I’ve now added information about another two bothies to the site – Ryvoan near Glen More and Ruighe Eataichean in Glen Feshie.

Both can be found under the Cairngorm Bothies tab on the navigation.

Information consists of basic facts, such as location, description of bothy and facilities – and, in the case of Ryvoan, a little of the history.

Hopefully I’ll be able to add more to these pages as time progresses and to add pages about all the other Cairngorm bothies.

The east gable of Faindouran Bothy showing the damage. Picture copyright Gary Dickson

Shock news this week that Faindouran Bothy in Glen Avon (NJ 081 062) has suffered serious damage and is currently in a dangerous condition. IT SHOULD NOT BE USED.

The damage was discovered on February 7 by Gary Dickson and his companions, who arrived to find the chimney stack and top of the gable wall had collapsed, exposing the attic.

Close-up of the damaged gable. Picture copyright Gary Dickson

Reporting the damage to the MBA, Gary said: “Downstairs looked ok other than some water dripping down the chimney and through the loft hatch, and the front door not wanting to shut quite properly.

We slept downstairs (with hindsight, should have probably kipped over the road) and could occasionally hear what sounded like small bits of stone or something (possibly just ice) falling down the chimney.”

In fact that is the advice for anyone heading for Faindouran for the foreseeable future: use the pony shed a few yards from the bothy. Permission has been granted from the estate and, though it’s pretty basic shelter, it is a safer option than risking the bothy, which may yet suffer more damage in severe weather.

The MBA will be sending volunteers up as soon as possible but Faindouran is remote and carrying out a proper survey of the damage may not be possible until spring. Certainly there is no hope of a quick repair and, without sounding too alarmist a note, the whole future of the bothy may be in doubt because of this.

Faindouran is in a remote area with no nearby alternatives other than the nearby pony shed or, further up the glen, the basic shelter of the Fords of Avon Refuge, so anyone heading to that area should ensure their plans do not depend on the bothy being usable until further notice.

What a cracking weekend!

Just got back from the Cairngorms and two cracking climbing days.

Friday night was a slithery cycle into Bob Scott’s with panniers full of coal, only to find the place empty, but a good book passed the evening until bedtime and I was up early, to get away off up Glen Derry to the Hutchison Hut, enjoying the dawn light on the pines and the sunshine on the snows of the rocky faces of Beinn Mheadhoin and above Lochan Uaine of Derry.

Morning sun on the pines looking up Glen Derry

Hard packed snow on the ground meant easy going, especially crossing the completely buried Glas Allt Mor. The footbridge across the Etchachan burn was a bit superfluous too.

A footbridge without a burn in Coire Etchachan

It was good to see the Hutchison Hut again, still looking inviting after its renovation, and I dumped most of my gear (along with the 8kg of coal I’d carried in), laying out my sleeping bag in the best spot in case anyone else turned up.

Prime position for my sleeping bag.

Then set off up the track to Loch Etchachan, snow getting firmer all the way until I was moved to put on crampons just before the loch.

I walked over to the steep descent into Loch Avon, swapping walking poles for an ice axe before making the steep descent to the Shelter Stone, which was well filled in with snow, although someone had dug out enough space to kip. Cold night though, I imagine.

I’d expected to see more folk climbing in the area, given the ideal snow conditions and the fair weather, but saw only two people on Route Major on Carn Etchachan and another two on Garbh Uisge Crag.

Looking up Pinnacle Gully, between the Shelter Stone Crag and the Garbh Uisge Crag

A quick bite to eat, then I donned a helmet and took my other axe from my pack and set off up Pinnacle Gully, with the distinctive Forefinger Pinnacle at the top.

Zoom shot of the Forefinger Pinnacle at the top of Pinnacle Gully

Rock hard neve made progress pretty secure, but hard on the calves and there were many stops at quickly excavated steps large enough to hold one foot flat before I got to the final few metres where the gradient steepened to an entertaining angle and finished in a jumbled sea of half-formed cornices which never quite became the obstacle they might have been.

I emerged at the top to find that, during the climb, the cloud had descended considerably and visibility was much reduced.

All the same, I took a bearing for the McDui summit and walked through ever decreasing visibility until I reached the top. I was a bit puzzled that there was no sign at all of the summit cairn until I realised I was still on the North Top and had still a bit to go for the main top.

Look closely or you’ll miss it. The summit cairn was a welcome site when it finally appeared.

With no views, there was no reason to pause when I reached the real summit and I carried on down towards Loch Etchachan, making one false turn before coming below the cloud level and, before long, back at the Hutchie.

There, there were four people in residence: a guy who had come over from Corrour Bothy (after walking from Cairngorm Car Park through the Chalamain Gap and over Braeriach and Cairn Toul the previous day); and a group of three who had come over from Cairngorm. Two were on skis and the third on a snowboard, which apparently made for a few interesting moments on the journey across!

A good evening in the bothy followed and, if the stove was slow to get going, it made up for it later ensuring a toasty night.

In the morning everyone was away early doors and I couldn’t resist sneaking in another bit of axe action on the way home, heading up one of the unnamed gullies behind the hut and into my second white-out of the weekend. But Derry Cairngorm is a fairly east top to find and I was soon up and over and descending into clear air.

With legs getting sorer, I was glad to get down to Scottie’s (still empty) and get a bite of lunch (for I’d been up a gully and over a hill and it was still only 1p.m.) and then head back down the track on my bike.

Home in time for dinner too. Couldn’t be finer.

With a tally of nine new routes to his name, Bill Ewen’s contribution to the climbing heritage of the Cairngorms was certainly not negligible but may not seem at first glance to be that notable.

But look harder and you find his contribution and influence greater than a simple list of first ascents indicates, even if that includes some classic Lochnagar routes.

My notice was drawn to Bill Ewen by expatriate Aberdeen climber George Adams, who cited him as an inspiration to his own climbing career, which involved a number of classic Cairngorm routes in the 1950s and involvement in the early development of rock climbing in South Australia, where he has remained active in climbing, skiing and trekking.

I still have hopes of persuading George to tell his own life story here, but in the meantime he has supplied a lot of information about Bill Ewen.

George was a pupil at Aberdeen’s Demonstration School – and not too promising a one either, suffering from dyslexia and a speech impediment. But of all his teachers, he recalled Mr Ewen, the technical classes master.

“Mr Ewen had a large glass case fixed to the wall which contained photographs of mountains with white lines running up the front of the cliffs. As a student sitting in a classroom I wondered what it could mean; it was a number of years later that I realised that the mountain was Lochnagar and the lines were probably the first ascents that he had done.”

George’s first taste of the countryside came through the school when he attended a summer camp, where Bill Ewen led a group to the top of Bennachie.

“I don’t really remember the walk up the hill, I have a vague recollection of scrambling up rocks to the summit. I felt I was standing on a round coffee table with huge drops all around, the valley below was a carpet of autumn colours brown green yellow and purple. In the distance a river sparkled in the morning light, a bird hovered nearby, and I could feel the sun’s rays streaming from a bright blue sky. My heart was pounding and adrenalin and endorphins bounced through my body.

“It was a wonderful experience which I still cherish today. Although I didn’t realise it then I had fallen in love with nature the environment and the mountains and over the last 60 years I have managed to travel and climb ski and trek in different parts of the world.

“I worked at different jobs including being a coppersmith’s plumber, mechanical service engineer, climbing and ski instructor and started a outdoor retail store and a travel agency.

“I was also involved in the early development of climbing in South Australia.

“But if I had not attended the Demonstration School and met such an inspiring teacher as Mr Ewen I would still be living in a grey world.”

So who was Bill Ewen?

A native of Ballater, he shone at school and studied English and Latin at Aberdeen University. After a first teaching job at Inverallochy, he became a teacher at the Demonstration School, where he stayed for his whole teaching career, ending up as the school’s last headmaster and glorying under the nickname of Tarzan.

He had started climbing as a youngster and fell in with Roy Symmers, with whom he made some significant new ascents on Lochnagar.

Ewen was once quoted as saying: “We found we suited each other – Symmers was tall with a long reach, but disliked operating in narrow chimneys etc, where long legs could be something of a handicap. They suited me. We did not set out to become expert rock climbers; our practice was to avoid difficulty where possible, our aim first to be able to tackle any Scottish mountain. I felt more confident with Symmers than with anyone else – why I don’t know.”

Symmers’ wife recalled in 1987 that: Bill was a small bunch of muscle and beautiful balance, Roy was long and strong. He (Roy) said they supplied each other’s deficiencies but there was more to it than that – you could trust Bill with your life on a rope.”

In August of 1930 the pair made their debut with a summer ascent of Giant’s Head Chimney, said by Greg Strange in his excellent ‘The Cairngorms: 100 Years of Mountaineering’ to be the most important new route on the mountain for more than 20 years.

They followed it up within the week by climbing Parallel A Gully, with Symmers sporting a pair of tennis shoes – the first recorded instance of such footwear on Cairngorm granite.

Over the next four years the team returned to Lochnagar on numerous occasions, making several new routes, including the much prized first winter ascent of Raeburn’s Gully in December 1932, with Ewen returning the next day to climb Pinnacle Gully 2 (which he had made the first ascent of in summer) with Sandy Clark.

Bill’s run of new routes – he was involved in nine first ascents, all on Lochnagar – came to an end in 1934 but he continued to climb – and walk and ski, for it was all part of ‘going to the hills’.

It was about this time he took over the editorship of the Cairngorm Club Journal.

He had been a committee member between 1931 and 1934 – and was to serve two other periods, as well as two years from 1947-49 as Vice President – but his longest stint of duty was as editor of the journal, which he steered from 1934 to 1953.

His journals were highly acclaimed, and retirement was said to mark the end of an era, but he had already left a significant mark in a wider sphere, for towards the end of the 1940s the Scottish Mountaineering Club had invited him to revise the third edition of Sir Henry Alexander’s classic ‘Guide to the Cairngorms’

This involved visiting areas where existing information seemed scanty, adding fresh photographs and checking a huge amount of material on new routes, for the new guide, published in 1950, contained details of all known climbs in the Cairngorms.

(Incidentally, according to Strange, it was Ewen who was responsible for dissuading the first ascensionists of the first route on Creagan a Choire Etchachan from naming their route Grandes Jorasses. He reckoned it a bit on the radical side and accepted the more fitting Pioneer Route instead, although it was later renamed Cambridge Route.)

Ewen’s influence was felt on the ground as well as in the literature of the Cairngorms. He took little credit at the time, but his Cairngorm Club obituary stated that he played a vital role in many of the club’s projects during its golden period.

George Taylor’s is the name usually credited to these civil engineering projects the club was so involved in, but his obituary credited Ewen as “a full partner in that particular construction firm”.

The renovation of Corrour Bothy, the construction of the Parker Memorial Bridge over the Luibeg, and the works to Derry Lodge and Muir Cottage as the club’s successive ‘gites’ in the hills all bore his stamp – literally – for as well as being involved in the planning stages he was a skilled craftsman and became foreman joiner on the various building projects.

That he was never Club President was down to his own choice, for he was asked several times. He did, though, agree to accept Honorary Membership in 1966.

Throughout his life he had an active interest in many sports.

He skied, in an era when there were no ski centres or chairlifts and skiing was regarded as an extension of mountaineering. He would take long walks into the hills around Glen Gairn, The Lecht,  Carn Tuirc, Morven and Carn Leuchan on the east side of Glen Muick in the search for suitable snow, always looking for another gully to ski.  In fact his then future wife Louie claimed her introduction to skiing in 1936 was to go with him, carrying her skis, to the summit of Lochnagar and ski down again.

From his youth he developed an abiding interest in shooting and fishing and played both hockey and cricket at school level and beyond. He also played badminton when he taught at the Demonstration School.

As a boy and as a young teacher he was also involved in Scouting, and introduced boxing to the boys.

Yet through all the climbing and sports, he was a man who enjoyed both academic and artistic pursuits. As a teacher he developed his drawing and calligraphy skills to create pictures and maps as teaching aids, and at about the age of fifty he started to paint as a hobby, becoming proficient in both water-colours and oils.

And, of course, as much as he was remembered as a climber and Cairngorm Club stalwart, Bill Ewen was a teacher and headmaster, inspiring generations of children (whether into education or the hills!) and also being highly regarded by his fellow teachers. And, if some of the children recalled him as being an occasionally fearsome figure in the classroom, others, such as George Adams remember him as the man who helped set the course of their lives.

On front points of my crampons and daggering the rock-hard neve with my one ice axe there was no finer place on Saturday than on the north flank of the Devil’s Point, enjoying the sting in the tale – the last steepening before the open gully leant back towards the summit.
The wind, though quite strong in gusts and bitter cold, was nothing like I’d been expecting from a discouraging forecast and the cloud was staying well above the summits, giving extensive views even if the light was a bit flat.
But tip-toeing up the ice onto the summit ridge the flat light only added to the austere pleasure of the day: the bite and tug of the wind, the scoured snowfields the feeling of vast space, with no-one in sight on any of the hills in view.

Beinn Bhrotain from the summit of Devil’s Point

Through the week I’d been reading someone on the internet bemoaning the ‘dewilding’ of the Cairngorms but this, standing up straight as the slope eased and walking towards the snowed over summit cairn, felt pretty wild to me. Corrour Bothy may have been nestling in at the foot of this very mountain, but at just over 1000 metres and looking across to see the normal ascent route (and my planned descent) looked corniced, it felt a long way away from where I was.
It wasn’t all serious though. I was still amused at some of the extreme dog-walking photographs I’d snatched a few hundred feet lower just before I lost my hill companions.
Neil Findlay and I were out to do some tidying up at Corrour Bothy (not really so desperately needed as it turned out) and got there late morning, so decided to ‘nip up’ Devil’s Point to fill in the afternoon.
Neil had his border terrier Alfie with him and even as we climbed the first steep slope at the back of the bothy it became apparent that the icy conditions were causing the pup problems. Our steel crampons were biting into the neve quite easily, but Alfie’s were not quite up to the job and he was slipping about a good bit.
Despite this, some strange part of our minds seemed to think that it would be a good idea, instead of going right to the back of the corrie for the normal ascent route, to take a shortcut straight up one of the gullies on the north flank, just beyond the cliffs.
As the slope steepened Neil put Alfie’s lead on, and cut a fine figure, with crampons on and ice axe in one hand and dog lead in the other. Extreme dog-walking indeed!

Neil Findlay and Alfie – extreme dog-walking

It was all rather fun but as the angle of the slope continued to increase, Neil decided carrying on would be a tad foolish and turned around to pick his way back down with Alfie.
It was a shame to lose my climbing companion (temporarily at least) but I must confess I enjoyed the feeling of being alone on the hill – substantial enough on its own but dwarfed by Cairn Toul just across the way and looking particularly impressive in its winter monochrome.
I didn’t hang around at the top very long and headed back down by the conventional route. The descent from the col at the top of the corrie was awkward enough to make me move carefully. The normal route was corniced and I had to fight my way blindly through the spindrift channel of the white-choked streambed and then traverse in below the cornice where the stream steepened. Even then, the zig-zag path was buried and the slope steep enough to demand careful footing until I was almost down into the bowl of the corrie.
Then it was down to Corrour and a convivial night in front of a well-stoked stove. Sunday morning dawned gloriously sunny and I was tempted to sneak in another hill, but legs were tired and I was supposed to be home by afternoon, so we enjoyed a pleasant walk out, picking up our bikes at Bob Scott’s and cycling through increasingly heavy snow down to the car park, glad, by the time we got there, that we hadn’t delayed any longer. The road home was snowy enough.

Devil’s Point looming large over Corrour Bothy

Corrour Bothy in the morning sunshine

Heavy snow on the way back to the cars

The old bridge at Derry Dam

After almost 60 years the photo isn’t the clearest, but it offers a fascinating glimpse into the past.

Like most, I suspect, who have used the metal bridge at Derry Dam in the Cairngorms, beyond being able to read off the plaque that it was built in 1959, I knew little about it.

And, until a recent exchange of emails with Malcolm Douglas, the first Nature Conservancy Council warden on the Mar side of the Cairngorms, I never imagined there was a bridge there before it.

Yet there it is in the photograph above: The old bridge at Derry Dam in lower Glen Derry, and the date added: 1956.

The Cairngorms National Nature Reserve was declared in 1954 and soon after two wardens were appointed: Archie MacDonald on the Invernesshire side and Malcolm Douglas on the Aberdeenshire side.

Malcolm was described by Adam Watson in his excellent memoir ‘A Fine Day for the Hills’ as an ex-stalker (and he quotes Bob Scott as saying he could go about the hills like a hare), but Malcolm says: “The only stalking I did on Mar was as voluntary help for Bob, when he had more than one guest to take out, the greater part being on Derry Cairngorm and Carn a’Mhaim – the latter hill holding an interesting stag community.”

But looking to his work as a warden, and the matter in hand here, Malcolm recalls: “Bridges on the Aberdeenshire side were getting well past their use-by date and it was decided that help was required.”

One of the main bridges was over the Luibeg, just below Carn a Mhaim, and I’ve written here of how it was erected by the Cairngorm Club much lower than its present site and washed away in a flood of 1956. The main beams were recovered and Malcolm adds that it was army engineers who resited it in its present location.

But there were other bridges needing attention – at Corrour and at Derry Dam – as well as the occasionally unfordable Glas Allt Mor further up Glen Derry.

The Glas Allt Mor in full spate. The 1959 bridge was upstream of this point.

Derry Dam was much as you see it in the photograph at the head of this post. There was a bridge of sorts at Corrour too. After a drowning accident in 1950, a wire bridge was built the following year. This was described by Syd Scroggie after a visit in 1955 as a telegraph pole driven into each side of the bank with two parallel wires slung between them.

The need for replacement seemed quite clear, and the ubiquitous Dr George Taylor, of Cairngorm Club and Aberdeen University designed aluminium bridges for both Corrour and Derry Dam. They were financed by the Nature Conservancy Council and all built in 1959, which must have been an eventful year.

Malcolm said: “The Corrour and Derry Dam bridges were built by students. Bob Scott and I helped with the Corrour Bridge.

The bridge at Corrour which Malcolm helped to build in 1959 – pictured here in March 2013 with the Dee almost frozen over.

The ‘new’ Derry Dam Bridge, est 1959. The photograph is taken looking in the opposite direction to that of the 1956 bridge, but examination of the boulders in the river bed show it to be in almost exactly the same spot.

“The Glas Allt and the Coire Etchachan bridges were built using Braemar locals.”

The Coire Etchachan footbridge. The rather timid approach to crossing is explained by the fact there was a full gale blowing, the planks were slippery and the burn was a torrent.

Materials were flown to the various locations by helicopter, an option that had been considered and rejected on cost grounds by the Cairngorm Club for the erection of the Luibeg Bridge just over 10 years previously.

About the cost, Malcolm said: “I chuckle a bit remembering that the use of a helicopter that in those early days was considered too expensive.

“In fact, using men and horses, the cost and time to transport bridging and fence plot material to sites in lower and higher Glen Derry, Corrour and Glen Geusachan [Another project I’ll refer to in a future blogpost.] was not that far short of the helicopter use cost.

“When the chopper first arrived in Braemar it caused great excitement. All materials had been trucked into the flat opposite Bob Scotts cottage and loading and some unloading labour at delivery sites was freely given by Bob and other Mar Lodge stalkers, plus some Braemar locals whose reward was a flight on the chopper to and from the delivery sites. A bit cheeky but it was a success and I still have a very amateurish 8mm cine film of it.”

Communicating by email from New Zealand, where he now lives, Malcolm, who is now 90, said: “The Glas Allt bridge was washed away some 40 years ago [Actually in 1970, victim, like so many bridges, to a flood.] but I understand that the Luibeg, Corrour, Derry Dam and Etchachan bridges are still serviceable.”

I actually have a notion that the Etchachan bridge was replaced about 20 years or so ago but, even so, that’s a considerable legacy from one busy year in 1959, with bridges which have become part of the landscape and seen countless thousands of feet cross rivers in safety.

Complacency, eh?
Get off with something 99 times and on the hundredth it turns around and bites you on the bum.
When I checked the forecast at lunchtime on the first Friday in May it wasn’t promising very much for the weekend – and even less when I checked again in the late afternoon.
So when I woke in Bob Scott’s on Saturday morning I decided to take a bimble out to Corrour, clear up any rubbish that needed clearing, and see what the weather looked like from there.
Well the weather was great all the way out there and, even if there was heaps more snow on the hills than you’d expect for May, at least it was likely to be soft on the surface. So why not nip up McDui by the side of the Tailors’ Burn and go over to the Hutchie Hut and back down Glen Derry?
It was one of those good ideas at the time that, for some reason, survived the arrival of cloud on the tops while I burned the burnable rubbish and happed up the rest to go in my sack.
So about 11-ish I crossed the bridge and set off northwards, overtaking a bus-party of folk heading through the Lairig and slanting off up the Taylor Burn path, soon hitting wet snow and pushing on upward to where the snow was deeper and firmer, though still soft enough to take a boot-depth. (My forecast about the snow was good, at least: even at its hardest, I never came across anything I couldn’t kick a step in.)
An unusually large and long cornice was blocking the ascent from the stream up onto the ridge connecting Carn a Mhaim with McDui, so I moved over to the northern bounding ridge of Coire Clach nan Tailler, which has the advantage of being less steep and debouching onto the plateau almost at the summit. It also shows the Devil’s Point to good advantage.

The Devil’s Point across Glen Dee from the Tailors’ Burn

As I approached the summit I entered broken cloud and was struggling more with a fierce and bitingly cold wind, so I acted sensible and took the map and compass out. I wasn’t worried about reaching the top, but set the compass to a bearing towards the top at the cliffs above Lochan Uaine. I’d probably just have to follow the highway of footprints, but it doesn’t do any harm to turn the housing on the compass now and then – saves it from seizing up.
And then I was on the summit plateau. And snow. Considerably more snow than I’d ever imagined at this time of year. And thicker cloud too. All I had to do to reach the summit was keep walking forward but, after a bit, I was beginning to have my doubts, and when it finally ghosted out of the white it was a pale shadow just five metres away. The view indicator, which I came on first, was like a plaque set into the surface of the snow (normally it stands at over a metre high) and the massive summit cairn itself was almost completely buried, with only the trig point showing.

The view indicator at the summit of McDui – almost buried under the snow.

The summit cairn was almost completely buried and the trig point was a pale shadow, even from a few metres away.

Between the wind and the lack of views, I didn’t even pause but took the preset compass from my pocket and lined up a bearing… …on nothing.
Normally you can take a sighting on a rock, even close by, or, if there are no rocks showing through the snow, on a patch of older or different textured snow. But this snow was all freshly fallen and the same blank white as the sky. I could see my feet, I could see the disturbed snow around them; beyond that I could see nothing at all. Just blankness.
I suppose that’s really where I made the sort of rookie mistake you still make when you’re only in your fifth decade of hill climbing. Instead of reversing my steps then, before they were blown over, and descending by the route I’d come up, I strode forth on my bearing, confident that before long I’d come below the cloud or within sight of something to take a bearing on.
And I walked. And I walked. No rocks (though some, visible at maybe 10 metres or so off to one side), no clearing of the cloud, just more blankness. Or the same blankness. Absent of any visual clues I just had to keep going on the compass. I caught myself veering in towards the wind several times and corrected every time it happened, but I knew I was drifting to the right. I’d missed the old Sappers’ Bothy, though whether by a few feet or much more I had no way of knowing.
It was a curiously detached feeling, walking through this blankness – until suddenly I became very much attached. One foot broke through the crust of snow and went into a hole. And when I tried to lift myself out the foot wouldn’t budge.
I sat in the snow for several long moments, pulling at my foot one way and then another, before finally easing it out from the invisible jaws of rock deep in the snowpack. What an embarrassing way to go that would have been!
My walk through limbo continued: battered by wind, a casing of snow and ice building up on my gloves and grabbing onto any slight crease in my outer layer, just like it was still the middle of winter. I was waiting for the slight rise before the top of the cliffs, but peering intently into the white all the time, anxious to get some sight of anything which might give me a clue to where I was. In fact anything at all.
That’s how I saw the two ptarmigan, one behind the other, walking downwind across the front of me. I stopped to watch them, seeing the snow blowing past them as they walked. They’d walked a good bit before I twigged that I wasn’t having to turn my head to keep them in sight. Nor were they getting any further away from me. So I looked with a new head and saw I’d been staring at a patch of old, hard snow showing through the fresh: nothing like ptarmigan or any other bird, and just a few feet from me.
Nice that I was so fooled as to stop though. As I managed to focus on the no longer ptarmigan-shaped snow patch I also became aware of the faintest of shade changes slightly to the right: a pale diagonal streak in the white. It had to be the cornice.
I stared longer, trying to orientate myself to the line it formed, and checked the compass again. Best bet was that I’d drifted further to the right than I’d thought and was on the slope above Sron Riach, just where the cliffs start descending. That would explain the lack of any upward turn, although I’d reached the cliffs sooner than I’d have expected.
I checked what the bearing should be from the map and it married with the direction of the cliff I got with the compass on the ground, so started downhill, paralleling the cornice, keeping as far away as I could without losing sight of it, for visibility was desperately low and cornices there can be big.

Looking back in the crystal visibility of the following day. I walked a kilometre from the domed summit in the background, to just left of the sharper summit above the choire, unable to see anything beyond my feet until the very end.

And that was it. After a bit I started to see rocks through the snow and by the time I reached the slight re-ascent to the rocky outcrop, I spotted it from at least 20 or 30 yards. I did lose the crest of the ridge just below that outcrop but it was soon realised and easily remedied, and soon afterwards I came below the cloud level, much relieved.
Walking blind in a blizzard, with a cliff edge for a target – and knowing I’d gone off route – had to be my most adventurous day this whole winter. In May.
And I got off with it. Again.

Postscript:

Since posting this, it’s occurred to me that a little disclaimer is in order. This post is not saying that it’s okay to make all sorts of poor decisions and then expect to walk away from it.

The reason I got home safely was a combination of factors. I know that hill well, having climbed on and around McDui dozens of times over the last forty-something years. Even blinded by the snow I had a picture of the area in my mind and an awareness of the slope gradient and my likely (very rough) position. I also had the foresight to take a bearing in advance, the discipline to follow it, and an awareness of my direction of drift. And I had experience of spotting a cornice in similar conditions: I knew exactly what I was looking for. And in many unnoticed ways I was using almost 50 years of experience in the hills.

This isn’t a tale of survival against the odds, just a wee warning (to myself as much as anyone) of how easy it is to shave your safety margin a bit thinner than you’d like. I still had a considerable ‘armoury’ in the shape of my experience, and wouldn’t recommend a similar escapade to anyone who is less than 100 per cent confident in their navigation and hillcraft.

You wish. The main house of Glas Allt Shiel: the bothy is in a wee cubby hole at the back.

I’ve just added a new page to the bothies section of the site – for Glas Allt Shiel, a bizarre wee bothy in a picturesque location near the western end of Loch Muick.

Recently improved by the addition of a stove, courtesy of the Friends of Bob Scott’s Bothy, it’s a bothy that’s a handy base for walking and climbing in the Lochnagar and Loch Muick area.

Look Ma! No fence. The Luibeg Bridge enclosure with the fence removed

It’s not so long ago I was happy to see much of the deer fencing being removed from the Mar Estate.
Leaving aside the fact that they were replaced by a giant electric mega fence – a development which may not have been entirely of Mar Lodge Estate’s choosing – it’s maybe worth taking a look at the origins of some of those fences.
Back in the 1950s, when the Cairngorm National Nature Reserve was established, it was recognised that overgrazing by red deer was killing the forest, with new trees cropped to the ground as soon as they showed their heads above the heather.
The Nature Conservancy Council recognised the problem but it was to be several decades before the estate came into the ownership of anyone prepared to tackle the problem in the most obvious way – cutting the deer numbers to a level that allowed natural regeneration.
As with so many instances of vested interests fighting against the public good, it was even disputed whether the deer were causing the problem.
One of the first jobs, then, when the NCC appointed a warden in the Mar Lodge Estate, was to obtain proof that the problem was overstocking of deer. (The numbers were kept artificially high because of the income the estate obtained from shooting.)
The warden, Malcolm Douglas (now 90 and living in New Zealand), said: “I manually erected a small plot within the Derry wood on Creag Bad an Seabhaig opposite Derry Lodge. [That’s the south-east spur of Carn Crom so prominently visible from Derry Lodge]
“Then there was one on the flat upstream from the Derry Dam and another by a solitary tree farther up the flat. The purpose was to determine whether pine seed would germinate and survive.”
These plots, fenced in 1956 and 1957, were tiny, ranging from 0.04 to 0.07 of a hectare but, in 1959 Malcolm was able to tackle a larger scale trial, encircling a whole hillock.
Tom Dearg (NO 042 943), meaning the red hillock (Malcolm remembers it as An Toman Dearg, which would be the plural) covered an area of 2.5 hectares, bare of trees save at the foot.

Tom Dearg when it was first fenced off in 1959

“An Toman Dearg was completely fenced in against deer, and the few surviving seedlings were also protected from voles with small mesh wire cages.”

Malcolm Douglas in 1959, fixing a ‘vole cage’ to protect pine seedlings from rodent damage

I can recall passing the fenced-in hill in my childhood in the late ‘60s and, even then, you could see young trees shooting up thickly inside the fence. I remember, too, the small gate, which was set near the north-east corner of the boundary.

The gate to the Tom Dearg enclosure. I recall walking past this in the late ’60s

The success of the experiment is plain to see today, even though the fence has been removed for a number of years now (possibly during the ‘80s or ‘90s?). Where Malcolm Douglas once parked his Land Rover you’d be hard put even to land one by helicopter, never mind drive it up there. Even climbing the hillock by foot can be a struggle.

Malcolm Douglas’ Land Rover parked at the top of a bare Tom Dearg

Tom Dearg in 2013 – covered in trees

What Tom Dearg showed was that, with the deer excluded, the old forests of Mar were perfectly capable of regenerating.
The following year Malcolm had three hectares enclosed beside the Lairig Ghru path opposite Luibeg Cottage (approximately NO 033 935).
He also had a plot erected in Glen Geusachan, where he sowed pine seeds, but this was a failure: frost destroyed most of the seedlings and the fence was wrecked by stags, apparently as they scraped the velvet off their antlers, finding the larch fence posts ideal for the job. Can’t win them all.
I’m not sure what happened with the Luibeg enclosure either. The trees currently there don’t look to be 50 years old and there is a record of roughly the same area being re-enclosed in 1981. (The 1981 fence is also away now.)

The enclosure opposite Luibeg Cottage in 1960

The same area in 2013

Malcolm eventually emigrated to New Zealand, where he continued his nature conservancy work, and experimental plots continued to be fenced off in the reserve, both in Mar Lodge Estate and in Glen Feshie.
The most obvious of these, perhaps, was the large enclosure covering the whole Luibeg Bridge area, with deer-proof gates to allow walkers and climbers free access through to Glen Dee and the Lairig. This was only removed in the most recent purge of fences in the wake of the almost complete cull of the Mar Lodge Estate deer population.
So, while many of the deer fences which have been such a prominent feature of the landscape were erected to protect Forestry Commission plantations, some of these played an important role in proving that native pinewoods could and would regenerate naturally if given the chance.
And, as I’ve stated before in this blog, that’s exactly what has been happening in Mar Lodge Estate since the National Trust has cut deer numbers to virtually nil over some areas. There are certainly those who argue that it was an extremist reaction and that a more gradual reduction in numbers to find a sustainable balance should have been undertaken. I have a degree of sympathy with those arguments – the hills seem empty without the deer – but what’s done is done and I hope that numbers will be allowed to gradually rise until that balance is found and a healthier environment is reached for all.
A graphic reminder of the bad old days came when I visited Loch Muick a couple of weekends ago. All along the Loch Muick shore were sections fenced off, signposted to indicate that this was “necessary” to allow regeneration of the native birch, rowan, holly, aspen and willow.

An admission of poor estate management: having to fence off an area for regeneration

Nice view, shame about the fence

The good news for Balmoral Estates is that it’ll work. The bad news for us all is that it will only work until they remove the fence. It’s time someone told Mrs Windsor that the real solution lies not in more unsightly, bird-killing deer fence, but in cutting the gross overstocking of deer which is destroying the land she claims to love.

This one’s for Malcolm: a young pine growing near the summit of Creag Bad an t-Seabhaig with no need of a fence, just a few hundred feet up from where Malcolm fenced off his first experimental plot, a story coming to fruition after more than half a century

Working outside during a break in the rain

Just back from a busy weekend at the Tarf Hotel.

Officially known as Feith Uaine, its time honoured and better known name comes from its location – by the Tarf – and the bizarre presence of a large and somewhat aged AA Hotel sign fixed to the door.

This weekend was the first of two work parties designed to undertake some major work at the bothy.

I arrived on Friday evening with Kenny Freeman, with dispensation from the estate to drive as far as Forest Lodge. There we were met by Ricky Marshall, who’s the Tarf MO, and Lorne, one of the volunteers, who was driving an estate Land Rover.

We were to get a lift not just up the zigzag track from the Tilt to the upper Tarf, but right to the door of the bothy, a journey in equal parts nerve-wracking, gobsmacking and uncomfortable. The zigzag track gives vertiginous views back down to the Tilt, while the journey along the Tarf, with no track and frequent river crossings showed the improbable terrain a Land Rover can negotiate.

Good fun now and then, but I’m not getting rid of my walking boots.

A dozen or so volunteers were at the bothy for the weekend.

Frequent showers meant unpleasant working conditions for those up on the roof putting in new chimney pots and for those mixing cement and applying it in much-needed repointing for the chimney wall of the end porch.

Laying the new floor in the west room

On the basis of a proven ability to hammer in nails with at least a 50 per cent success rate, I managed to attach myself to Kenny Freeman’s joinery squad and, over a day and a half five of us ripped up the dodgy floors in the two main rooms and relaid them with new tongue and groove flooring. The knees are still suffering, but at least I kept dry!

One of the new fireplaces at Tarf Hotel

Other work included two new fireplaces (in the ‘porch’ room at the east end and in the small middle room) courtesy of Neil Findlay with assistance from Davey Knowles.

We were kept fed through it all by Allan and Stan, with Andy multi-tasking by playing guitar and singing in the evenings, boasting a seemingly endless repertoire.

All in all a great weekend in good company, despite the weather. Another work party is planned for next weekend.

Chef turned musician: Allan entertained the workers in the evening. (Is that a music stand we see? In a bothy?)

The author on top of Ben Arthur – The Cobbler. Picture by Lloyd Gibbs

Long past time for a trip away from the Cairngorms, so I took the opportunity of a sort of work day observing an MCofS navigation course near Balmaha to sneak a day in the Arrochar Alps.

Saturday morning was an early rise to meet with MCofS Mountain Safety Adviser Heather Morning at the Lomond MRT base at Drymen, just to get a taster of what went on at the one-day navigation courses run by the MCofS in conjunction with the Walkhighlands website.

MCofS Mountain Safety Adviser Heather Morning teaching navigation near Loch Lomond

It was an entertaining day, tramping around Conic Hill by Loch Lomond and seeing the enjoyment in the client’s faces as they learned the tricks of the trade with map and compass.

Then it was off round Loch Lomond and across to Ardgarten and a tired, hungry, sweaty trauchle up through the woods above Succoth to the open hillside and a camp by the Narnain Boulders on the way up to The Cobbler.

The evening wasn’t too great, with low cloud and drizzle but, despite some shrouds of cloud around the summits on Sunday morning, there was little doubt it was going to be a scorcher.

The cloud-capped Cobbler at 7 am, from my pitch by the Nairnain Boulders

Breakfasted and packed up, I cut diagonally up the side of Beinn Narnain, soaked to the knees from wet grass and from the head down with sweat, for the lack of wind meant it was midge hell if I stopped for as much as a few seconds, so the steep, grassy gully I chose to join the south-east end of the ridge was taken almost non-stop. What a way to start the morning, and it hardly even 7am!

Narnain from the south-east is a great way to climb a hill, full of shattered rock scenery which has to be wound through, giving an air of adventure without ever being hard or dangerous – and as you gain height there are ever increasing views down Loch Long, through to the Gareloch and through to Loch Lomond, with Ben Lomond beyond, its summit piercing a persistent layer of cloud.

Looking up Beinn Narnain

Looking back down Beinn Narnain past the Spearhead

On a mission, I didn’t pause more than a few moments at the summit and headed on down towards the Bealach a Mhaim, giving a damp crossing to start up the equally damp Beinn Ime, the highest of the Arrochar Alps.

Beinn Ime from Beinn Narnain.

After a steady plod, weighed down by my full rucksack, I stopped for about half an hour at the top. It was still early in the day, so I decided I’d take in the Cobbler on the way back to Arrochar – if my legs would take it!

I’d first been on Ben Arthur about 30 years ago, when I’d only been to the easy north top, then about 25 years ago when I climbed the classic Recess Route, again finishing on the north top, so it was about time I took in the centre top, the highest of the three and boasting the legendary scramble through and up the summit block.

Legs were definitely feeling it by the time I got to the col between the north and centre tops though, so I took a big swallow from my water bottle and left the sack against a rock while I went first to the North and then to the centre tops.

Looking through the hole in the summit block towards the north top

And the centre top really does live up to its billing. Clamber over a few blocks and you’re faced with a triangular hole through the summit block. Crawl through and you’re on a ledge – wide enough in all conscience – which leads along to the left, with a big drop onto hard-looking rocks below. The only ‘technical’ bit follows, a mini-scramble/clamber up into a cleft between two blocks and up onto the highest point for the ultimate summit pose. Wouldn’t want to do it in the wet, right enough, but not nearly as fierce as it looks.

My summit shot, courtesy of Lloyd Gibbs

After chatting with Lloyd Gibbs, who took the photo of me which heads this post, I headed off to reclaim my sack and head off down the precipitous direct path down the front – although it was to be said the steps at the top are a huge improvement on the scree scrabble I seem to recall from quarter a century ago.

Then it was the long haul back to the car in heat which was becoming increasingly unbearable and a hugely welcome hamburger and refrigerated Coke at the Arrochar garage before a drive home, arriving just in time to see Andy Murray’s last three points to victory at Wimbledon.

Quite a nice day, all in all.

Looking back up from under the north summit of The Cobbler. The path comes down somewhere here.

And a last view of The Cobbler before heading down to Arrochar

The famous Tarf Hotel sign

An overdue note to record that a second work party took place at the Tarf the week after the one I reported on recently.
Lots more work was done, with pointing both inside and out and jobs finished off to fireplaces and chimney pots.
MO Ricky Marshall said time and manpower didn’t allow boulders to be cleared from the west gable, which would have allowed scaffolding to be erected so that the wall could be repointed.
That, and some internal woodwork, is the only work remaining to be done in this year’s programme.
Ricky has also unearthed a wealth of historical information and some old photos of the bothy, which has enabled me to write a new page about Feith Uaine Bothy in the Cairngorm Bothies section of the blog. Thanks to Ricky for that.

Toilet locked and out of action

The toilet at Bob Scott’s Bothy, near Derry Lodge, is out of action.

Neil Findlay, maintenance organiser at Scottie’s, says there is a blockage somewhere about the outlet of the septic tank, which is now filled to the brim. The toilet, beside the bothy, is currently locked.

There are plans for several people to go up there on Saturday to try and resolve the problem so, given the heat, prospective bothiers with sensitive noses might like to make alternative plans.

There’s no guarantee any progress will be made this weekend but there were similar problems last year which resolved themselves when the toilet was locked for a couple of weeks.

One concern is that the problem may simply be caused by over-use. The presence of the toilet is well-known even by those who don’t use the bothy and heavier visitor numbers in summer, with campers around Derry Lodge, Duke of Edinburgh Award parties and sundry passers-by, may just be too much for a system that was never designed for such usage.

Alternatively, it could be the outlet pipe has been moved or broken by a tree root – the tank has been there for something like 30 years after all.

I’ll report back on what happens this weekend, hopefully with good news, so keep your fingers (and your legs) crossed.

Spare a thought for the folk who look after the toilet. This was the sight facing us the last time it was blocked.

Just a quick post to recommend a BBC Radio Scotland programme. ‘Our Lives’ episode 5 was about the Deeside Cairngorms, with particular mentions of the Slugain Howff and Bob Scott and his bothy.

Some great reminiscences about the Howff from Ashie Brebner, the last of the builders, and chat from Ian (Mountain Days and Bothy Nights) Mitchell about the Howff and about Bob Scott.

A great wee programme: just half an hour of your time but well worth it, so check it out now, as I’m not sure how long it will be available for.

Just as an aside, the toilet at Bob Scott’s Bothy is still out of action, but there are hopes of getting it open again soon.

Feith Uaine Bothy

A quick newsflash on developments at the Tarf Hotel (Feith Uaine Bothy).

What will hopefully be the final work party of the year has been organised for the weekend of Friday August 3o to Sunday September 1.

While the bulk of the planned work has been completed, the doors need attention to be ready to face up to the winter weather and the west wall still needs repointing to prevent damp penetrating inside.

One joiner is already arranged but, with two exterior doors needing attention and some of the interior doors needing fixed after being removed for the reflooring, some assistance would no doubt be appreciated.

The rubble which prevented the west gable being repointed earlier has now been removed, enabling scaffolding to be erected so that the whole wall can be properly repointed – a job that’s much needed.

Because the bothy is so remote, Maintenance Organiser Ricky Marshall has once more arranged to get access by four-wheel-drive vehicles, so anyone wanting to lend a hand at the work party should give Ricky a call on 01738 643642.

Cliffs, tors and loch from the Loch Avon Slabs

You won’t find the name in any map or climbing guide book, but Loch Avon Slabs is a name that deserves to be heard more often.

It’s an easy scrambling route described in Ronald Turnbull’s excellent Cicerone guide, ‘Walking in the Cairngorms’. He himself describes it as possibly the best route in the book and I’d meant to do it ever since reading the book.

I knew of the area, between the Garbh Uisge and the Feith Buidhe (or between Garbh Uisge Crag and Hell’s Lum Crag for the climbers amongst us) but, other than a twilit ascent of the easyish ground to its left (as the ludicrous but logical-at-the-time conclusion of an attempt to cross the Garbh Uisge at its foot) had never actually been there.

So on Saturday past I remedied my neglect and, after carrying kit from Scottie’s up to the Hutchie, I walked over to the Shelter Stone with an old friend, leaving him there to explore (and have a snooze by the loch as it turned out) while I headed up for my route.

The area of the slabs can be seen between the Shelter Stone Crag on the left and Hell’s Lum Crag on the right, just to the left of the clearly visible waters of Feith Buidhe

Of course, I’d forgotten the guide book and couldn’t quite remember how Mr Turnbull said to start, not to mention being hazy about some of the detail higher up too. But it turns out Loch Avon is less of a prescribed route and more of a ramble-scramble.

Instead of starting up the side of the Garbh Uisge and then crossing the slabs, I started below them and climbed from the bottom – which did lead to a couple of interesting moments, one of which had more in common with the Etive Slabs than the Avon Slabs. But that was just what I got for playing around: there are plenty of easy choices too.

Looking up into the slabs from below

Once the easy-angled slabs were climbed the tiers of steepenings offered no end of choices and rather than trying to remember what the guide said, I picked my way, traversing to get an easy bit here, to opt for an interesting-looking bit there, detouring to get some photos through a snowbridge and, I admit it, backing off one bit that turned out considerably harder (and more exposed) than it looked.

All the time, though, it was an absolute delight: continuous, clean rock; an open, unserious feeling with all the time a choice of routes, and, always, those tremendous views that kept me turning around to look back. In one direction there was Loch Avon stretching into the distance, with the tors of Beinn Mheadhoin, the massive grey crags of Carn Etchachan and An Sticil (The Shelter Stone Crag), and by looking to the north, a side view of Hell’s Lum Crag, looking straight into Hell’s Lum itself (totally free of snow at this time of year) and over to Stag Rocks.

Reaching the plateau and the end of the rocks was almost a disappointment, though the gentle upper waters of the Garbh Uisge and the ptarmigan chicks I saw there were some consolation, as was the always welcome sight of Braeriach and then Cairn Toul peeping over the crest of the plateau.

A familiar place, Ben McDui, but this was as good a reminder as any that there’s always more to see here.

Looking back at the Shelter Stone Crag from below the route

Looking across to Hell’s Lum Crag, with the ‘Lum’ visible on the left

Beinn Mheadhoin, with the cliffs of Stacan Dubha clear in the foreground

Looking back on Loch Avon, with the Stag Rocks on the left

Zoom shot of the Shelter Stone Crag from high on the slabs

A novel view of the Shelter Stone Crag see through a snow bridge on the slabs

A curious slab of granite which has split along the line of a quartzvein

I love the vivid colours of this mossy spring on the plateau

Photos never seem to portray the excitement I feel when I first see Braeriach peeping over the crest of the plateau. I think it’s the sense of scale

Corrour Bothy

Sometimes you really do wonder just why you bother.

Neil Findlay carries in the new seat

Up at Corrour Bothy again, the plan was for Neil Findlay and I to replace a broken toilet seat and do a quick repair to the stove, then I would head round to the furthest reaches of the Garbh Choire and explore the snowfields, which would be approaching their smallest before the winter gets going.

But now I was seriously wondering why I spend so much time on this bothy.

It wasn’t the fact that the toilet bag needed changing already. It wasn’t that there seemed to be a population explosion of flies in the inner section of the toilet block.

It wasn’t discovering that the plastic box which sits under the storage rail to catch drips from newly hung bags was literally crawling with ill-defined creatures and in serious need of scrubbing out, or even deciding that the drip tray under the ‘live’ bags needed cleaning too and, in fact the whole floor of the back section needed scrubbing down.

Sure, it all took a couple of not very pleasant hours to do and I’d had to say goodbye to plans for the Garbh Choire, but it wasn’t that.

The twin toilet seats at Corrour

It wasn’t even when Neil Findlay pointed out that the steel tubes under the loo seats were minging. No, I kept calm even when down on my knees before the cludgies (there are two seats and two tubes to clean – one wouldn’t be enough) scrubbing away at dried-in faeces with a j-cloth, with my head almost down the tube and trying not to stare at the all too fresh pile of turds and bog roll in the bag below. Even though this wasn’t how I ever envisaged spending my birthday, I never questioned what I was doing there.

What finally broke me was the black bag.

The toilet was changed, mended and scrubbed into submission. The collar to fix the flue to the stove was in place and a new coat of stove paint applied (Neil F’s work). I’d even been sung ‘Happy Birthday’ by a nice group of DofE Award kids.

But then came the bag.

We’d seen it when we arrived: a black polythene rubbish sack hanging from a hook on the wall, obviously pretty full of rubbish. We knew that we’d have to go through it all and burn what we could and carry out the bottles and tins, along with the various bits and pieces left on the shelf: a festival tent, plastic bags, plastic cutlery (some used), a couple of tent pegs, a mess tin full of shredded and burnt tinfoil…

So I sat in front of the now lit stove and started pulling out wrappers, fag packets, polythene bags – the usual. Only the smell from the sack was pretty pungent, and getting worse.

First I came across the bag of lettuce. Well past its sell-by date. Then half a pack of sushi, a long way past being edible. There was half a banana: the suppurating brown parts were the healthiest-looking. By this time I was gagging. Most of a half pound of butter came next. And the finale was a something wrapped in tinfoil which no-one would look at long enough to attempt an identification and which I couldn’t bear to smell any longer.

What, really, was it all about?

Up here probably at least once a month and the same shit every time. Change toilet bags filled with shit and then come into the bothy to burn and carry out even more shit: shit left by selfish, lazy bastards who know damned well the council bin lorry doesn’t come up this way; filthy buggers who make bothies unfit for the people who come after them; dirty arseholes who don’t care that they make the bothy smell foul, that someone else has to deal with their waste, who don’t care if someone has to give up a hill day just so long as they don’t need to bother picking up after themselves.

And then, I really did wonder. Why – I – fucking – bother.

It was after four in the afternoon. I’d been  up since seven, walking in to Corrour and then housekeeping all day. That was finished but it was going to be a long night. So I pulled on a jacket and headed up the back of the bothy to do the Devil’s Point, the first steep pull good for stamping out some anger, setting a fast, leg-burning pace. As the angle eased into the lovely hanging coire with its arms coming out to enclose a lush green sanctuary, a little calm returned to both pace and temper.

Finally, on the zig-zags up the coire headwall, aware of the steepness of the ground, of the boulders and rocks casting long shadows in the lowering sunlight, of a covey of ptarmigan contouring  white-winged round the rugged coire wall and of the vast space enclosed and the vaster spaces beyond, I remembered why I was there.

Looking across the top of Coire Odhar to Cairn Toul

Crossing the burn just below the lip of the coire, a few more feet took me out into the wide open spaces of the flat col  between Cairn Toul and the Devil’s Point, and a short wander due south allowed me to look over into the abyss of Glen Geusachan and the sun-burnished slabs of Beinn Bhrotain, shafts of sunlight pillaring the hazy atmosphere.

Shafts of sunlight shine into Glen Geusachan

Just yards from the summit cairn my phone suddenly burst into life with birthday texts from my wife and sister and, by the time I stepped those few paces past the summit cairn I was looking almost straight down over a thousand feet to see a group of kids arriving, all relief and excitement, at the best wee bothy in Scotland.

So why do I bother?

Lots of reasons really. Sometimes I tell people it’s because I’ve used the bothies all my life and it’s about time I ‘put something back’. Corrour was, after all, where almost half a century ago my father introduced me to that unique Scottish bothy culture where every man was your neighbour and no-one was left needing. So that’s true, maybe. Pride, certainly: pride that I, a wee bauchle who knew this iconic bothy when it was four bare walls, a roof and an earthen floor, have been able to help others more skilled than I to turn it into an exemplar of modern bothy culture and am entrusted to help look after it.

It’s for the craic, too. The craic and the company, for they’re a rare gang of folk who look after the bothies – like-minded hill gangrels with years of experience and tales to tell and share – and the Cairngorms crew are the best of all. (Although many trips to work on Corrour are solitary ones, and the friends I have made are true whether I remain MO or not.)

The gratitude of my fellow hill walkers and climbers is nice too. It would be a lie to say I’m not chuffed when someone says well done, when people who have enjoyed a night’s comfortable shelter and perhaps a dram and a tale or two around the fire say thanks for all the good work.

But, at heart, it’s because it is a chance, however small, to make a difference. By walking a few miles into the hills I love and doing a few hours of work, I can make a small part of the world a better place than it was. For the very existence of a bothy is a defiant subversion of the dog-eat-dog world of business and politics. Maintaining a place of refuge and shelter in the wilderness, open and free for all people to come together as strangers and share each other’s company as friends, to help one-another and share tales and experiences, is a proud assertion and reminder of humanity in a world where humanity too often seems in danger of being overwhelmed by fear and greed.

To be able to help in work like that is a privilege and a gift. How could anyone say no?

Scene of the (nearly) eternal snows and of an escapade

The internet is a wonderful thing. And so are guide books.
But between the pair of them they were nearly the death of me.
I’d had a notion to go into the Garbh Choire of Braeriach and see the ‘permanent’ snowpatches at close range – something I’d never done. But the first attempt never got beyond Corrour Bothy (see previous post).
This weekend was my climbing club’s 40th anniversary ceilidh in Nethy Bridge, so I decided to try again, this time from the other side.
I would cycle up Gleann Einich and go up over the plateau and into the Garbh Choire by the Crown Buttress Spur. That would allow me to take some photos of the snow from across the choire as well as close-ups.
Great. Even better when I was informed via twitter that the best way back out of the inner cliffs of the Garbh Choire was by Pinnacle Gully. Not too loose and chossy? I asked. No steep sections?
“Oh no. I did it a couple of years ago. Don’t recall having any trouble.”
Well, of course I wasn’t stupid enough to go on the word of some guy on the internet. I checked the guidebook. And there it was: Pinnacle Gully, Easy in summer. Now ‘Easy’ in climbing guide terms is, well, easy. Central Gully at Creag an Dubh Loch is ‘Easy’ and I once took my non-climbing brother-in-law up there. He gulped when he saw it from below, but climbed it with no bother at all; he may even have kept his hands in his pockets most of the way.
So Pinnacle Gully it would be.
I was up before 6 on Saturday morning – the result of a dodgy chip supper on the way up on Friday night rather than enthusiasm. It meant an early start, but it also meant a slow one, as I had to stop twice on the cycle in to throw up at the side of the track.

Sunlight illuminates the head of Gleann Einich

I dumped the bike at the junction with the Beanaidh Bheag for the return and walked on to start up the Coire Dhondail path, grateful for its origins as a stalkers’ track which meant it took a gradual and easy way up despite the steepness of the hillside, even managing the coire headwall across several rock outcrops without any real exertion.

Looking across the Garbh Choire to Angel’s Peak. The Crown Buttress Spur is the ridge parallel to the line traced by the foot of the Angel’s Peak cliffs

Then it was a steady pull up to the lip of the Garbh Choire Mor before following it round to the top of the Crown Buttress Spur. Possible a bit of a misnomer this, as it’s well to the east of Crown Buttress, starting just beyond the col before Angel’s Peak (Sgor an Lochain Uaine) and leading steeply down to the coire a good bit below the fabled snow patches, which have melted only a handful of times in the last century or more.
From the bottom of the spur it was driven home one more how aptly the Garbh Choire is named – the rough choire. Cutting across several rock ribs at the bottom of the spur I was onto a pathless trudge up boggy stream and boulders.
As I stopped for a first abortive attempt to eat I heard a sharp bark from the cliffs above and eventually saw two deer working their way round the broken ground well above me, their tiny size emphasising the scale of the amphitheatre.
Climbing into the inner coire you are scrambling over large blocks of granite, hearing water running freely below, out of sight. You wonder how deep this scree slope is – and what voids lie within it, for on parts of the slope you can hear water echoing, as if pouring into subterranean cisterns. In the bowl of the coire, surrounded by cliffs, is a slight hollow where all the boulders are coated in a black, slippery moss, which disappears as you start to climb once more to where three small patches of snow remain from last winter’s white drift – and from the winter before and the winter before.
The legend of these snows being ageless has taken a bit of a dunt in recent years. During the 20th century these three snow patches disappeared completely only three times – 1933, 1959 and 1996. But since the Millennium they have melted on four consecutive years from 2003 to 2006. [Since writing this it has been pointed out that the Sphinx patch survived the years 2004 and 2005 - See Eddie Boyle's comment below.] And, to be honest, once you are there, looking at these three patched of dirty, icy snow (the smallest was down to about 7ft by 10) it’s hard to convince yourself that they are really anything special. I suppose it’s the fact of their existence rather than their actual substance that’s significant.
In any case, I’d come all this way to see them, so I took a few photos for the album.

The tiny Michaelmas Fare snow patch, with my rucksack giving scale. (The snow patches are named after the climbs above them)

The much bigger Sphinx snow patch. You can see a foreshortened Pinnacle Gully above and to the right – not very inviting!

The Pinnacles snow patch

That done, I scrabbled up into the foot of Pinnacle Gully, just above the central, Sphinx, snow patch.
It certainly looked harder than Creag an Dubh Loch’s Central Gully: chossy and mossy. And that first look should have made me heed Tom Patey’s words of caution in his classic ‘Cairngorm Commentary’:
“Most gullies are unpleasant. A Cairngorm gully is double so. It is the sort of place you would incarcerate your worst enemy; a dank gloomy prison where moisture seeps from every fissure and ‘all the air a solemn stillness holds – save for the constant drip, drip from many a moss-enshrouded chockstone and the occasional dull thud as another ledge sloughs away in a welter of slime and rubble.”
But no. Some strange part of my mind said that, despite all I knew and all I could see, it would be fine. So up I scrabbled, even though the gravelly earth and loose rocks I stood on slid away beneath my feet.
From lower down I could see that the route slanted diagonally behind Pinnacle Ridge, across the face of the cliff, meaning a gentler gradient than the face itself. But when I looked into the gully it was less encouraging. Some big steps. Mossy, gravelly steps.
Maybe a wee jink to the left, though; out of sight from where I was but looks like it could go. So up I go: 20, 30 feet of loose rocks in a matrix of earthy gravel until the first step. Some hesitation, then a few holds get me up and over without any trouble. Once the angle eases again, though, the bed of the gully is more compact. Some good rocks but everything dirty, moss-covered, lichen-smeared, broken fragments of stone and skittery grit.
A couple of press holds udge me up into another couple of good footholds but now there’s nothing ahead, just thick, lush moss bulging out at me. Over to the right clean rock beckons temptingly. If I can get across there. Reach a foot over to the side and kick as much grit as I can off a rounded hold. A balancing hand above and shift my weight… there I am, up a good foot and a yard to the right. Nothing else for my feet though, and not much for the hands either – although, maybe… a side pull there and lean across, get a boot scuffed into that gravel. Will it take my weight or will I slide? Can’t test it too much without losing my balance, so eventually I decide it will hold long enough to get both hands across to those good holds on the ridge at the side of the gully and I go for it – and I slide and grab in one heartstopping moment to pull myself up onto a foothold then an easy step onto the crest of the ridge.
The next few feet are straightforward: good, positive holds, clean dry rock, but I’m conscious that I’m now on Pinnacle Ridge itself, which is graded Diff. And after 20 feet or so of easy rock I’m up against another impasse. Looking back into the gully I can see where I might – might – manage to work my way back in, but it’s still below a mossy groove which is a lot steeper than it looked from below. Some easy-looking steps on the other side of the gully, but no way of getting to them that I can see. And no way up the ridge either. I can see the holds I’d need to use and, quite frankly, don’t like a single one of them. Different if I was on a rope, if I could wedge some protection in and make the mossy moves with a little security, but a quick glance to the void on the right gives me a sudden image of a short, scraping slide and maybe one bounce before I hit the scree slope a hundred feet below, rag-dolling down the slope who knows how much further, for, soft and limp as a new-made corpse is, it will not stop on first impact on these jagged slopes and there will be further breaking and ripping before it lies where a dispirited rescue team will eventually find it.
It was a brief but incredibly vivid image and I decided that I’d pushed my luck here far enough. The technical difficulty wasn’t out of order, but the loose rocks, the mossy, gritty holds and the gravelly slopes all combined to make an accident not so much a possibility and more a probability.
It left, of course, the problem of getting back down.
The first few feet down the ridge were easy enough but reversing the traverse I made out of the gully was going to be desperate. Stepping up on a moving hold was one thing but stepping down onto it wasn’t so funny, especially when I had much smaller holds to aim for on the other side. So I continued down the ridge until I spied an easier way across.
And it was easier. Just that one hold, an otherwise perfect breeze-block-sized lump of granite that waited until my foot touched it before cracking out of its socket and tumbling, crashing down the gully and scree below, going much further than was strictly required for dramatic effect and making so much noise I was afraid one of the stick figures silhouetted further round the coire edge would think something was wrong. (As if!)
A moment’s pause and I got my foot onto the space where the block had been. It made for a better hold anyway.
As I moved back into the gully bed I did notice what looked like a much better line of ascent on the left, but it was too late: I’d made the decision to retreat and was sticking to it. Indecisiveness isn’t the best attribute to take to a climb.
A couple of undignified bum-shuffles took me down the original step and I was out onto the scree slope again.
No more faffing about, I headed for the spur between Garbh Choire Mhor and Garbh Choire Daidh and exited steeply but easily onto the plateau.
Of course, the plateau is a huge area. Sir Henry Alexander in his classic first edition of the SMC District Guide to the Cairngorms described the Braeriach plateau as somewhat akin to a desert; I’ve never been in a desert but I kind of know what he means. It’s a great, open, undulating area of ground where one part is much the same as the next. Most people hold to the edge, following the coire rim between Braeriach and Cairn Toul, and you can understand that because of the views into and across the coire, but I like to wander ‘inland’, so to speak, treading on parts of the area I have no reason to be in other than that they’re off the beaten track. Even so, I ended up aiming for a definite point: the Wells of Dee, where the River Dee pours from the earth in several crystal clear springs, quite substantial from its very source. This force is puzzling, for there is so little of the mountain above the wells and the flow remains strong even after a dry summer.

One of the main Wells of Dee on the Braeriach plateau

The infant Dee, taken from its source looking towards Braeriach

From the Wells it would have been a short trip over the edge to drop back down into Gleann Einich and back to the bike and the ceilidh but there was a problem. For all the years – the decades – I’ve been wandering about the Cairngorms, I’ve never been able to rid myself of the notion that this bit is ‘just round the corner’ from that bit, or that this hill is ‘just next to’ that, always forgetting the distances involved. And that’s how I decided, despite the afternoon wearing on, that, since I was up there already, I’d really be as well just nipping up to the top of Braeriach.

The summit of Braeriach

And, once sore feet had trod the many boulders between here and there, it might be as well to go down the ridge between Coire an Lochain and Coire Ruadh, just for a change.
Well don’t. Not in summer at least.
Sure, it’s fine treading the narrow way between two coires but, once you get further down the rocks get covered with heather, somehow without gaining much in the way of soil in between, so you’re trying to pick your way down boulders and leg-breaker holes without the benefit of sight. Believe me: it’s slow, frustrating work.
But finally I was down at the junction of the burns where I’d left the bike. All that was left was a bone-rattling return to Coylumbridge and a high-speed drive to Nethy Bridge for a ceilidh dinner I at last felt able for. Made it with almost an hour in hand too.

A last look back up Gleann Einich and Choire Dhondail

More on the Garbh Choire snow patches – with a good bibliography – can be found on Eddie Boyle’s blog 

And more photos from the past

The Tarf Hotel in 1983. Two AA signs can be seen on the ground either side of the door.

The Tarf Hotel is remote – a good couple of miles past the back of beyond, and in the wrong direction too – but it’s a bothy that seems to make an impression on folk.

For a couple of blogposts about the series of work parties this year to renovate it, and the bothy page I wrote containing much of its history, attracted a lot of attention and comment.

Recently Ian Mitchell (author of the classic Mountain Days and Bothy Nights and other great books) got in touch to fill in more detail about his visits there over the course of more than 20 years, showing how the state of the bothy changed with time, thankfully giving the lie to his gloomy forecast in Mountain Days & Bothy Nights that it would go the way of too many other lost bothies.

Ian writes:

If I was giving advice to a young mountaineer it would be to take lots of photographs and keep a log; I regret I didn’t have a camera till I was 30 or keep a log till I was 40. So I have to rely  a lot on memory, or seek corroboration from others’ memories, for anything before 1988.

My first visit to the Tarf – the one described in Mountain Days and Bothy Nights – was in 1977 or 1978 – or even 1979 – and I walked in from Linn o Dee, overnighted and walked back out; that was when the heating pipes and the old boiler were there. But none of the furniture Ashie Brebner mentions as being there 25 years previously – never mind the crockery!  [Comment by Ashie on the Feith Uaine bothy page, referring to a visit he made there in the 1950s.] Clearly the estate had ceased to use the bothy by the 1970s. There wasn’t much evidence of use by walkers, either.

I revisited, walking in from Blair Atholl in 1983, which I can date from the location of  Tarf images in my photo album, otherwise I would struggle to be so precise. The two images here [At head of post and below] were taken in March of that year. As you can see then there were definitely two AA signs, and the photos also indicate what the situation was with the side and front porches then.

The Tarf Hotel from behind, 1983. Of the two rear extensions in the photo only the further away remains. The wall at the near gable is also gone.

On both these occasions I visited the bothy alone and found no one there, and there was no sign of any bothy book, or even any official maintenance. And still little sign of usage by walkers, such as abandoned bottles or tins. Most frustratingly, I cannot recall what I did on this occasion, or on the first trip either, though it must have been the three local Munros.

Nor did I see evidence of maintenance on the third visit, this time by bike from Blair Atholl, and this trip  is one of the first entries in my log in 1988. Re-reading this account I see I saw signs of increasing use: candles, bottles tins, and the appearance of a bothy book. This was the first time I met someone in the Tarf, a lad from Blackburn. The Munro bagging phenomenon had taken off and the bothy book noted  55 ‘bed nights’ in the previous seven weeks. Sadly this had resulted in more of the doss going ‘up the lum’. One contributor to the bothy book had noted he had “collapsed the unsafe porch” – disguising an act of pyrolatry as being in  the bonum publicum. Climbed Carn an Fhidleir and An Scarsoch this time.

In 1994 I visited again, on a walk through from Blair Atholl to Gaick, overnighting at the Tarf, by which time I think the MBA was working on the bothy, although once again I had it to myself.  I noted that there was evidence of a  walked path for the first time along the Tarf Water, from the pony shed to the bothy and evidence of much increased usage in the bothy book;  this was at the height the great 1990s Munroing frenzy. The bothy was slightly flooded and a tale in the book told of a lad who had spent a couple of nights  sleeping on the table as the floor was flooded, and he claimed the Feith Uaine Mor and the Tarf Water had combined to form a loch several feet deep with flood melt, and that he was marooned in the bothy for a couple of days. Whether this is more credible than the collapsed porch story, I would hesitate to say.

The last time I was there was the first time I went accompanied, in 2000 with Dave Brown, he to do his first Munro round of  An Sgarsoch and Carn an Fhidleir, me my second, or possibly third. We cycled and walked in and met someone I had encountered  a couple of years previously at the restoration of Melgarve bothy, and whose name I had forgotten. He was (no kidding) Hugh Munro, along with his wife. Not a name you might think you would forget. [Hugh and Marlene Munro are Maintenance Organisers for Faindouran Bothy in Glen Avon].

By this time it was a three star doss, thanks to the MBA.

Looking at the image of the bothy now, it bears no resemblance to what I dossed in 30 years ago – is that a sauna on the old porch? I will have to go back a sixth time, as I have the local duo of Munros still to do for my third round, just to be certain. Maybe I will see if  I can filch a 5-star AA sign from somewhere and carry it in.

Anyway I am so pleased that my gloomy predictions from 30 years ago that the Tarf would go the way of the Geldie, Bynack, Altanour, Lochend and so many other dosses that were still in use in the 1960s, has proven unfounded.
All the best,
Ian.

(Besides Mountain Days and Bothy Nights, Ian Mitchell has written a number of books on various topics. Of interest to the hill fraternity are the MDBN follow-ups ‘A View From The Ridge’ and ‘Second Man on the Rope’, and the excellent history book, ‘Scotland’s Mountains Before The Mountaineers’, which has a great deal of fascinating information about the early walkers and climbers in the Cairngorms as well as other areas.)

I’ve also heard from Bert Barnett, noted folk singer and producer of technical drawings for bothy renovations, about the legend that the well known climber Graeme Hunter had taken up the AA hotel sign.

Bert spoke to Graeme recently and confirms that it was indeed he who brought the first sign to the at that time dilapidated bothy. Bert added that it was also Graeme who placed the 30mph speed limit sign in the classic winter gully ‘Look C’ in Glen Clova. Now long gone, it was a fixture in the gully for a number of years.

And, because you’re worth it, here’s some photos…

Graeme Hunter and others – I don’t know who is who – outside the bothy in what looks to be the late ’60s or early ’70s. The AA sign is resplendent on the wall beside them.

Jim Cornfoot of the Carn Dearg Club in 1965 or 66, in what has to be the most unusual approach to the Tarf Hotel – by bathtub up the Tarf Water. They bred them hard in those days!

Graeme Hunter on his way to Look C Gully with the 30mph speed limit sign. As if his sack wasn’t heavy enough as it was!

The famous Tarf Hotel bathtub, seen here modelled by Jim Cornfoot of the Carn Dearg Club in 1965 or 66

There are many legends of bothy lore, but who could have guessed an old zinc bath could be one of them?

When I started writing about the Tarf Hotel so many people recalled that, in its wilderness years before the MBA started maintaining it, the bothy possessed the remnants of a central heating system… and a bath.

Proof, if proof were needed, came with a photo by Graeme Hunter of someone ’paddling’ it up the Tarf Water, back in the day of black and white photos.

The Bothy Ghost, a man who’s seen the inside of many a bothy and told many an unlikely tale, was delighted to see the photo, as vindication of one of his apparently oft disputed tales:

“I hold a fond memory of four fine young men who had spent an entire day scouring that barren landscape for enough fuel to accompany oor evening drams ootside the Tarf Hotel, heating the bath-tub over oor precious fire, then drawing straws to decide who’d be last in… and though ye waldnae hae put a dug in it, it was steamin’ hot, it was oors, and it was the lap o’ luxury!”

With writing as vivid as that, Bill should be writing his own blog (and, indeed, has written a few good pieces if you rake through the ukbothies forum), but his comment was followed by another great tale from the Two Kennys.

The Two Kennys are Kenny Freeman and Kenny Ferguson, bosom buddies and bothy stalwarts who have been involved in a staggering number of bothy renovations and work parties in the Cairngorms.

Kenny Freeman writes:

“At a weekend MBA work party around about 1994, an RAF helicopter that was supposed to be delivering materials was instead diverted to a rescue.
So on the Saturday Stan Stuart, who was the MO [Maintenance Organiser with the MBA] at the time; Davy Miles, his best mate, who was MO for the Charr Bothy; Charlie Anderson, a joiner from Dundee who only had one eye and was probably one of the best story tellers I have ever come across; his mate who worked in a climbing shop in Dundee (whose name I don’t recall); Calum McRoberts, Irvine Butterfield, a lassie who wore a calliper on her leg and her pal who was diabetic (whose names I don’t know either), gathered up all the old pipework and metal that was strewn around the bothy.
All the smaller pieces were buried in a large pit away from the bothy but the larger pieces, including the old bath, were piled up and ready to be flown out should the helicopter turn up. But there was to be no helicopter on the Saturday .
Our mission for the work party had been to line the ceilings and replace rotten and missing floorboards, so when the chopper did arrived on the Sunday we had to go hell for leather to get as much of the work done before we had to walk out.
Kenny Ferguson and myself could both remember seeing a copy of a pencil drawing in a book somewhere drawn, I think, by the Duke of Atholl, depicting himself in the bath at the bothy.
So the two of us decided that the bath wasn’t rubbish after all and that it was, in fact, a piece of history and needed to be saved.
Now it just so happened that Kenny was building his own bothy around the back of his house and I, being a cabinetmaker, suggested that I could turn the bath into an armchair to grace the newly built bothy. We managed to convince ourselves that the carry out would be worth it as not only would it look good in the new bothy but it would have a great story behind it. So, late on the Sunday, with huge rucksacks already full of tools, the two of us took turns with the bath strapped on to the top of our rucksacks, with the front just about covering our heads, making it difficult to see as we walked out.
The bath is now nicely upholstered in a tasteful dark green material and is situated, as Ricky Marshall said, in a secret location in Elgin.”

Bothy folk, you see. Can’t beat them.