OutDoor Show, Friedrichshafen, 2017

Tomorrow I'm heading out to Friedrichshafen via Aberdeen, Paris and Zurich for the huge OutDoor industry trade show. I'll be spending three days wandering the aircraft-hangar style halls looking at gear and searching for anything new and interesting. I'm there on behalf of The Great Outdoors and I'll be sending short reports back for posting on the magazine website and also tweeting comments and pictures on the magazine's Twitter feed - @TGOMagazine. I'll probably post some stuff on Facebook too.

When I get back I'll write a fuller report for the August issue.

Long journey tomorrow. I'm hoping it's going to be worth it.

Coincidental Entanglement: the John Muir Trust and the OutDoor Show

Loch Linnhe, Fort William

Just over two weeks ago I was in Fort William for the John Muir Trust AGM and Members' Gathering. On returning home I had one day free before I headed off to Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance to be one of the judges for this year's OutDoor Industry Awards.

A side note from these two trips: in Fort William I had time for a stroll beside Loch Linnhe, and noted how this arm of the sea looks like an inland lake. In Friedrichshafen I visted Lake Constance and noted how this inland lake looks like the sea.

Lake Constance and Friedrichshafen

Now having those two meetings follow each other somewhat inconveniently closely is something I'd probably have quickly forgotten. But it's about to happen again. On June 16 I go down to Pitlochry for a John Muir Trust Trustees meeting. Then the very next day I go back to Friedrichshafen for the OutDoor Show itself. From conservation to gear again. Both about the outdoors, though in very different ways. And both involving spending a lot of time indoors.

Coire Garbhlach, a 'secret' canyon

In the heart of the canyon

Cairngorm corries are generally big and wide, spacious curving bowls carved out of the mountainside and visible from afar. Coire Garbhlach is different. Coire Garbhlach is narrow, twisting and hidden, more of a canyon than a coire, a deep cut gouged deep into the hills. A side valley of Glen Feshie it's passed by many walkers. Few ever venture into though. That I think is because from below, from the path that crosses the Allt Garbhlach on its way up Glen Feshie it doesn't look special or even very interesting. That's because you can't really see it. You're only looking at its mouth, a green V between steep slopes. Venture through that V and a marvellous hidden world is revealed.

View up the canyon

With rain and high winds continuing a day on the tops didn't seem appealing so I decided to visit Coire Garbhlach again during a short gap between much desk work and many indoor meetings. This was the first time I'd been there since winter floods had ripped out the path at the confluence of the Allt Garbhlach with the River Feshie and I wondered what I'd see upstream.

Following the burn is hard work, not due to the angle, which is gentle, but due to the terrain, a mass of heather tussocks and boggy grass. Often I followed the banks of stones lining the stream, finding wobbling over these loose rocks easier than fighting through the vegetation above. In many places big sections of the hillside had collapsed and there was much loose rubble. There's no path, just a few sketchy deer tracks.

Looking down to Glen Feshie

With no rain since the previous day the burn wasn't in spate though it was still deep and fast, roaring noisily down the canyon. There were many flowers on the banks - tormentil, butterwort, violets, daisies, buttercups, lady's smock, moss campion and more. Grey wagtails and dippers darted along the waters edge. A deer watched me from above, probably startled to see a human here.

The waterfall

Once round the first curve in the canyon the outside world vanishes. Glen Feshie is gone, the summits above hidden. This feels a closed-in, secretive place. I wandered as a far as a fine waterfall then sat and watched the water, mesmerised by the delicate yet powerful torrent and the constant sparkling of the falling drops. Above these falls the canyon splits in two and ends in steep stony slopes rising up to the Moine Mhor. With no time to climb these this day I turned and descended back to the open space of Glen Feshie, refreshed and content.

June 12, 1982, I was on the Pacific Crest Trail in Yosemite National Park

Dave Rhebhen in soft snow in Yosemite National Park, trying to follow the PCT. June 12, 1982

This year Pacific Crest Trail and John Muir Trail hikers are having to deal with deep snow in the High Sierra. The same was true 35 years ago for my PCT hike. After taking 23 days to cross the snowbound mountains from Kennedy Meadows to Mammoth Lakes I'd left the latter place after several days eating vast quantities of food with 17 days food and a pack weighing 92lbs - and that was after I'd ditched crampons and snowshoes!

Travelling with three American companions it took four arduous days slogging through soft snow to hike the forty miles to Tuolumne Meadows which we reached on June 12. On that day we forded ice cold, thigh deep Rush Creek and crossed Donohoe Pass, the last pass above 11,000 feet on the PCT for northbound hikers. From there we descended to Lyell Canyon, which was snow free so the last nine miles to Tuolumne Meadows only took three hours.

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

Protecting food from bears in the High Sierra then and now.

Counter-balancing on the PCT in 1982

Looking through my images recently I came upon the one on the left, which reminded me that 35 years ago this month I was hanging my food every night on the Pacific Crest Trail in the High Sierra. This was because the black bears that live in the area had long ago discovered that the food hikers and climbers carried was really quite tasty and often easy to obtain so they took to raiding camps. This isn't good for the bears as if they become a potential threat to human safety they can be shot with a dart gun and relocated and if they come back again they can be killed. And the food isn't that good for them anyway.

Aside from concern for the bears campers don't want to lose their food, especially many days away from resupplies, so various methods have been developed to stop bears getting it. These soon became mandatory in much of the High Sierra.

Back in 1982 the only way to protect food was by hanging it high up in a tree. Just throwing a line over a branch, hauling up the food and then tying the line round the tree trunk no longer worked in the High Sierra as the bears had worked out

Black bear in the High Sierra, 2002

that if they found a cord and broke it a bag of food would appear. The only method that worked was the counter-balance one. This meant suspending two bags of food from a branch high enough above the ground and far enough from the tree trunk that a bear couldn't reach them. This was not easy and often meant a frustrating hour or more at the end of the day. Once up the food was out of reach until morning too. It was far too much hassle to lower it down if you fancied a late snack and then haul it up again.

Long after my PCT walk the first bear-resistant containers appeared. These are bulky plastic barrels too wide for a bear to get its jaws around and crack open. They're heavy and awkward to pack. You can only get a certain amount of food in them too (up to a week in my case). Hikers often curse them, especially those who have never had to hang food. I accept them as they do make camp life much easier. They're good for the bears too as they soon learn they can't get into them and lose their association of campers with food.

Cathedral Lake camp, 2002

I first used one of these containers on a 500 mile circular walk in the High Sierra twenty years after my PCT hike. I remember finding it hard to pack but such a pleasure to have in camp. No more food hanging! Access to my supplies whenever I wanted! And at the end of the walk I really discovered the advantages of it. (Regular readers of my writings may recognise this story from elsewhere). On the walk I had generally avoided popular camp sites - a good way to avoid bears in camp as they soon learn where these are - but on my last night I ended up at easily accessible and very popular Cathedral Lakes in Yosemite National Park where there were many other campers. As rain looked possible I slept under my tarp - most nights I'd been under the stars - with my bear-resistant container out in the open a dozen metres or so away. Early in the morning I was woken by a sound and looked out to see a bear walk past my canister. It didn't even look at it. A few minutes later I heard loud shouts and yells from nearby. I clambered up the knoll above my camp and watched a bear racing up the hillside with something dangling from its jaws and a cord trailing behind it. It was being pursued by two naked people shouting loudly. Eventually the bear disappeared with its booty and the campers were left to hike out with no breakfast.

Camp in the High Sierra, 2016, with bear-resistant container

I used a container again last year on my Yosemite to Death Valley walk and again I was glad not to
have to hang my food. I was also glad when I crossed Owens Valley into the desert Inyo Mountains and didn't need it any more. I'd rented it in Yosemite Valley - a good option if you don't need one regularly - and sent it back from Lone Pine.

Thanks To All My Supporters

Last July I wrote about the future of this blog and website and the need to raise some money for the plans I had. Since then many people have generously contributed and I thank them all, something I should have done earlier. My apologies.

I'm still not in a position to do everything I'd like but there will be continuing changes. More support would be welcome!

Cairngorm Outliers: The First Walk of Summer

Walkers descending from the Chalamain Gap

June has arrived, stormy and unsettled. Heavy rain. Bursts of sunshine. The rich colours of early summer. The ground wet but warm. After too much time indoors in meetings (with the John Muir Trust in Fort William, judging gear for awards in Friedrichshafen) I wanted – needed - time outdoors. An afternoon beckoned. The forecast – heavy rain, some sun, breezy. Large pools on the wet road as I drove to the Sugarbowl car park showed the first was certainly true. The last would be welcome to keep off the midges. I’d already had my first bites of the year in Fort William, waiting for a bus. The sun I could hope for.

The Allt Mor

 

North of the Cairngorm Plateau a cluster of lower hills overlooks Rothiemurchus and Glenmore Forests. Little frequented these are excellent viewpoints and make for a good short walk. I went to them through the rocky chasm of the Chalamain Gap, meeting the only people I saw heading down, before turning up the steep though easy slopes of Creag a’Chalamain. 

Creag a'Chalamain

The sky was a shifting pattern of dark dense clouds backlit by the sun, patches of brilliant blue, and shafts of sunshine. I watched rain sweep across the hills in grey waves. On the path above the Allt More I walked in a strip of sunlight with clouds rushing over the high Cairngorms on one side and Strathspey on the other. I only caught the edge of the rain – and once hail – a couple of times. There was a breeze, strong on the tops, but it wasn’t cold.

Across the Lairig Ghru to Braeriach

 

The light was wonderful, constantly changing, constantly highlighting different aspects of the landscape. The wet rocks and vegetation glowed. I looked over the rich green forest to the dark eye of Loch Morlich and the tiny smudge of Aviemore then turned to look at the dark outlines of the big hills, still streaked with the last snow. 

The Allt Mor, Glenmore Forest, Meall a'Bhuachaille & the Pass of Ryvoan

Over Castle Hill and Airgiod-meall then back to the path, the Allt Mor and the car. Golden plovers whistled mournfully from the sparse heather. A cluster of grouse chicks squeaking loudly exploded upwards from under my feet. Their mother scuttled across the ground, wings held out as if broken, luring me away. Finally satisfied I was no longer a threat she took to the air and made a long low curve back to her chicks. 

The bright green vegetation, the warm sunshine, the warm rocks. It felt like summer had begun.