, though still only a quarter page. The event was up and running. However it would be many years before it became clear just what had started with that little promotion in a corner of The Great Outdoors.

Contrasts on the TGO Challenge

Day 3. On Gulvain. Hot and dry.

Day 9. On Leathad an Taobhain. Brief clearance. Cold, wet and misty.

On every long walk there are contrasts in the weather, the landscape, the terrain underfoot, the campsites and more. This is one of the joys. Nothing stays the same. Every day is different. Often the changes occur gradually, a merging that can be almost unoticeable until you realise how different the world has become. On this year's TGO Challenge crossing of the Scottish Highlands it was the opposite. Changes in weather, underfoot terrain, and water were abrupt.

Day 6. A shrunken Loch Treig

At the end of the first week I walked into Dalwhinnie in hot dry weather, as it had been every previous day. At 9pm that evening the rain started. It rained all the next day, and frequently for the four after that. The first week I had dry feet every day, walking across crunchy dried-out bogs glad I'd chosen cool mesh trail shoes. The second week I had sodden feet every day and on two of them I wore waterproof socks to keep my feet warm. The first week burns were dry high up and trickles lower down. Reservoirs like Loch Ericht and Loch Treig showed huge waterless expanses. The second week I forded knee deep torrents and wondered at some camps whether the nearvy river would burst its banks.

Day 11. Glen Callater.

The change in the weather shows up in the number of photos I took - 325 in the first seven days, 100 in the last five. It also shows in the distance I walked, 138km to Dalwhinnie - 19.7km a day - and 169km from Dalwhinnie - 33.8km a day. Cold wet weather keeps you moving! There were times in the first week when I just sat on the hillside and watched the world, sometimes for half an hour or more. I never did that the second week. Stops then were just long enough to munch a snack and gulp some water.

Day 3. Gulvain. A hot thirsty climb.

The second week wasn't just slogging head down through the rain seeing little though. Stormy weather has rewards - dramatic cloudscapes, rainbows, waterfalls, mysterious mists. Contrast is good. It all adds to the pleasure of walking.

Day 12. Rainbow over the east coast.

Wild Camps on TGO Challenge 2019

Dawn at Loch Beoraid after a frosty night

At the big celebration dinner in Montrose Hamish Brown, who came up with the idea of the TGO Challenge, spoke about memories of the event being as much about the camps as the walking. That's certainly the case for me. The succession of camps in wild places is one of the big attractions and I usually spend several hours at each site.

Glen Finnan.

This year on the Challenge I had ten camps, with one night in a B&B in Fort William. Here I'm posting pictures of eight of them, with two each for four that were really special. Missing is the one in Dalwhinnie next to the hotel - it wasn't a wild or attractive site and that was the night the weather broke and it rained constantly - and the one the day after Dalwhinnie somewhere above the headwaters of the River Feshie as again it rained all night and this time I was in the mist too.

Coire a'Chaorainn, Gulvain.

My camping gear for this trip consisted of my Mountain Laurel Designs Trailstar, which has now seen over 150 nights use, and a Luxe Outdoor Tyvek groundsheet. The Trailstar is still in excellent condition, the groundsheet, which has been used on sixty plus nights, isn't as waterproof as it was so this was its last trip.

Loch Beoraid.

Glen Finnan.

Coire a'Chaorainn, Gulvain.

By the Abhainn Rath below Binnein Mor and Binnein Beag in the Mamores.

In the Uisge Labhair glen between Loch Ossian and the Bealach Dubh.

White Bridge, River Dee. Another Challenger camped on the far bank, the only time I camped near anyone else.

Looking down river at the White Bridge camp. The start of a very wet day.

Camp in Glen Callater after a very wet night when I wondered if the river would burst its banks.

Last and coldest camp. The wet Trailstar froze inside and out. By the Muckle Falloch, a tributary of the Water of Saughs.

The TGO Challenge 2019 - first thoughts and pictures

Sunrise, Loch Beoraid

Last Wednesday I walked into Montrose and completed my sixteenth TGO Challenge coast to coast crossing of the Scottish Highlands. Here are some initial thoughts and a few of the 400+ images I took during the walk. I'll write and post more in the coming days as I go through the pictures and contemplate the trip.

The South Top of Gulvain

The walk began with exceptional heat and ended with not-so-exceptional rain and cold. My very last camp was the coldest, my first one the second coldest. Both were frosty, the only ones of the walk. In the usually boggy and wet west where keeping your feet dry can be difficult the ground was crisp and dusty. The heat and a lack of water sources high up were the only problems; sunscreen, dark glasses and a sunhat the most essential equipment. In the east, where it's usually drier, heavy rain made for swollen burns and deep bogs. Keeping warm and dry and not getting lost in the mist were the problems; waterproofs, warm clothing, GPS, compass and map all essential. Once in the west I almost ran out of water, once in the east I wondered whether a river would burst its banks and flood my camp.

Sunset, Gulvain

Both extremes of weather made for interesting walking. I enjoyed it all. The heat brought colour and brightness, deep blue skies and fresh green trees, a touch, it felt, of mountains in hotter, drier countries. The rain and mist brought a northern feel, more arctic than alpine; gloomy, Gothic, Nordic and awe-inspiring.

Binnein Mor & Binnein Beag

Staoineag bothy

Clouds

Ben Tirran

Seven camps from seven TGO Challenges.

2007

One of the joys of long-distance walking lies in the wild camps. I like to enjoy these, to spend time in a wild place and not just pass through. On the fifteen TGO Challenge crossings of the Scottish Highlands I've done since the first in 1980 I remember many of the wonderful camps as well as the walking and the views. Here are pictures of a favourite camp from each of the seven Challenges I've undertaken in the last fifteen years. I do have pictures from the eight Challenges I did before 2004 but they're all on transparency film and I haven't got round to scanning these yet. I will do so after I'm back from this year's Challenge which I'm sure will offer more superb camps.

2004

2008

2009

2012

2014

2016

The 40th TGO Challenge starts this week. Looking back to the first.

Later this week I'll be setting off for Lochailort to begin the fortieth TGO Challenge. I've chosen Lochailort as that's where I began the first Challenge back in 1980. I couldn't have imagined then that I'd be back there in 2019 or that the event would be thriving and would have become so important to so many people.

In 1980 the event was called the Ultimate Challenge, after the sponsor, long-gone tent maker Ultimate Equipment, though it was organised and run by The Great Outdoors.  For that first year it was three weeks long. I was the only one of the seventy or so Challengers who took more than two weeks. Poor Roger Smith, TGO editor, sat in the Park Hotel in Montrose for a week waiting for me. Since then it's always been two weeks long. I'm going to take a similar route this year but shorter with fewer Munros - there's no way I can do in two weeks what took me three in 1980!

Journal entry for the first day of the first Challenge

Back then I was on my first round of the Munros, which I was mostly doing in a series of long backpacking trips inspired by Hamish Brown's first continuous round of the Munros, described in his superb book Hamish's Mountain Walk. Hamish also came up with the idea of the Challenge. When I saw the quarter page ad for the first event in The Great Outdoors I was grabbed immediately. A coast to coast walk seemed a great idea and I realised I could incorporate many Munros I hadn't yet climbed into it.

Gear list for the first Challenge - continues over the page. Back then I listed every item in first aid and repair kits!

Reading my journal from that first trip there's an air of youthfulness and excitement. I was going into unknown country. I hope I can capture some of that this year, on what will be my sixteenth Challenge.

Munros & Challenges: Looking Forward to 2019

Sgurr nan Gillean, final Munro on my first round in 1981

This year sees two significant events. The first in March is the 100th anniversary of the death of Sir Hugh Munro, compiler of the Tables of Scottish Mountains over 3000' high that are named after him. The second is the 40th anniversary of the TGO Challenge walk across the Highlands. Both the Munros and the Challenge have been entertwined in my life and have special meaning to me.

I started climbing the Munros after reading Hamish Brown's superb Hamish's Mountain Walk, about the first continuous trip over all of them. Inspired by this I set out in 1979 to hike the Munros in a series of long backpacking trips. Then in 1980 the then new magazine The Great Outdoors promoted a new challenge walk, a crossing of the Highlands from coast to coast, devised by the same Hamish Brown. I entered and undertook a route crossing 56 Munros, all of them first ascents. The Challenge and the Munros were now firmly connected in my mind.

Ben Hope, final Munro of my continuous round in 1996

I finished my first round of the Munros in 1981. In 1996 I undertook them again in a continuous walk and added all the subsidiary Tops. Will I complete them all again? Maybe. In fact I suspect I've probably done a third round. I have to confess my records are not up to date.

Camp on my 1996 Munros & Tops walk

I've completed the Challenge fourteen more times since that first one, always including some Munros along the way. Next May I'll be taking part in the fortieth one. I won't be repeating my 1980 route though. That year, for the only time, the Challenge was three weeks long. It's been two ever since. I don't think I could do in two weeks what took me three forty years ago. I am planning a shortened version of that route though. With plenty of Munros.

Camp on the TGO Challenge, 2007

In the meantime my first action of 2019, after toasting the New Year with a glass of Ardbeg whisky, was to fill in my application for membership of The Munro Society. I've been meaning to do this for several years. A hundred years after Munro's death seems an appropriate time to do so.