On July 16, 1992, I had a spectacular camp on my walk the length of the Scandinavian Mountains

Twenty-five years ago I was camped high on the side of Utladalen in the south-west corner of the Jotunheimen National Park looking across at the alpine peaks of the Hurrungane. It was the twenty-third day of my walk the length of the Norwegian and Swedish mountains and I had completed 555 kilometres. The final total would be 2200.

To reach this point I had traversed the Setesdaleheiane and Hardangervidda mountain plateaux in mixed weather and crossded many snowmelt-filled streams and remnant snowfields. I’d enjoyed much wild and beautiful scenery but nothing to compare to the grandeur of the Hurrungane. In my journal I wrote ‘Hurrangane spikes and towers by far the finest peaks I have seen’. The weather cleared as well for the first time in over a week and I also noted that I had ‘almost dry boots’! 

My camp site I described as ‘magnificent’ and for once I was able to sit outside to cook and eat and relish the view. This fine weather would hold for the next few days as I made my way through the Jotunheimen. 

Note: the pictures are scans from Fuji Velvia slides.

July 15, 1982, I was in Northern California on the Pacific Crest Trail

Larry Lake crossing one of the last snow patches on the Pacific Crest Trail with Mount Shasta in the distance

In Northern California the snow that had made travel arduous and sometimes hazardous on the Pacific Crest Trail in 1982 finally began to dwindle away. Suddenly it was summer.  Hot temperatures and too much dirt road walking had me changing back from boots to my now very worn running shoes. On the 15th July I walked 13 footsore miles from McArthur-Burney Falls State Park, where the impressive falls were duly admired, to Peavine Creek where I camped with Larry Lake on a 'well-used spot just off the road' and complained in my journal that there were too many logging trucks passing by.

Burney Falls

Against that I wrote that most of the walk was through pleasant woodland with Douglas firs and oaks and that there were many birds. I was still enjoying myself! It was my 104th day on the trail and when I made camp I'd walked 1267 miles - nearly half way. I knew though that to finish before the first winter snows I was going to have to speed up. Now that the snow had gone I hoped it would be easy to do so.

When the trail emerged from the trees the views were excellent too. I was now in the southern Cascade mountains, whose summits didn't rise above timberline except for the first of the great strato-volcanoes, Mount Shasta. These huge mountains would be dominant in views all the way to Canada.

Dusk in Northern California with Mount Shasta in the distance

The hot weather made staying cool difficult and I ended every day soaked in sweat. Washing this off made for a more comfortable night and I discovered I could use my water bag for a makeshift shower, though I couldn't always hang it in the most convenient spot.

The full story of my PCT hike is told in my book Rattlesnakes and Bald Eagles.

Photographic note: all pictures are scans from Kodachrome 64 slides taken with a Pentax MX SLR camera and Pentax 50mm and 28mm lenses.

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.

Young wildlife in the garden

June and July are busy days in the garden for the local wildlife. First they're feeding their young in nests and dreys and burrows and need to eat plenty, then they're bringing their young to our feeders and trying to get them to feed themselves. The latter seems easy with the squirrels and rabbits - they don't appear until they can feed themselves - but not with some of the birds. Often fledglings will chase any adult of any species roughly the right size mouths wide open  - sometimes with success, we've seen coal tits feeding blue tits and greenfinches feeding siskins - or else sit and look at the food, peck at it tentatively and then stare again.

Young great spotted woodpecker wondering how to get at those peanuts

For the first time this year we've been delighted to have regular visits from young goldfinches and jays along with the usual siskins, chaffinches, greenfinches, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, robins and blackbirds. Missing this year are pheasants, which often nest in the garden. In fact there hasn't been an adult pheasant in the garden for many weeks and there are few in the fields and woods. There have been masses of rabbits but a few weeks ago there was a sudden bout of myxamatosis and after a few days of seeing ill ones there were none for a day or so before number started to build up again.

Young goldfinches

Young blue tits

Back in May several nursing squirrels were regular visitors so it wasn't a surprise when young squirrels started to appear. What is unusual is their choice of food and where they feed. We put out peanuts and mixed seed in different feeders and until this year the squirrels always went for the peanuts and generally fed hanging upside down. This years youngsters prefer the seeds and to either sit in the trays or feed on the ground - the birds scatter much seed. The older squirrels still choose the peanuts.

Lured to a Favourite Place

Some places pull me towards them even when I’m planning on going elsewhere. Glen Feshie is one. I end up camping there half a dozen times most years, often on trips where I’ve definitely been going to go somewhere different. But the beauty of the glen just draws me in, sets my feet on that familiar path leading me deep into the forest beside the rushing river.

Another place I can’t seem to escape is the curving edge of the Cairngorm Plateau where, amidst a complex tangle of boulders and slabs, the waters of the Feith Buidhe and the Garbh Uisge Beag speed up and begin their splendid tumble down into the corrie far below. Last summer I wandered here yet again, drawn by the desire to once more look down on Loch Avon, stare at the great crags of Stag Rocks, Hell’s Lum and Carn Etchachan, and walk the granite slabs beside the tumbling streams and the summer snowfields.

I’d set off with the intention of visiting Loch Avon and then climbing up onto the long stony summit of Beinn Mheadhoin, where I’d never camped before. But when I reached the start of the descent from Coire Domhain to the head of the loch I felt a reluctance to go on that was almost physical. In my mind I began to justify changing my plans – ‘it’ll be midgey down there’, ‘it’ll be hot on the climb up to Beinn Mheadoin’, ‘I’ll have to carry water to camp’ – but I knew that none of these were the real reasons for my hesitation. Rather it was the closeness of the Feith Buidhe and the Garbh Uisge Beag. Just round the top of Hell’s Lum and I’d be there, in that magic place. I stopped and waited, poised on the first steepening of the path that led down. The feeling grew stronger that what I really, really wanted to do was turn away and head for the familiar. Resisting seemed useless. I looked up not down and set off round the edge of the Plateau. Immediately I felt relaxed. This was right.

Soon the Feith Buidhe appeared not far below, a gentle slow stream here. I crossed on boulders and ventured down towards the Garbh Uisge Beag. This is big jumbled country, a maze of grassy ledges, little crags, dark pools, and trickling rivulets – a mountain labyrinth. Although I’ve camped here many times it’s never been in the same spot – indeed I probably couldn’t identify most of them. On this occasion I found a good site on a patch of rough grass with just enough soil to hold pegs – many apparently good sites are actually too stony for tent or tarp though fine for a bivy. It being summer I wasn’t risking the last though. Not because of rain but because of midges. There was a breeze but I knew that if it eased the midges would appear, even up here at nearly 1,000 metres. 

As always my camp here was glorious. Big snow patches dominated the view, harshly bright in the sunshine and then cool and glowing under the moon. The night was warm and the moonlight enough for wandering around without need of a headlamp. I felt at home, relaxed, glad to be here. It had been the right decision. 

Dawn came suddenly with the rising sun making the tent unbearably hot. I cooled off by clambering over the slabs and venturing a little way into the dark passages between the rocks and the snow, which in places was well over head high. Then I sat in the sun and just looked, revelling in the land. The strong desire that had brought me here held me back from leaving. I was only out for one night though so eventually I tore myself away and headed up onto the Plateau and back to the tame side of Cairn Gorm. I’ll be back this autumn. And this winter. 

This piece first appeared in the October 2016 edition of The Great Outdoors

Book Review: A Mountain Before Breakfast by Alan Rowan

Moonwalker, Alan Rowan’s first book, introduced us to the idea of Munro-bagging at night, not accidentally but intentionally and repeatedly. A stirring and exciting book it added a new dimension to hillwalking. Now Alan Rowan has done it again with his new book on a round of the Corbetts. Entertaining, frenetic, and humorous, A Mountain Before Breakfast is a whirlwind of experiences and shows an incredible lust for life and for the hills. As with Moonwalker long drives are an integral part of the adventure and again, as a reluctant driver, I found them more frightening than any of the hill epics, especially when something goes wrong, as it often does.

In the hills themselves the author experiences everything Scottish conditions can throw at you – storms, rain, ice, snow, mist, heatwaves, sunstroke (in December!), wildlife, ticks, midges, bogs, glissades, getting lost. It’s all here, a mix of thrilling, hilarious, and sometimes downright weird  adventures that often jumps from one to the other with barely time to take a breath. Whilst the Corbetts take pride of place – and if you follow the journeys on a map you’ll learn a great deal about them – there are excursions to other hills. Munros of course but also Vesuvius and the mountains of Snowdonia.

Whilst the overall tone of the book is positive and life-affirming there are two stories that show the other side of hill walking. On Tryfan the author slips, tears his ankle ligaments and has to be rescued. Then comes a real tragedy, the death of a close friend in the hills. The effect this has on the author and his friends is powerfully described in the most moving passages of the book. The way the book slides into the stories of the accident and the tragedy and then moves back into uplifting tales without it feeling jarring or inappropriate shows Alan Rowan’s skill and sensitivity as a writer. This must have been a difficult section to write. He does it perfectly.

Overall this is a wonderful book that I really enjoyed. Many mountains, many breakfasts, many magic nights (and days) on the hill. Alan Rowan describes it all well and his words will bring back many memories for hillwalkers and hopefully inspire others to take up this tremendous pursuit, though probably in daylight. 

This review first appeared in the June 2017 issue of The Great Outdoors.