Nan Shepherd, author of the classic ‘The Living Mountain’

When it comes to classic books about the Cairngorms, Seton Gordon normally comes top of the list for his long out of print ‘The Cairngorm Hills of Scotland’. It is an excellent book too, as is the equally inspiring ‘Charm of the Hills’, which is also mainly concerned with the Cairngorms. But it’s always the quiet ones you have to look out for and, creeping unobtrusively into the light some 30 or so years after it was written was Nan Shepherd’s ‘The Living Mountain’, a small masterpiece which was a fraction of the size of Gordon’s book and so often talked in generalities where he wrote of specifics, yet which gives what I (and many others) feel is the truest and most inspiring picture of a very special range of mountains. Written during and just after World War Two, it wasn’t published until 1977. It has appeared sporadically since then (my own first copy was a 1984 Aberdeen University Press reprint)and more recently has appeared on Canongate Books, where it has at last started to receive the wider recognition it has so long deserved.

Robert Macfarlane in the Cairngorms during filming

Part of that recognition will come at 10 pm next Tuesday when BBC Two Scotland airs a half-hour documentary ‘The Living Mountain: A Cairngorms Journey’. Made over the past few months and presented by the writer Robert Macfarlane, it celebrates both the book and its author. According to Macfarlane it is “one of the finest books ever written on nature and landscape in Britain,” and has inspired him to retrace Nan Shepherd’s footsteps across the hills she loved. He describes the book as a love letter to the Cairngorms, which challenged his preconceptions about nature writing, eschewing the normal mountaineering literature’s focus on the summit in favour of “a poetic and philosophical journey into the mountain.”

Filming ‘The Living Mountain: A Cairngorms Journey’

We’ll see how Macfarlane treats his subject (while revelling in the scenery if nothing else!) but the important thing to remember about Nan Shepherd is that, besides having a philosophical and poetical turn of mind, she was also very firmly grounded in the realities of her mountains. She was no fey dilettante; she had walked the Cairngorms since childhood, in every season and every weather, day and night. In temperatures well below freezing she had not only observed the different colours, textures and clarities of ice, but had actually sat and watched burns in the process of freezing. She had listened to “gales crash into the Garbh Choire with the boom of angry seas,” and heard the air “shattering itself upon rock”. So when she appears to wax lyrical she’s not just being poetic for the sake of it, she’s describing with forensic accuracy and intimate understanding what is there for all to see and experience. Where Seton Gordon split his book into chapters each devoted to a different mountain,  Shepherd’s view of the Cairngorms begins by blurring the geographical distinctions and looking at the range as a whole – the plateau, the recesses – and talking about ‘water’ rather than specific burns or rivers, and about ‘air and light’ and ‘frost and snow’. It’s a different and, even after all these years, still refreshing way of looking at these mountains that expresses a deep love and understanding of them in a way no topographical study really can. It should be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand these hills which lack the jagged summits that make so many western ranges so immediately dramatic and attractive, yet which maintain such a hold on the heart and imagination. Tuesday’s programme will bring the story of Nan Shepherd and her relatively obscure  work to a new audience, and hopes along the way to offer a moving and memorable tour of the Cairngorm mountains, seen afresh through the passion and poetry of her writing. Set some time aside and watch it at 10pm on Tuesday, 2^nd December, or watch it online here after that date: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04tqk1n All photographs courtesy of Michael Pappas, BBC

Some of the ringed trees visible from the track near Derry Lodge. Photo by John Watson

A few folk have been curious about the ring-barking of trees in the forestry plantation just east of Derry Lodge.

I did ask one of the estate ecologists if he fancied writing a guest post to explain it but haven’t heard back, so you’ll have to settle here for a layman’s account, based on a chat with one of the rangers.

The ringing of the trees – removal of the bark in a strip right round the trunk of the tree – does, as you might have guessed, kill the tree, and has been carried out quite extensively in this plantation.

This is done to thin out the densely packed plantation and create more natural-looking woodland, and to create dead wood as a resource for insects and birds.

The plantation where the ringed trees can be seen, in the unfenced section of the plantation circled on the map.

Just walking by along the Derry track, it’s plain that a whole group of trees near the south-east corner have been ringed, and I wondered about this concentration of activity rather than spreading it out evenly. (There are other trees ringed further into the woods, but all in clumps similar to what can be seen from the track.)

The reason is twofold. The estate has selected certain strong trees and ringed all those around them, to give them room to grow properly. Many people don’t realise that the beautiful, gnarled old Caledonian Pines which spread out in a dense, bushy crown, are exactly the same as the pines which grow straight and narrow in plantations; they’ve just had the room to spread. And that’s the intention by clumping the trees selected for ringing: to make a clearing around a strong specimen and give it room to grow as it should.

The other reason is that experiments have been done elsewhere, comparing forests where the ringing has been spread evenly throughout the wood and those where it has been clumped. The results have shown clearly that where there are groups of dead trees there has been much greater success in attracting birds such as woodpeckers and others which rely on dead wood for nesting or for food.

This explanation underlines the importance of campers and bothy users abiding by estate strictures about fires. Two wildfires this summer, one in the Luibeg and one in the Quoich, were both started by campfires – and the strong suspicion is that these were campfires which the people who lit them had thought were properly extinguished. It’s a fact appreciated by too few people that peaty ground will, itself, start smouldering under a fire and may do so for days before bursting into life, even though the fire which initiated the smouldering was otherwise completely doused.

But the danger of wildfire aside, the dead wood which is used for a campfire may be ‘dead’ in one sense, but is a valuable source of food for insects and, ultimately, birds and other wildlife. There’s no doubt a campfire has its own charm and romance but, especially in the Derry Lodge area, the arguments against campfires are overpowering.

Bothy-users too, should carry in coal rather than scour the area for deadwood, whether lying on the ground or still standing. We’ve all burnt wood in the past, and those who remember Bob Scott’s Mark II, built on the edge of a newly felled plantation, will remember weekends of blazing fires where wood could be collected almost at the door.

But in view of the efforts the estate is making to improve the health of this whole area, my feeling is that we all have a duty to give them a bit of a hand and lay off the deadwood. Be worth it to see woodpeckers up at the Derry.

The Mountain – Cairngorm under snow

This blog tends to concentrate on the more genteel parts of the Cairngorms, but a new BBC Scotland series perhaps merits a quick visit to the fleshpots of Cairngorm.

The Mountain is a six-part documentary series about the Cairngorm ski resort and the people who make it run, following the course of a winter season.

It kicks off on Monday, 12^th January, with an episode about the Ski Patrol, working to get the slopes open as early as possible.

Working out of the mountain’s base station, Colin Matthew is responsible for a team of 40 workers. He says: “Skiers, they’ve got the bug now, it’s winter, they want to get skiing and boarding so we’ll do what we can. I think if you’re from this area the snow is just part of your life, and the mountain’s part of your life really.”

Among the preparations is a newly introduced system of ‘banking’ snow to help build lasting depth on the ski runs.

The programmes are all fairly short – just half an hour – but should be irresistible for the scenery alone. Coire Cas may be full of the mechanics of skiing, but it still boasts peerless views round about.

The Mountain shows from 7.30 to 8 pm and the link which follows has more details about the series along with the necessary links to watch episodes on iPlayer after broadcast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04ynmbd

Mar Lodge blog

While I’m on the subject of the Cairngorms and the media, it’s about time I mentioned the Mar Lodge Estate blog. Iwas particularly glad to read today’s post (January 8) from volunteer ranger Duncan McNeill, which mentioned almost in the passing the presence of otters on the estate. A couple of times I’ve seen what I thought could be otter spraint, but was never very sure, so it’s nice to learn that I was probably right.

The blog is written by different staff members and volunteers and covers a wide range of subjects but is always worth a look, so I’ve added it on the blogroll at the side of the page.

The following notice has appeared on the Cairngorms National Park website. This is all the info I have at the moment but if I hear any more I’ll add it in. Shouldn’t think there’ll be too many people up there in this weather anyway!

As of 15th January, road is still closed by the downed trees.

Mar Lodge estate

Update: 09/01/15

TEMPORARY  ROAD  CLOSURE  AT  LINN OF DEE

The gale force winds experienced over the Cairngorms between 8th/9th January have brought down a number of large trees adjacent to the Linn of Dee.  As a result, for the safety of visitors, the road at the Linn of Dee bridge has been temporarily closed. This means there is currently no access for visitors to Linn of Dee, Linn of Dee car park or beyond to Linn of Quoich.

Estate staff will rectify the situation as soon as possible, but with more high winds forecast for the weekend, it is currently unsafe to undertake tree work.  We will be hoping to re-open the road sometime on Monday, 12th January

Link to Cairngorms National Park website is here – http://cairngorms.co.uk/visit/outdoor-access-issues

Update 10th January

Mar Lodge Estate have confirmed via Facebook that the trees on the road will be cleared as soon as weather permits. In the meantime access to the Linn of Dee car park is still possible by crossing at the white metal bridge before Inverey. However the west road, which used to be the standard road route to Mar Lodge from the Linn, is now closed and access to the Linn of Dee-Linn of Quoich road is via the back of the stable block, which I seem to recall as being bumpy and muddy in places, especially the brae up to join the road. So ca’ canny if you can’t wait for the main road to be opened.

This winter, as in a number of winters before, I’ve toyed with the idea of getting skis again. Not to go back to the crowded slopes of Glenshee and Cairngorm which I went to as a teenager, way back in the ‘70s, but to take to the wide open spaces between. The ideal of ski mountaineering is a siren call.

And then auld mannie pragmatism kicks in. Ski mountaineering – especially for someone who hasn’t worn a pair of skis for over 30 years – is something better done in company, and I don’t know many people who both ski and are absessed by the Cairngorms. And, of course, if I spent all that money on the skis and boots etc we’d get a run of snowless winters.

So now is probably a good time to shame myself by re-reading Ashie Brebner’s excellent article about skiing in Scotland in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, when the gear was rubbish and the skiers learned by reading a book and falling over a lot

The article was originally written for the MCofS magazine Scottish Mountaineer, but Ashie has given permission for the article to be republished on the blog. It’s a longer post than is normal here, but worth every word, not just for the information about skiing all those years ago, nor just for the light it throws on the building of the famed secret howff, but for the sheer joy and enthusiasm that shines through from start to finish.

So without further ado… read on.

From left: Charlie Smith, Jim Robertson and (turning) Doug Mollison, Ashie’s fellow howff-builders

On ski in the Cairngorms

By Ashie Brebner

Skiing in Scotland in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s was rather different to what we know today. The Scandinavians had been skiing in some form for more than 1000 years, while the Alpine countries had been fast catching up since the 1920s. However, in Scotland only the middle classes could afford the pleasure and luxury of skiing and, since there was no form of uplift in this country, they travelled abroad.

This all began to change after the Second World War. Large quantities of equipment produced in preparation for winter warfare now came onto the open market, the chief buyer in bulk being Millet’s stores. It was now possible for the working class to buy an excellent rubber-lined frame rucksack for about 2/6d (12 ½ p), an ice axe of variable quality for about the same and a pair of skis for about £2.10s (£2.50). Of course, as an apprentice mechanic, I was earning something like £1.8.6 a week (£1.42 ½ ), so it was, in effect, two weeks’ wages. Nevertheless, skiing was within reach.

A few of the young lads in Aberdeen who were attracted to the hills saw the possibilities and, like many others, I bought my first pair of ex-army skis in readiness for the ‘49/50 season. We soon discovered they were very basic. At that time the correct length of ski for your height was for the upright ski to reach the palm of your hand held vertically above your head. Made from one piece of rather inferior wood, they had no steel edges and had a simple toe plate onto which was hooked a leather binding which slipped around the heel of the boot. The result was the heel was allowed to move up and down as in walking in cross country but useless for any kind of turn. The boot would make the turning movement, slip off the edge of the ski and the ski would continue its forward straight line. We quickly discovered a step turn was the only way to change direction.

Since the quality of the wood was very poor, we had problems with the tip either breaking or simply flattening out over a period of time until there was very little upturn. Every so often we would spend an evening during the week in which the tips were dipped in a bucket of boiling water. We would then jam them in a door which a second man would hold securely while you slowly pulled the ski round to restore a deeply rounded tip. And, yes, we know now that it should have been steamed but we had neither the knowledge nor the time to make a steamer. With this heavy-handed treatment, in heavy, wet snow the tip would break eventually under pressure. Despite these drawbacks, we were off.

Ashie Brebner on a sunny day on the plateau

Kandahar bindings came in possibly the second season and were a vast improvement. These consisted of a flexible steel cable with a large wound spring at the heel. You could tension these with a clip in front of the toe plate and the heel was held tight by the cable which was clipped to the side of the ski for downhill and was unhooked to allow the heel to rise for climbing and cross country. With this development we were able to move on to the more advanced turns.

There was no-one to teach us so it all had to be done by the book description and illustration. The perfect nursery slopes for us were in Glen Ey. There was an excellent bothy there named Achelie (We always pronounced it Acheeree. It is long since a ruin.), and in good snow cover it provided the perfect base with good, gentle slopes close by.

Auchelie in Glen Ey, 1951

That early Hogmanay saw five of us – Jim Robertson, Charlie Smith, Doug Mollison, Johnny Vigroe and myself – sharing a very large Austin taxi in Braemar, into which we piled all the rucksacks and skis and being transported up a very dodgy Linn o’ Dee road which was under deep snow to Inverey where we immediately donned our skis, still without steel edges but with the new Kandahar bindings in the cross country position for the three-mile trek up to the bothy. It was a beautiful moonlight night and the recent blizzard had obliterated all evidence of the track so we were choosing our own line. We each had the mandatory bottle of whisky in our rucksacks so we were moving fairly carefully but, even so, the moonlight slopes were difficult to read and Charlie Smith went down with a great clatter. We all laughed, of course, but then he said: “There’s something wet running down my leg. Oh no, I hope it’s blood.” It wasn’t. A precious bottle had been lost.

At that time most people worked on Christmas Day but had three working days’ holiday at the New Year, so we had time to concentrate on getting the stem turns and stem christies right by watching each other and deciding where and when the weight should be at a particular place on the turn. The result was that each developed a unique style which the rest of us could identify from miles away for years to come.

By the third day we had developed a confidence which was probably beyond our actual capabilities and decided we were ready for our first ski mountaineering trip. The plan was to climb Creag an Lochain to the south of Achelie and follow the ridge to Carn Creagach. Both hills were just under 3000ft which we thought we could cope with and leave us with a nice downhill run to Altanour, which was even then a broken down bothy at the head of Glen Ey. We would then return to our base along the floor of the glen.

We hadn’t reckoned on the weather changing. This was in the days before transistors made it possible to carry a small radio for forecasts. We just had to take whatever came along. And come along it certainly did. By the time we had reached the top of Creag an Lochain, the wind was screaming from the north-east and then the snow hit us almost as a solid wall. There have only been a handful of times in my lifetime in the hills when I have experienced a blizzard of this magnitude. Any communication between us was impossible because of flapping hoods and the howling wind. Soon it became very difficult to remain in visual contact with the others and we just plodded along in our own little world. Eventually, just ahead of us, we could make out something of a greenish-blue colour. A few more steps and we all came to a halt on the edge of an icefield which sloped at an alarming angle down to our right. Though we couldn’t communicate, we individually realized the wind had pushed us off the crest of the ridge and onto the headwall of the burn which comes off Carn Creagach and which earlier freeze and thaw conditions had converted to solid ice. This was beyond our skiing experience. The question was: how do we cross it? We still did not have the steel edges so were unsure whether we could get a grip with our by now slightly rounded edges. Do we attempt to cross it on ski, take our skis off, or perhaps turn into the wind and driving snow to regain the ridge? This last alternative, though practical, was not appealing. We each stood there deliberating, using our sticks to brace ourselves against the wind which threatened to drive us onto the ice. Doug Mollison made a decision. He bent down, took off his skis, slung them over his shoulder and edged onto the ice. Almost immediately the wind caught him, spun him round and he was off at high speed down the steep gully and out of our sight. We each stood there in silence, our slowing brains taking in the situation. We knew he would not come to real harm. There were no outcrops of any kind. He would have to find his own way back.

We now knew not to take our skis off and that we had to regain the ridge, so we backed away from the ice and reluctantly turned into the wind and snow to climb over to the right side of the hill. By one of those freaks of nature the driving snow parted momentarily as we came over the crest and we could see directly below us the trees of Altanour. Without hesitation we all pointed our skis downhill as the weather closed in again. This led to another new experience for us. We had lost contact with each other as we had each chosen our own line and were alone in a total whiteout with no point of reference. The result was the feeling at one point that you were progressing at a moderate speed then you would hit something that threw you off balance and you would pitch into the snow and only then realise you had been going quite fast. At other times you felt you were racing down, get scared and fall, and realise you had hardly been moving. Finally, and thankfully, we arrived at Altanour, where conditions were much more moderate and we were able to discuss the situation. We were all concerned we had left Doug to fend for himself, so we got back to Achelie as fast as we possibly could, only to find Doug toasting himself at the fire. He had slid all the way down the gully, losing his skis on the way, and out of the worst of the weather. He deduced he was in the Connie Burn, so it was quick and easy for him to get back home from there, though he spent the next weekend searching for and finding his skis.

Ashie Brebner (left) and Johnny Vigroe in the woods at Altanour after the blizzard

So ended the first lesson. We had learned how to control the skis but still had a lot to learn about reading the weather in winter, a vital factor which would only come by experience. In mitigation, our summer activities meant we had a reasonable knowledge of the terrain and we resolved to explore much further afield during the summer so that we had an inbuilt knowledge of the Eastern Cairngorms which we could fall back on in winter.

Time, distance and transport were major constraints in those days. Most of us worked on a Saturday morning, we had to use public transport and the winter days were short. So we would normally arrive in Braemar about 6.30pm on the Saturday night and if there were enough of us and we could afford it, we took the taxi to the Derry Gate. From there it was a four-mile walk or ski to Derry Lodge and Luibeg, where Bob Scott, the keeper, would let us use his bothy. The next day would be spent getting onto the snow, weather permitting, then the reluctant trudge back to Braemar to catch the 7pm bus to Aberdeen.

One day from that period stands out. It was early spring and must have been one of those rare occasions when we were given the key for the Derry Gate at a cost of 2/6. This allowed us to take the taxi right up to Derry Lodge and for it to pick us up again the following day in just enough time to get back to Braemar for the bus. The Sunday turned out to be one of those days one dreams of but seldom gets in Scotland. Cloudless blue sky, no wind and excellent snow cover on the high tops.

The snowline was about 2000ft so we carried the skis all the way up the Lui Burn and donned them on the Sron Riach. The aim was to take in Ben MacDui and see how the time went from there. So we contoured up the hill, the snow conditions getting better and better, and we arrived on the summit in remarkably good time. There was not a breath of wind and visibility was crystal clear. We debated our next move and someone suggested going across to look into the Cairn Lochain corries. That seemed a great idea so we pushed on across the plateau. Only other mountain skiers will appreciate the tremendous pleasure of gliding along effortlessly on a high top in perfect conditions with good companions, each taking turn to break the trail but making their own individual line on the downhill stretches. In no time we were peering into Corrie Lochain and had to consider our route back. The natural line was to skirt the Feith Bhuidh slabs at the head of Loch Avon, then down to the frozen Loch Etchachan. We were reluctant to leave the snow by going down through Corrie Etchachan so we contoured around the side of Derry Cairngorm and on to the Carn Crom ridge and finally ran out of snow halfway down Carn Crom. There was just enough time to collect our gear at Luibeg and meet the taxi at Derry Lodge. One of many memorable days.

Charlie Smith in warm weather gear

Glen Slugain and Beinn a Bhuird had always been a favoured area for us in summer. We would camp in the Fairy Glen at the head of Slugain and climb in the corries of the Beinn, go on to Ben Avon or wander down the Quoich. We had long noticed that the shallow corrie to the south of Coire na Ciche held good snow long after it had gone elsewhere. The difficulty was in carrying skis and winter camping equipment to the head of the glen – quite apart from the discomfort of winter camping. This just did not appeal. During the summer of 1952 we deliberated this problem and Jim Robertson, a stone mason with building experience, came up with a possible solution. What we would do was build a permanent base which would be so well hidden that the estate would not find it and pull it down. This would make a good base for summer and winter activities. So the idea of the Howff was born.

The Secret Howff, still going strong

We started building in the autumn of 1952 and completed it in spring 1953 and it was probably the best thing we ever did. I am delighted to say that 60 years on it is still being used by climbers and is now in even better shape than ever. Succeeding generations have added improvements which have increased its comfort and it looks like it will shelter many more generations.

From this base we could explore the Beinn on ski. I think the earliest we skied there was the third week in October, though, of course, it didn’t last and had thawed by the following weekend. Almost invariably we ended the skiing season there on the third week in April, for this was the Aberdeen Spring Holiday. What we had discovered on our various ski tours across the summit plateau was a wide, curving gully (Altan na Beinne) which left the top behind A’ Chioch and swept south and down at just the right angle to finish in the Dubh Ghleann. It was the perfect end to a good day’s skiing but a longer trek back to the howff.

Jim Robertson, showing how it’s done with no poles

We considered this and came up with a solution. Every spring holiday we would take a taxi to the Derry Gate, walk about a mile beyond the Black Bridge and then cut through Clais Fhearnaig and into the Dubh Ghleann to camp. We each carried several bottles of beer (no cans then) which we resisted drinking and buried in the snow wherever the Altan na Beinne run ended that particular year.

Ashie Brebner (front) and the others ski touring somewhere near the Howff

Then the next few days we would climb to the summit, explore the corries and take the last run of the day down the curving gully and plunge our hand into the snow at the end to extract an ice-cold beer. That seemed to us to be the ultimate in luxury.

Inevitably, as the years went on, girlfriends joined us and we discovered they were every bit as capable of crossing a mountain on skis as we were.

I look at ski equipment now with envy. There are remarkable developments in skiing and sometimes I wish I were starting all over again. But we are all of our time. You can go up and down a crowded piste all day and be happy but there is nothing like having a whole mountain to yourself where you are choosing your own line and working out how to use the hill for the maximum enjoyment. There is a new season coming soon and there will be miles of empty, virgin snow on the high tops once again. Get out there and make the most of it.

Norma Brebner heading down the upper slopes of Beinn a Bhuird, with a panorama of Cairngorm peaks in the background

Ashie Brebner is pictured skiing out of the lower part of the Black Spout, just before falling and almost starting an avalanche.

Ashie Brebner is best known as one of the people who built the Slugain Howff in the Cairngorms – the fabled ‘Secret Howff’ of many a hill quest.
However he was also almost certainly the first person to ski down the Black Spout on Lochnagar, using equipment that would nowadays be regarded as hopelessly inadequate for the job.
Once more this tale first appeared in the Mountaineering Council of Scotland members’ magazine Scottish Mountaineer, and is reprinted here with Ashie’s permission.
As he recounted in the previous post, Ashie started skiing in 1949, learning from a book and trial and error with his companions. Possibly with no idea of what his limitations should be, he progressed quickly and within just a few years he felt up for a feat which most skiers would regard daunting even today.
“When you are young you think you are immortal,” he said when recalling the event.
The Black Spout is the major gully in the northern coire of Lochnagar, an easy scramble in summer and a Grade I snow climb in winter. Recent years have seen a number of ski descents, including a couple by Scott Muir which have been posted on YouTube.
Until 1954, however, no-one had attempted it.
“It was spring,” Ashie recalled, “And there was still a cornice at the head of the Black Spout. It was easier to carry the skis into the corrie and climb up from the bottom, so I left Stan Gordon there in case of accident and climbed up. The snow was quite sugary and when I got to the cornice there were two lads trying to get through it. They were very surprised to see me with skis as they were both roped up.
“I got the skis on immediately under the cornice and set off. Just like in the video [Scott Muir’s], you don’t get much time before the wall of rock on each side looms up so you have to turn very fast. The style was quite different then: I was using stem christies and throwing out the shoulder with the weight on the turning ski. The sugary snow meant I side-slipped quite a lot on each turn and it was very hard on the legs. The pressure on my legs was tremendous and I had to stop at one point to ease the muscles and have time to look ahead. You are so busy turning before you hit the rock that you don’t have time to look down and ahead.
“As I came out the broader end of the Spout, I fell on a turn and the angle was so steep that the whole slope started moving with me. Stan Gordon thought I was about to start an avalanche and got out of the way fast. Luckily, I managed to roll over, get on my feet and ski off the moving slope.”
There was no fanfare about Ashie’s descent though.
“Only a few people knew about it because not many skied then and it was not the done thing to boast about something like this. Coming home on the bus Mac Smith* who I respected and was a great climber, much older than me, simply said: ‘I hear you skied down the Black Spout today.’ I said, ‘Yes’ and the subject was never mentioned again.”
(Incidentally, Ashie was reticent about his achievement even when I asked him about it, having been told of it by George Adam, a fellow climber from the ’50s and now still active in Australia. It was only after his son also persuaded him that he agreed to write some of it down.)
Just to give you an impression of what the descent of the Black Spout might have been like, here’s a clip of Scott Muir and friends doing the same gully in 2011, with modern gear and helmets.
*Mac Smith was a noted Cairngorm climber with a number of first ascents to his credit during the 1950s and ‘60s, and was author of the first climbing guide to the area.

Ashie after completing his descent, looking back at the way he has come.

I’ve been sitting on some of these photos for a while now, mostly sent in by George Adams and Colin Campbell, always waiting for the context to use them.

Then one of the comments after Ashie Brebner’s skiing article remarked that there can be few photos of Altanour Lodge still in circulation – and I got all guilty. Sure, there are a good new old photos in Ian Murray’s excellent books, but here I am sitting with some on my laptop.

So. No narrative to link them all together: just a collection of old photos of old bothies and buildings which were once close enough to intact to spend a night in.

Altanour Lodge in 1952

Altanour in 2014

This is the Altanour Lodge, up at the head of Glen Ey, fleetingly mentioned in Ashie’s story as being a broken down even back in 1951. The upper picture, from George Adams, shows it a year later, still being used as a bothy but plainly in sad need of repair. The lower photo I took myself last year, showing how little remains in this remote corner of the Cairngorms.

Auchelie in Glen Ey, 1951

This photo, again from George, shows Auchelie, lower down Glen Ey, later in the same year of which Ashie wrote. Again, there is very little remaining today.

Auchelie in 2014 – just an outline of stones.

Across the hills, follow Glen Geldie up to the Bynack Burn where it comes down out of the hills, and you find more ruins – Bynack Lodge.

Bynack Lodge in 2014

Here it is as it was in 1952, in a photo From George Adams.

Bynack Lodge in 1952

And in some later shots by Colin Campbell.

Bynack Lodge in 1962 – it suffered a serious fire two years later

Bynack Lodge in 1989

Further through into Glen Tilt, there’s a bothy – if you could call it that – which I’d never heard of. George Adams referred to it simply as a shepherd’s hut when he was there in 1952.

Shepherd’s Hut, Glen Tilt

Colin Campbell, on the other hand, referred to it as Black Bothy when he was there 12 years later.

Black Bothy in Glen Tilt, 1964

Heading back north, Colin has another photo – lower Geldie Lodge.

Lower Geldie Lodge in 1963, with a rickety-looking bridge

And a couple of Ruighe Aiteachain – the Feshie Bothy.

At the door of Ruigh Aiteachan, Glen Feshie.

Feshie Bothy again, probably in the early ’60s

Finally, an old newspaper cutting from the start of the ’60s, just before George ‘Dod’ Adams emigrated to Canada (he subsequently moved to Australia) – a time when the papers would publish photos from under the Shelter Stone and in the bothies. Luibeg Bothy is, of course, the original Bob Scott’s Bothy. Rubbish quality reproduction by the papers, but good taste.

The scene of crime. The Hutchison Memorial Hut

I’ve railed before in this blog about folk who leave litter and unwanted gear in bothies, and all the ‘proper’ hill folk have nodded in agreement. Isn’t it terrible.

It is. But there’s worse.

And it’s been done by ‘proper’ hill folk.

Two MBA volunteers went in to the Hutchison Hut last week, to fix a faulty door handle and latch and stop the door from swinging open in the wind, letting snow into the bothy and damaging the door and hinges.

It was the sort of job that had to be done sooner rather than later, and volunteers have to fit in their trips to bothies with work and other commitments, so the choice of when to go was limited, and it turned out they found themselves heading up Glen Derry in a major thaw.

Deep snow, which had never properly consolidated, softened as the temperature rose and they found themselves sinking deep, falling into holes and streams as the crust gave way under their feet. It took five hours to get from Bob Scott’s up to the Hutchison.

When they got there, they replaced the broken handle. It wasn’t a big job – maybe half an hour or so to complete – but doing it involved going up to Bob Scott’s one afternoon, walking into the Hutchie the next day and doing the job, and walking out again the following day.

And they – or other volunteers – will have to do it all over again. Because when they were out there they found the glass in the door of the stove was broken. So that means another journey once a new pane of special glass has been bought. Sure, it was probably an accident – or carelessness – but if whoever did it had let the MBA know, then both jobs could have been done on one visit. It’s easy to make a bothy report. Just go to this page http://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/makebothyreport.asp and fill in the form online. It means that damage can be fixed sooner, and with less time commitment from volunteers.
So if you see damage in a bothy, or if you cause damage yourself – accidents do happen – please take five minutes to let the MBA know about it.

That’s an important point. But it’s not why I started writing this post. That was because of a worse sin.

Theft.

One of the other discoveries made when the two volunteers went out to the Hutchison Hut was that a small storage compartment at the hut, screwed shut, had been broken into and the contents stolen: some food, drink and fuel, both for stove and for cooking.

Sometime over the last few weeks someone who stayed at the hut has thought themselves pretty damned clever: sussing out that something was hidden there and managing to get it. Wizard wheeze? Good laugh? Celebration of the anarchism of rough, tough mountaineering ethos?

It was none of those. It was theft, pure and simple; vandalism and theft.

It wasn’t enough for that person to make use of a building created and maintained with the money and labour of others: he (or she, I suppose) had to steal from the very people who have ensured his comfort. Those fire logs, that coal, the tins, were all bought with someone’s hard-earned money, and carried in on their backs to make life a wee bit easier for volunteers heading out there for maintenance. It was even worse: most of the stuff that was stolen was bought and carried in by the bothy’s maintenance organiser not even for his own use but for the use of any of the volunteers carrying out work there.

But now it’s been stolen. By someone who may call himself a walker or climber or mountaineer, but who is, in fact, a thief.

Some may argue that bothies are common property and anything left there is fair game. Sorry, but that’s both legally and morally wrong. A bothy is owned by the estate on which it stands and leased to the organisation which looks after it. It is not common property and not an ‘anything goes’ zone. At the Hutchison Hut the MBA has accepted responsibility for maintaining the building and expects that other people – for whose benefit it is maintained – treat it with respect and don’t damage it – or steal from it.

Quite apart from MBA or volunteers’ property, equipment is routinely left in bothies while walkers and climbers are out on the hill.

Theft from a bothy is no joke: it strikes at the very heart of the bothy system, which relies entirely upon honesty. Bothies are traditionally bastions of liberality, with all sorts of behaviours tolerated and even celebrated, but there are surely limits. And a thief in a bothy is a contemptible creature with no honour who deserves to be hounded out. There is no excuse.

Ready for action. A simple job made ‘extreme’ by remoteness and weather

Just back from a wee trip to the Hutchison Memorial Hut with Neil Findlay for some ‘extreme bothy maintenance’.

Neil and Walt had gone out a couple of weekend back to fix the door handle, only to find once they got there that the glass on the stove door had been broken. There was nothing they could do there and then – the walk in through soft snow had taken almost five hours, so there was no way they could just ‘nip back to the shop’ for a replacement glass.

The broken stove glass meant smoke billowed into the room when it was windy.

But once home, Neil got a new piece of glass ordered and this weekend we arranged to meet at Bob Scott’s Bothy on Friday and head in to the Hutchie on Saturday to put the glass into place. A good decision was to stay there on the Saturday night.

We had Scottie’s to ourselves on Friday night, and it was empty on Saturday night too, which was a big change from the previous weekend when some friends found themselves amid a horde of 31 people! Very unusual to get so many, but wasn’t helped by a group of 13 cyclists who came up, clearly regarding themselves as exempt from the exhortation not to go to bothies in groups of more than six!

Anyway, after a quiet Friday night Neil and I set off up Glen Derry on an unseasonably warm morning. The Lui was high beside the bothy and flooding the path in places, bearing out the forecast of a massive thaw.

We got wet feet just reaching the tree bridge just above Derry Lodge and found much of the path up the west side of the river to be doubling as a stream.

Is it a path or a burn? Neil Findlay and Alfie on the way up lower Glen Derry

Knowing that the Glas Allt Mor was almost certain to be impassable, when we reached the Derry Dam we stuck to the west bank. There’s no path there (although a few fragments of deer track) and it can be pretty rough underfoot – boggy too with the massive quantities of melt-water saturating the ground – but it meant that we were sure of reaching the bothy. The only hiccup was when we nearly lost wee Alfie (Neil’s border terrier) when he went through a snow bridge into a fast flowing stream and had to be hauled out as he tried to hang onto the edge of snow with his claws.

Heading up the trackless side of Glen Derry

Treading gingerly across thawing snow. There was a stream somewhere under here and we weren’t sure how thick the snow was.

However we got to the bothy in reasonable weather, with the forecast winds gaining in strength but not becoming troublesome until afternoon once we were in the Hutchie, about three hours after leaving Bob Scott’s.

The new stove glass and some of the tools. Note the two sets of Allen keys – we’d both, unknown to each other, bought a new set to be sure we had the right size. In the event the bolts wouldn’t turn and we had to work a way around it.

Apart from the inevitable fiddling and faffing, the repair to the stove didn’t take long, but we were glad to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting inside in front of the now usable stove, for we had plenty coal with us and the weather outside was appalling, with gale-force winds and sleety snow. Even going out to the burn for water was an ordeal.

It’s a cosy place with the stove on, though.

The new glass fitted – and still so clean you can hardly see it’s there. A great stove when it’s working though.

Sunday dawned fair, with a bit of fresh snow on the ground and even a bit of sunshine showing earlier on. A bit cooler, too, so we took the chance and decided to go with the path and gamble on being able to cross the Glas Allt Mor.

Farewell to the Hutchie Hut on Sunday morning. Never get tired of this setting.

Before we got out of the coire, though, there was a wee bit of excitement. There was a rumbling and banging noise and we looked up to see a massive rockfall from the nose where Derry Cairngorm turns the corner into Coire Etchachan. A piece of rock that must have been about the size of a Mini came crashing and tumbling all the way down to the wee pointed knoll where you can get a phone signal, accompanied by a river of smaller rocks and leaving a trail of rock dust hanging in the air. Most impressive – just a pity there wasn’t time to get the camera out.

The Glas Allt Mor did indeed prove fordable – just – although Neil got wet when a large boulder rolled under him and he ended up wading rather than boulder hopping.

That was the last of the excitement though, and we even managed to stay dry crossing the floodwater at either end of the tree bridge when we got back to Derry. Although the sleety rain did return in a heavy shower just ten minutes from the cars. Typical!

A successful trip and an enjoyable bothy weekend. But please do take care with the stove door. The logistics of bothy maintenance are such that the last two repairs there – the broken door handle and the broken glass in the stove – took a weekend each, despite the actual work for each taking about half an hour or less.

So ca’ canny up there.

Last August I let rip at groups taking young people into the hills. I love it that there are people who care enough to encourage youngsters into the mountains but, like so many others involved in bothy maintenance, I’d cleaned out one too many load of rubbish and abandoned kit clearly left by young folk, and seen just too many pieces of graffiti including the initials ‘DofE’.

Close-up of some of the rubbish left in Corrour Bothy

So on the back of an exceptionally large load of rubbish at Corrour, much of it clearly from young people, I challenged youth group leaders to clean up their act – literally. There was a lot of the predictable “oh no, not MY young people” but some did come forward, notably Alex Cumming, Assistant Director of DofE Scotland, and Steve McQueen of the Perth & Kinross DofE Association, both with a very positive attitude. The result was several meetings and exchanges of views, with the DofE organisation accepting that, though they are not the only youth organisation using the hills, youngsters in the scheme have been part of the problem.

There was some initial reluctance by some to accept responsibility, but that ended with the arrival of a whole set of photographs taken by an outdoor instructor at the Fords of Avon Refuge, showing numerous examples of graffiti obligingly signed by DofE groups.

It was accepted that, although youngsters on DofE expeditions aren’t meant to use bothies, sometimes they do – even if it’s just to cook in bad weather or pop in and have a look. But in the past not all leaders have told the kids about bothies or the sort of behaviour that should be expected. It’s perhaps understandable that kids, coming upon an empty building, and knowing no better, treat it as they would an abandoned ruin. So over the early part of the winter the DofE and Mountain Bothies Association have worked together to prepare some very simple and basic educational material so that youngsters – and some of the leaders – can learn about bothies; learn about their value, how they are looked after, and – above all – their vulnerability to misuse.

The first page of the DofE bothies leaflet

The material was launched at Expedition Festival 2015, when new DofE leaders and volunteers ‘learn the ropes’ before the new expedition season, and is now available on the Expedition Downloads section of the DofE website as a resource for youngsters and leaders. Bothies 101 sheet gives the basics of how to use a bothy responsibly, and the Bothy session plan gives extra information which can be used in expedition training.

This doesn’t mean DofE expeditions will now start using bothies to stay in. Their emphasis on camping and self reliance remains unchanged. It does mean they are taking a pragmatic approach that recognises youngsters will one way or another come into contact with bothies and making sure that, when they do, they don’t arrive in ignorance.

The effectiveness of all this will only be seen over the coming years, but there are other positive developments, not least of which was the presentation of a cheque for £584 to the MBA after the Expedition Festival 2015.

Alex Cumming, Assistant Director, DofE Scotland, presents the cheque to Neil Stewart of the MBA

The DofE Perth & Kinross Association has also expressed an interest in possibly even getting youngsters involved in simple bothy maintenance projects. That will depend on a lot of factors, including the dreaded ‘healthandsafety’ word, but is a welcome explicit statement of attitudes which were maybe held by most before but perhaps not filtered through to the kids.

The MBA has also received a frank and wholehearted apology from a fee-paying school in England, some of whose pupils were amongst those who left their calling cards scrawled on the Fords of Avon Refuge walls. This was followed by contact from a group from the school who are planning an expedition through the Cairngorms this summer and, as part of the community element, plan to carry out inventories at and carry out rubbish from all the bothies they pass. Another part of their expedition is to learn about the history and role of the bothies they will pass.

Back in August I wrote: “I have in the past defended youth groups in the hills, but I am in no doubt at all that a large part of this shameful heap was left by youngsters supposed to be learning self-reliance, self respect and a sense of community and social responsibility. “Instead they have trailed their bad behaviour across a national park, displaying their ignorance of how to behave, their laziness and their disregard of other people.

“So my challenge to all these organisations which enable kids to go to the hills, is for them to teach some respect. Because whatever they’re teaching now plainly isn’t enough. They need to teach the children they direct to the hills about bothies. Maybe, as with the Duke of Edinburgh scheme expeditions, the kids are meant to be camping and not using bothies except in emergencies. But teach them that they exist; tell them why they exist, why they’re important, what their value is – and also how they exist, and how to behave in them.

“Most kids do behave well in the hills, and most of those who don’t are being anti-social through ignorance rather than badness. So let’s do something about it. There are enough adults who leave their rubbish behind – don’t let us turn a blind eye as a new generation comes along and behaves with the same lack of consideration and ignorance.”

The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme has responded to this challenge. How effective the response will be is yet to be seen, but avenues of communication have been opened up where there were none before and where approaches were once met with denial that has been replaced with an exemplary and positive attitude.

Bothies Resource Booklet cover

Of course the DofE isn’t the only organisation taking young people to the hills – there are any number of schools and youth organisations which do that. Any of them are welcome to make use of the material prepared by myself and approved by the MBA which DofE based their own documents on. It’s available for download here – Bothies resource booklet – and further queries can be addressed to me: just post a comment at the end of this article, and if you prefer it to remain private, just mark NOT FOR PUBLICATION at the start and include a return email address. (Don’t worry – nothing appears live on the site unless I hit the publish button.)

Ach, it’s all been a bit serious on here the last few posts, so here’s a wee bit of  light relief – a tale from the early years of this century when I still thought I was a climber and occasionally made it further afield than the Cairngorms. It happened on Ben Nevis, starts out sounding fairly unlikely, and gets more unbelievable as it goes on, but I swear it’s all true, and there are even witnesses.

Outside the CIC Hut in March 2003: Ronnie Strachan, Lucy Hailey (now Murdoch), myself, Colin McGregor and Gavin Gibbon. Ken Murray took the photo

I  had just finished arranging a belay and was sitting in the snow at the top of No 2 Gully on The Ben, starting to pull in the spare rope. True, the earlier sunshine had gone, replaced with a thick white mist and visibility of about ten yards, but life seemed pretty good.

That’s when he appeared.

I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and looked round to see him, clad in jeans and trainers, slithering across the snow towards me. Towards me and a cornice over a 2000 ft drop straight down to the CIC Hut.

I called out: “Watch yourself, mate: we’re near the edge.”

It made no difference: he kept skiting and sliding towards me.

“Stop there! We’re at the edge!” It seemed dreadfully rude to speak so, but if nothing else I had to think of my second below, who was seeming increasingly liable to be wiped out by a 10 metres per second per second  putative corpse.

This time the newcomer did stop and leveled an unnervingly intense gaze at me. The voice, when it came, was best Russian spy guttural: “You have seen.” Pause. “A girl.” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.

I could have shown more interest here. It was, after all, a most arresting introduction. But my mind was on other things (like a rope to my second which had finally come tight) and I was still a little unsettled.

“No,” I said, perhaps a little peevishly.

I turned back to the rope to fit it through the Sticht plate and when I looked again the apparition had gone. Not even a shadow in the mist.

So I took Gavin up and we stood a few feet back from the edge, exchanged congratulations, and started stuffing ropes and ironmongery into our sacks.

“You’ll never believe what I just saw,” said I and, of course, he didn’t, because it all seemed so unlikely.

But just as I was fighting with frozen knotwork, what appeared out of the mist but… A girl. A vision, actually. Beautiful face framed with shoulder-length frizzed hair (a la Crystal Tips & Alastair for those of a certain age). Somehow you could tell that, under that bulky puffa jacket with its collar framing her fair skin and rose red cheeks, was a slim, nay, svelte figure. However on the minus side, the hair was pure white with frost, the nose was red and dreeping, and the hands were blue-white with cold. The tight jeans and trainers didn’t seem too good an idea either.

I was pretty brain dead by this time in the day, but a light bulb flickered on inside my skull. In my best understood-even-by-foreigners voice I asked: “Could someone be looking for you?”

“Is possible.” Where the male Russian had been brutalist accusation, the girl was all honey and sexy, foreign lilt. I was in love.

“Wait there. We’ll get you down.”

In a fit of gallantry I gave her my warmest gloves while I stuffed the unknotted rope into the sack. A somewhat bemused Gavin tried to engage her in conversation as we set off down.

She was sure, she said, she would find her way down, but we were not and she didn’t argue, so we plunged on into the mist as she told us her story. They were indeed Russians, and had been up Mount Fuji when they were in Japan, so had anticipated no problems on lowly Ben Nevis. And neither there had been, unless you count getting separated and almost losing her minder over the edge of the cliff (for I had convinced myself, against all the evidence of Glasnosk and Perestroika, that she was secretly a White Russian princess and he her KGB guard).

We were still in the cloud when the worried looking Russian spy reappeared on the scene, heading back uphill towards us. His face lit up when he saw her but our hopes of offloading her and then taking a shortcut down to the Halfway Lochan were quickly dashed.

“You have found her!” he exclaimed in best KGB guttural. “I tell the others.”

And he was off again at a great rate of knots. Credit  where it’s due: he may have been dressed like a div and still skiting all over the place in the snow, but this guy really was fit.

So that’s how we ended up going much further down the tourist path than we’d intended, not saying farewell to our beautiful Russian princess until we were clear of the cloud and in sight of a whole gang of Russians looking up towards us as the chief spy gesticulated with all the physical enthusiasm only a continental can muster. We thought it was better to avoid any outburst of Slavic bear hugs and before we reached them we slunk off towards the Halfway Lochan and the waiting car in the North Face car park, remembering, at least to retrieve my gloves. Kiss from the princess would have been nice though. Maybe one of those with cute face uptilted, soft lips pouted, and one foot lifted behind her as she stretches up on tiptoe on the other… Hmmm?

Anyway. That’s not what I started to talk about. Come back up the hill a bit to the top of No 2 Gully, where I was so rudely interrupted.

Life did indeed  seem pretty good as I sat there at the top of the climb. For it could all have ended so much more badly.

For Gavin had led the second last pitch. Which might have been all well and good if only he had ever done any climbing in his life before, and if only he wasn’t afraid of heights.

The problem, you see, was that he couldn’t navigate. In fact he hadn’t even hill-climbed in winter. So there was no question of letting him out on his own. But all of us that weekend wanted to climb. He was my mate, so I felt sort of responsible; just not responsible enough to give up the prospect of what would probably be a last route of the winter.

It was only Grade II, I justified to myself. He would manage. He had borrowed axes. I gave him my helmet so he wouldn’t get his head hurt, I gave him my harness so he would be secure on the rope. It didn’t matter to me that my own head attracted every single fist-sized lump of ice knocked down by climbers above; it didn’t matter that my improvised harness not only had to be hitched up every few metres, but also deprived me of slings for protection and belays.

And there is no excuse, or perhaps forgiveness, possible for what happened as we neared the top of the gully.

With an appreciable length of the rope wound around my waist, my pitches were shorter than most people’s and eventually I found myself at rope’s end in the middle of the gully, with no belay in sight. I took a rather inadequate axe-belay in the neve and brought Gavin up. I was tired myself, and couldn’t face the faffing about necessary to change over the belay, so I pointed to a huge boulder in the middle of the gully, not even 50 feet above, and to a large crack visible from where we stood. I handed him a Friend, explained how to use it, and told him to put it in the crack – it would fit – and then clip onto it and take me up.

And up he went, his tired feet marionette-loose on his ankles, until he reached the level patch of snow I’d directed him to in front of the boulder. He took the Friend from his harness, looked at it, looked at the crack … then looked round at me for assurance.

This guy, who was so scared of heights he had never once in the climb looked back down the way he had come, turned round in his footsteps and looked down 2000 feet straight into beckoning oblivion.

From almost 50 feet away I could see his eyes pop and his whole body convulse as, for one heart-stopping instant, vertigo kicked in and balance went.

Then he turned back to the big, solid boulder, touched it, placed the Friend perfectly and secured the belay. With that action I forgave him everything – he who had done nothing but cope with my idiocy. We were going to live.

I even forgave him for shrugging his shoulders down there at the bottom of the gully when we started out. For many things can be hidden, many left untold, but there, in that shrug, my humiliation had been assured.

I’d set up the first belay, tied him into it, shown him how to feed the rope through the Sticht plate, and set off upwards. After a few feet, of course, the rope jerked taut because he wasn’t feeding it through fast enough. I shouted at him. After a few more feet I stopped for a rest and looked round to see him contentedly continuing to pay out the rope. I shouted at him. It wasn’t fair because there were a lot of people about, both on our route and within hearing range.

At the end of the first pitch I found a belay. I looked down and shouted to him to take me off.

He looked up. He gave his shrug. And he spread his hands in the universal gesture of puzzlement.

Well of course. I hadn’t explained that bit.

I’d done everything for him: checked the harness, tied on the rope, fed it through the Sticht plate and into the krab. But he didn’t know how to do anything for himself, or even know what anything was called – and it was all my fault.

And, of course, as I drew breath almost 50 metres away, there came one of those freakish moments usually encountered only when you say something really embarrassing at a party: everyone, on every climb – and they were many – fell silent.

Just as I shouted, very loud and very clear: “See the round metal thing at your waist …!” The silence, born in coincidence, became stunned, and lasted well past the end of the explanation. There could be no recovery.

Fool on The Hill indeed. It was me.

————————-

And I swear all this was absolutely true, and that the real hero of it all was Gavin Gibbon who held it all together when everything was turning to bewildering shit around him. Or maybe he didn’t know how close to the wind we were sailing and just assumed climbing was always like that. Whatever, he was afraid of heights but was still willing to give it a go – and rock climbed with us at Poll Dubh the next day too, even though the whole Saturday had been debacle. For it wasn’t just me who was a fool on the hill that March day back in 2003. That photo at the top of this post shows five people. Colin and the lovely Lucy climbed a route and went back down the hill with no fuss, but Ronnie (far left) and Ken, who took the photograph, had their own comedy of errors, which involved flat tyres, two people on the same rope climbing two different routes, a descent in the wrong direction, dancing up and down in rage on a public road, an aborted DIY rescue party and – whisper it – taxis!

But hey, that’s another story.

Glen Lui under a baking spring sun, snow disappearing fast

There may still be great quantities of snow in the hills, but last weekend was my first day of spring all the same. I’d just spent the week at my day job putting out press releases urging people to take crampons and ice axe with them when going into the mountains, and arranged interviews on radio and television for my colleagues and I to give out the same message. With several fatal accidents in the last few weeks alone, everyone was anxious to get the safety message out to the hordes of people expected to make the Easter weekend their first trip of the year into the mountains. So I had ice axe and crampons both but, in the event, never used them. Saturday was a mochy day, with few tops visible for very long, and I decided to go out to Corrour and collect some litter, only to find there was virtually none – just a half bag of cous cous someone felt the mice might like. But the effects of a cold which had been hanging around me for several weeks were making themselves felt, and long before I reached the bothy I knew I’d have struggled to get up any hill. By the time I got back to Bob Scott’s for the night I was knackered and lay down for a sleep.

A large avalanche on the east-facing slabs of Carn a Mhaim. You can see a high and crevassed crown wall at the top

Later enjoyed a fine evening with John Frae Kent and two young guys from Louisiana who had taken a couple of months to do a walking tour of Britain. Had to admire their go-for-it spirit. They’d taken some transport, but as little as possible and had even walked all the way from Glasgow to Livingstone by road before someone told them there was a canal and footpath which they could have followed all the way to Edinburgh. Their gear wasn’t particularly good, but they knew it, and knew their own limitations, so had waited three days in Braemar for a favourable forecast to walk through the Lairig Ghru to Aviemore, where they would take the bus to Inverness before tackling the Great Glen Way and West Highland Way. Lovely guys. Sunday morning was a cracker. A lot of low level snow had melted during Saturday, and it was going even faster on Sunday despite some overnight frost. Not a cloud in the sky and hardly a breath of wind: it didn’t matter that I didn’t feel much better – I had to do something on a day like this. So I set off for Derry Cairngorm – and was rewarded even before I had crossed the Derry Burn. In all the years I’ve been going up there I’d never heard one, but just past Derry Lodge I not only heard a woodpecker but saw the thing, high up near the top of one of the pines beside the Mountain Rescue Hut.

You can just make out the black and white bars of the woodpecker about halfway up the frame

Zooming in on the woodpecker

Going through the Derry Woods and starting up the Carn Crom path, the air was full of birdsong and, as I cleared the trees and crossed the first of the sun-softened snow I could clearly hear the sound of geese honking at each other as they flew so high overhead I could scarcely see them. I’d seen several groups of geese on the Saturday, heading up Glen Derry, Glen Dee and Glen Geusachan, but all the time turning back where the clouds came down over the hills. Today there was no cloud ceiling and their Path was unerringly northward. Higher still, once through the wee band of outcrops of Creag Bad an t-Seabhaig, I saw an eagle effortlessly soaring across the hillside, overflown by another skein of geese a thousand or more feet higher but still clearly audible through the still air. Looking down into Glen Luibeg I could see the tiny figures of my American friends making their heavily laden way towards Corrour, where they intended to stay another night, using the rest of the day to have a look up into the Garbh Choire. I have to say I quite envied them their first ever journey through the Luibeg Woods on such a lovely day, with so many new experiences ahead.

Somewhere down there, in perfect weather, were two young Americans discovering the Cairngorms for the first time and already making plans to return

Geese passing overhead, heading home for summer

My own energy didn’t match theirs though. The day was warm and my staying power wasn’t up to much at all; I toiled up the final slopes to the summit of Carn Crom. But oh, was it worth it. That suddenly revealed view right into snowy Coire Sputan Dearg, framed between the still white bulks of Ben McDui and Derry Cairngorm, looking over the shoulder of Sron Riach into the bowl of Braeriach’s Coire Bhrochain, round past the great gulf of the Garbh Choire to the Cairn Toul, cradling its summit coire, with only the encircling ridges clear of snow and giving definition to its elegant curves. It’s a breathtaking view at any time but perhaps best on a day like this when the snow glistens brightly against a blue sky and the air is warm around you as you stand and stare.

Looking over the ridge of Carn a Mhaim to the elegant lines of Cairn Toul – still winter up there

So I stood and stared, then sat and stared (not forgetting the gentler but lovely views down Glen Lui towards Braemar), and, after eating some lunch, decided with not too much guilt that the top of Derry Cairngorm would manage fine without my feet on it today. Instead I spied out a nice, dry bed of short, dense heather that looked temptingly comfortable and was, when I tested it, nicely out of the slight breeze that had got up while I ate. So, sun in my face, I stretched out and shut my eyes against the brightness, opening them only once over the next hour as I lay and dozed. Utter bliss! After convincing myself I really should get up before my face was entirely burnt, I was reluctant just to steam on down the path I’d come up, so dropped south from the top into Coire Craobh an Oir. There were no special secrets revealed as I traversed the full width of the coire at half height, just the pleasure of walking ground so often seen from below but so seldom trodden – and the pleasure of another sudden view, crossing a slight ridge from a coire within the coire to all at once be up close and personal with the Derry Woods, all cool shade and clearings, and the sounds and smells of spring.

Ice melting under hot sun in a curiously-shaped pocket in granite

The high tops may still require axe and crampons for a while yet, but spring, most definitely, has sprung.

Waiting to go into place – the pylons for the temporary Derry Burn footbridge

With spring making inroads and people’s summer plans getting firmed up, there’s been increasing interest these last few weeks in the state of the bridge at Derry Lodge.

The good news is that a the materials are now on-site for a temporary footbridge to be built on the site of the former  footbridge lost in the August flood. Since then people have had to wade the Derry Burn at shallows above or below the bridge site, or use a tree about 2-300 metres upstream.

Please don’t chop this wood up for your campfire! The Estate explains its plans

And an appeal has been launched to build a permanent replacement in a location which in the long term will probably do away with the boggy passage across the Derry Flats.

The temporary bridge was offered by ScotWays – the Scottish Rights of Way Society – which has also launched the appeal to raise funds for the permanent replacement, which will be in memory of Donald Bennet, a prominent member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club, founding member of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland and, at various times, Director, Chairman and Honorary President of ScotWays. He will be best known to most readers, though, as author of numerous books, including the SMC’s definitive Munro and Corbett guides. He died in 2013, aged 84.

ScotWays sees the rebuilt Derry Bridge as being a fitting tribute to their late president, sitting as it does on a right of way described in the Scottish Hill Tracks book which he edited.

I’m not sure exactly how the temporary bridge will look – the metal pylons which, presumably, will form the span, started life as a radio mast – but it is hoped it will only sit there for about a year, with funds raised for the permanent bridge in time to start work next spring. The temporary bridge, according to the estate, should be in place by the end of April.

The continuing erosion of the west bank at the current site means any crossing here will be vulnerable to further flooding damage, and the estate has already said it sees any long term solution involving a different site – although it has recognised the importance of the crossing, which is an essential link in the classic Lairig Ghru crossing of the Cairngorms, and voiced a commitment to seeking a permanent solution.

Possibilities include the site of the old bridge which stood in the ‘60s at about 039 933, providing part of the vehicle access to Luibeg Cottage. The river runs across shingle here, but the ground is flatter and any flood is likely to spread out rather than cut away at banks. Another possibility is at about 041 932, where a bridge was built on more solid banks in the ‘80s, until it was destroyed in an accident with a mechanical digger. The second option, however,  would require a second bridge back across the Lui above the junction with the Derry Burn.

Both these sites would allow the Lairig Ghru-bound path to be diverted away from its present course across the middle of the Derry Flats. That will be good news for walkers, as the old, slightly longer, track followed closer to the river and was on harder standing; it’ll also be good news for the black grouse in the area, which have a preference for lekking on the flats near to the edge of the Derry Woods, and will be less often disturbed by ‘early bird’ walkers.

Mar Lodge Estate hasn’t given any indication yet where it wants the bridge to go, but it’s one of many decisions the NTS managers are going to have to make. Last August’s flood did a lot of damage not just to the bridges (another bridge, over the Quoich, was also destroyed) but also to vehicle track and footpaths.

Mar Lodge Estate’s photo of the track up the west bank of the Quoich – totally removed by the flood

The estate has launched an appeal for funds to help address some of this work, with the most dramatic example of damage being where the Quoich changed its course and simply removed a whole section of the landy track up the glen. There was also substantial damage to the footpath up the east side of Glen Derry, with streams cutting deeply through the track in several places and, in another, burying a 15-metre section under tons of sand and gravel.

The Mar Lodge storm damage appeal can be accessed here – https://www.nts.org.uk/Donation/Desktop/Appeal/Once/Mar-lodge-storm-damage-appeal-urgent-appeal/

Donations to the Donald Bennet Memorial Appeal can be made by sending a cheque payable to ScotWays, to the office at 24 Annandale Street, Edinburgh, EH7 4AN, marking the envelope Donald Bennet Memorial Fund.

You can also pay by card via the website at http://www.scotways.com/

Great day for a work party (and picnic from the looks of things) at Allt Scheicheachan – not, you would think, ideal conditions for filming the wildlife.

When you walk in to the woods and sit with your back to a tree and don’t move for, oh, maybe half an hour or more… sometimes you still see nothing. The wildlife, as ever, runs to its own timetable. But you certainly won’t see anything by crashing about and making a din.

No?

Last weekend I was up at Allt Scheicheachan, a bothy in the hills above Blair Atholl. It was a work party and also the area meeting, so there were a good few of us there, maybe about 20 or more by the Saturday afternoon. (And, yes, most of us were in tents; the bothy had plenty room for stray travellers.)

At one point there were four of us round the back of the bothy, engaged in the none too quiet occupation of digging a drainage ditch, when John Gifford said something about a weasel. I thought at first he was talking about something else, but then the two Kennys chipped in.

“Over there,” said Kenny Freeman.

“Out of that hole in the grass,” said Kenny Ferguson.

Just a couple of yards where the Kennys stood on the edge of the ditch there was a dead bird, already half eaten. About 10 feet further away there was a small round hole in the long grass – with a weasel sticking its nose out.

For the next few minutes we watched as it snaked through the grass to a thick clump of grass, paused, then sneaked across to the carcase to pull small fragments of flesh from it.

A first attempt to get photos failed when it scurried back to its hole but, while it was out of sight I moved closed and knelt down, camera poised, and didn’t move other than to press the button to take as many photos as I could; without my glasses on I couldn’t make out what I was seeing in the preview screen so was shooting in hope.

With a point and click camera the results aren’t quite Gordon Buchanan but, considering the circumstances, are not too bad either.

And just to finish, some photos from the work party, which was productive, the meeting, at which I fell asleep in the sun, and the ceilidh afterwards, which was a magic night in the best possible company.

Chow time for weasel was just a couple of yards from where the two Kennys were howking lumps out of the ground

Even busier round the front. Norrie and Bob in boiler suits which remained surprisingly white since they’d just been up painting the roof black.

Great weather and lots of folk made it easier to hold the MBA area meeting al fresco

Ian ‘Piper’ Shand playing a tune on the pipes to mark the end of the work day. He was being filmed for possible inclusion in a BBC documentary to mark the 50th anniversary of the MBA

For anyone interested, by the way, the Saturday saw the roof being repainted, some work to seal the doorframe, and drainage ditches and drainpipes dug in to two sides of the bothy. Saturday night saw lots of songs sung (including a new, personalised version of ‘Aitken’s Morning Rolls’), tunes played and stories told – maybe a small libation too. Not sure if any more work was done on Sunday because I was up early and went off to climb Ben Ghlas and Ben Lawers, making the most of some brilliant weather.

Installing one of the roof windows during a major refurbishment of the Gelder Shiel Bothy

That ol’ Cairngorm magic has done its stuff again and another cold bothy has been given the five star treatment.

Only it’s not the usual suspects who can claim the credit this time – they (and I count myself in there) did little other than stuff their faces.

The Gelder Sheil was the bothy in question, a building which, notwithstanding the addition of wooden bunk beds many years past, did little to disguise its former life as a stable for the royal picnic cottage next door, on the rising moorland north of Lochnagar.

For many years the fact of that next-door neighbour meant any improvements were a ticklish subject to raise with the estate. There was no overriding obligation for the estate to allow the use of the bothy at all, and in the face of reluctance to allow any substantive changes, no-one liked to push their luck.

But local contacts eventually resulted in discussions, interest from Prince Charles and the involvement of local charitable group the Ballater Chiels. The end result was that the MBA drew up plans for the bothy which the Chiels, all local businessmen and tradesmen, would both finance and carry out.

A number of Eastern Area MBA volunteers pitched up for the first of two planned work parties at the start of May, ready to act as labourers and gofers for the Chiels but very quickly realised that these guys needed no help and probably got on quicker without us in the road.

Builders’ v ans and a catering trailer outside the bothy

I arrived early Saturday morning to see a large collection of works vans and 4x4s around the bothy, a small marquee set up as a sawyard, and even a trailer and gazebo set up for catering.

The marquee being used for a sawyard, with the wood and saws safe from the threatening showers

Before I’d even counted the vans I was directed to the trailer for a cup of tea and a cake donated by the Ballater bakery, and before another hour was past the call went up for bacon rolls and sausages being served.

Lunch was thick scotch broth and copious sandwiches, with mince pie, roast pork, mashed potatoes, peas and gravy for dinner (not forgetting ice cream and warm apple pie for desert. Ice cream? In a bothy?)

Work? Well, we did a bit. Kenny Freeman helped with some joinery work inside the bothy, and Ian Shand and I acted as gofers for the roofer as he fixed tiles and installed two velux windows and a flue pipe, but in the main we wandered about feeling guilty about eating so much and doing so little!

Wood-lining fitted and stove being installed

The front doors now lead into an internal porch

There was a huge amount of work done though. Over the weekend the bothy was totally transformed.

A wooden floor was overlaid on the stone cobbles, the walls were insulated and lined, the roof similarly insulated and lined, a wood-burning stove was installed and two windows installed in the roof to increase the amount of light inside. On top of that an internal porch was built, solving the problem of drafts. And drainage ditches were dug around the bothy outside, hopefully putting an end to the occasional burn which used to run through the bothy in wet weather.

So much work was done, in fact, that there remained little to be done this weekend just past, other than treating the woodwork with a fire retardant.

Long term, the roof needs a lot of work done to replace slates which are ready to drop but, as a result of sterling work by the Ballater Chiels, the Gelder Shiel is a hundred times the bothy it once was and now worthy of its wonderful situation.

The bothy from the back, showing the new roof windows and stove flue

One of the more anticipated new books this summer was the Cicerone guide The Book of the Bothy, by Phoebe Smith. As soon as it was announced the old guard bothy ‘guardians’ were up in arms: not only was this going to be a book about bothies – and probably giving their locations – but, perhaps even a worse sin, it was being written by someone who was not one of us.

On that basis alone I was inclined to stick up for Ms Smith. I’ve always been of the view that we look after bothies for everyone, and not just a small clique of those deemed worthy.

But, sad to say, despite being a book whose time had come, despite being well produced and published by one of the most respected guide book publishers, this is not the success it should have been.

Given that this blog is about the Cairngorms, I’m going to restrict my comments to the Cairngorm bothies included in the book but, sadly, here alone there are too many points where proper checking and proofing have been lacking, resulting in a number of inaccuracies.

The wrongly named Gelder Shiel bothy

Some are glaring but relatively harmless, such as referring to the Gelder Shiel as Glendar Shiel, Derry Cairngorm as Derry Hill, and Loch Avon as Loch A’an. There’s an unfortunate piece of timing, with Gelder Shiel (or Glendar?) being referred to as a bit of a cold hole: the gap between writing and printing has meant that the book does not take account of the substantial renovation that took place earlier this year.

However it’s a bit concerning that the author actively encourages people visiting Bob Scott’s Bothy to go out and cut up deadwood for the stove. As explained elsewhere on this site and in a notice within the bothy, Mar Lodge Estate, which is owned by the National Trust for Scotland, has specifically asked people NOT to burn deadwood, which is a valuable habitat for insects and birds. The message should be to carry in coal – don’t burn wood. Encouraging people to do exactly what the estate has asked them not to is hardly responsible and could lead to trouble for the future of the bothy.

There are a a fair few more errors in the Cairngorm chapters, leading one to assume that entries for other bothies are similarly fallible, which does rather damage any authority the book may wish to claim.

I also wonder at the absence of Corrour Bothy from these pages. Given the importance, position and popularity of Corrour, I would have thought it would be a definite inclusion. To be fair, Phoebe Smith does say her choice is a personal one but, as the book is presented in a guidebook format rather than as a personal memoir, I think more should be expected than just a personal hodge podge. Perhaps including the full complement of MBA bothies (all the bothies included here are MBA apart from Scottie’s) is a bit much to ask but surely more effort should have been made to include the principal bothies.

So far so unremittingly negative.

‘Diary’-style inserts add a personal flavour to the guide.

As I said, I was looking forward to this book and have no argument with its existence or with an ‘outsider’ writing it. So it’s only fair to say there’s also a lot to like about The Book of the Bothy. The format is a good one, with each bothy having a main piece of text complemented by bite-sized snippets and information panels. Each bothy also has a ‘diary entry’ section too, where the author records her own memories of finding and or staying in the bothy, which adds a personal touch. The photos are good too, and the whole spirit of the book is good: this is a book written by someone who, if not as experienced as some, has enjoyed her bothy nights and understands and supports what bothies are about.

But the devil is in the detail – guidebooks are built on attention detail – and it’s just such a damned shame that she didn’t do more checking and get her book more rigorously proofed.

So to buy or not to buy? A difficult one for, as I say, it’s a likable book, and maybe many of the errors I’ve spotted aren’t major but… on the whole I’d probably hang fire until the revised edition.

UPDATE:
Since posting this and sending a full list of suggested amendments to Cicerone, I’ve been contacted by the author, Phoebe Smith, who contests some of my points – fair enough, we’ll just have to disagree – but does sound genuinely contrite about suggesting people collect wood at Bob Scott’s, underlining a commitment to make appropriate changes for the next print run of the book.

She also made the point that she did inform the MBA of her intentions and received no objection, although, in a way, I’d hold that immaterial. The MBA has no monopoly or veto on people writing about bothies and, in any case, some foreign guide books already mention bothies and their locations. From the comments below there still seem to be plenty who don’t believe the book should have been written or – if it must – that it should have been written by the MBA rather than an ‘outsider’ – a view I find totally insupportable. This is a book with good intention and, as I said above, good spirit – and, as with bothy users, who also may never have hammered a nail, that’s what counts.

Callater Bothy is the building on the right, with the Lodge at the rear.

It’s been said – and with some cause – that a bothy without a fire is just a shed.

Well Callater Bothy may not have a fire yet, but it’s looking considerably more welcoming after this weekend.

Callater Bothy, sitting beside Callater Lodge beside the loch of the same name in Glen – you’ve guessed it – Callater, was subjected to an MBA Eastern Highlands makeover, with about 15 or more volunteers taking it apart and putting it together again.

Led by Maintenance Organiser John Gifford, with Kenny Freeman project managing, the volunteers replaced two old roofing panels and removed three panels at the front, replacing them with perspex and cutting light wells through roof and ceiling, bringing lots more light into what was once a very dark bothy. There’s also a roan pipe along the front of the bothy.

Inside, the sleeping platform was removed and a new wall built to split the one long room into two, one of which will have bunk beds (currently half built), with the other a living area which is smaller and easier to get warmer.

In the long term everyone is still hoping to persuade the estate to allow a stove or fireplace to be put in, but in the meantime the bothy is at least lighter and more welcoming.

Even with people working beside, through and over each other, though, there wasn’t time to complete all the work in the two days available, and it still remains to complete the bunks in the sleeping room, fit facings round the light wells, and, eventually, build an internal storm porch to keep more of the draughts out. As with all these jobs, completion will depend on availability of volunteers and weather but in John Gifford the bothy has a very keen MO with lots of drive, so I don’t think it should be too long before the work can be done.

I’ve included some photos of the work but, with a fading camera battery, I only managed to get the early stages of the work before it went dead on me. Other photos may be added later if anyone takes pity and sends me some on.

Opening up the roof of the bothy to cut the three light wells

Tea break time. At the back of the picture are Marlene and Eleanor, who kept the workers fed and watered over the weekend. Beside them is MO John Gifford and in the foreground are Allan ‘Sinbad’ Moore, Kenny Ferguson and Derek Stewart

One perspex panel in place and sealed, two still being installed.

Kenny Freeman at work in the loft space, cutting through floor and ceiling to make the light wells, which were then lined in plywood with the ‘help’ of yours truly

And lest we forget why we go to these places at all… this is a view of the sun catching the hills at the side of Loch Callater. This is indeed a special place.

A welcome and homely sight on return from the hills – Callater Bothy, with the Lodge behind

At the start of September the Eastern Highlands MBA crew descended mob handed on a spartan Callater Bothy and brought light and an element of cosiness.

Lightwells built from the roof through the ceiling brought light into the formerly gloomy longhouse, and a dividing wall created separate bedroom and living areas, making it easier – in theory at least – to raise the temperature in the living/kitchen area.

A painfully obvious lack of trim and a saggy ceiling betrayed a job unfinished

But the rough edges were still on display, and two bunk beds were without platforms. Time simply caught up on us.

Last weekend, though, some of us went back to get the job finished.

These work parties aren’t without their dangers though. We gathered on Friday evening and very quickly fell prey to an implausible amount of alcohol which had somehow found its way into the supplies. Bill from Callater Lodge was invited over and there followed a night of song and story that’ll live long in memory – even if memory often seemed a bit cloudy on the Saturday morning! One indelible memory, though, was the unforgivable treatment of John Gifford, who had gone to the trouble of memorising a new song for the occasion, lauding the joys of working in the mountains. Unfortunately, John, with his English background, failed to realise – or to appreciate once it was explained to him – that Scots are congenitally unable to hear the line in the chorus which mentioned “the wind in the tussocks” without breaking into giggles, titters and, ultimately, uncontrollable falling-on-the-floor laughter. So,  sorry John, we couldn’t help ourselves.

Come morning, though, the laughter was over. Some of us visibly struggling through the hangovers (and one, who shall remain nameless, having to retire early) we set to with a will.

Some of the major sags in the ceiling were remedied, and copious measuring and cutting saw the trim prepared and affixed around the light wells, and skirting board fitted on the new dividing wall. The doorframe was finished, and suitably trimmed, and the bunks were finished, with platforms built in with tongue and groove boarding, and the finished articles fitted with ladders and fixed to the walls for extra stability. All looking very neat.

Alex at work on the saw table, better known as the sleeping platform

Bill pictured fixing trim around the light well

The completed bunks. Kenny measured, Alex and Bill cut, and I fitted the platforms – real teamwork.

It wasn’t as dark as this photo makes it look like, but the light was definitely going as MO John Gifford completed the paperwork at the end of the job.

Work eventually ground to a halt as darkness was approaching and it was a weary crew who set off down the road to their various homes… apart from me. I had planned to stay up for another night and grab a walk on what looked like being a good day on the Sunday.

I enjoyed a quiet night in with a good book (and no alcohol), with the only disturbance an occasional rattle at the door – not a ghost, just a Highland garron who seemed to have a notion I might let him into the bothy!

The two garrons who were occasionally interested observers to the work party. I’m pretty sure it was the nearer one which was the nocturnal snorter and door rattler.

Sunday did dawn fair, and I set off up the Carn an t’Sagairt Mor path, following that top with Carn an t’Sagairt Beag and Carn a’ Choire Bhoidheach, taking a side trip out to the headland of Creag a’ Ghlas Uillt, before a late lunch on top of Lochnagar, enjoying views down towards Aberdeen and back into the central Cairngorms, as well as across the dramatic cliffs of Lochnagar itself.

The path up Carn an t’Sagairt Mor slants easily upward along the side of Loch Callater

Lochnagar in the distance behind The Stuic, an excellent buttress I’ve climbed in winter but never yet in summer

A hazy view through to the upper reaches of Glen Clova

Looking across the coire of Lochnagar from the top of the Black Spout

The mighty cliffs of Lochnagar

The cloud remained high and sparse all day and I returned via the old stalking path which avoids the tops and winds around them instead, enjoying the feeling of space on the plateau and the unseasonal warmth of the sun now that I was off the tops.

Afternoon sun reflects on the waters of Loch Callater

I was wearied enough by the time I got back to Callater, but if the day had taken its toll on a slightly unfit body, it had been real medicine for a troubled mind, and after packing up, I cycled down the road to my car and home with a far lighter heart than I had left Fife some days before. Sometimes it’s not just the bothies that get renovated on these trips.

Mostly Happy Returns, by Braemar Mountain Rescue Association

There’s a perhaps morbid fascination among hill walkers and climbers with tales of when it all goes wrong. I’ve long ago given up trying to figure whether it’s for education or voyeurism and just read the tales anyway. Sod the philosophy.

So when I heard there was a new book out celebrating 50 years of the Braemar Mountain Rescue Team there was no hesitation about getting a hold of a copy and no time wasted getting stuck into it when I had it in my hands: Mostly Happy Returns.

After starting with a foreword by John Duff, the Braemar bobby who was in at the start of the team in 1965, it opens with a very appropriate chapter contrasting the very different fates of two accident victims, one from the 1930s and one from 2014, showing the crucial differences made by technology and the existence of a dedicated and trained mountain rescue team, with the body of the first victim not recovered until  several days after the accident, while the 2014 victim was not only found, but being treated in hospital within just a few hours.

Mostly Happy Returns bills itself as a celebration of the team’s achievements and characters “with assorted misremembered tales of derring-do, wild haverings, and the dottled recollections of bygone days when storms were stormier, snow was snowier, and tweed, tackety beets and a muckle Thermos kept the elements at bay.”

And that’s pretty much what it is. Those looking for a sober history will be disappointed, as will those looking for a blow by blow account of all the major rescues, although many are here. I could be critical and say some tighter editorial control could have resulted in fewer multiple references to the same rescues, albeit often seen from different perspectives, and a wider net being cast over the treasure trove of stories a mountain rescue team must accrue.

But to hell with the critic’s hat. This is a thoroughly readable book as it is, un-put-downable with stories of rescues told by the people who have left their families and warm homes to go out in often appalling weather to do their utmost to save lives, not to mention all the training between times, to ensure they have the techniques to match the dedication. Some great pictures too, both current and vintage, and interesting info about how the team works. And it’s all set in an arena which will be familiar to all with a love of the Cairngorms, giving the inside story on incidents most of us will have heard about but only superficially in the papers.

So grab yourself a copy; it’s a great read and sold in a great cause, to provide funds for the Braemar Mountain Rescue Team to keep on doing what they do so well – ensuring that, when it all goes wrong, we all have Mostly Happy Returns.

How to get a copy of the book
Each book costs £10.00 and Braemar Mountain Rescue Association can post it to any UK address by Royal Mail 2nd Class delivery for the small additional charge of £2.00. A cheque for £12.00 should be made payable to Braemar Mountain Rescue Association and sent to:
Braemar Mountain Rescue Association
23 Albert Road
Ballater
Aberdeenshire
AB35 5QL

If you wish to pay by bank transfer, the Association will send bank details if you e-mail
treasurer@braemarmountainrescue.org.uk  Remember to include the name and address – including postcode – you want the book sent to.

Alternatively, the book can be obtained from the following outlets:

Braemar
Braemar Mountain Sports, Invercauld Road, Braemar.
Braemar Caravan Park, Glenshee Road, Braemar.
Braemar Pharmacy, Mar Road, Braemar.
Wild Thistle, Invercauld Road, Braemar.
Braemar Service Station, Braemar.
Mar Lodge, National Trust, Mar Lodge Estate, Braemar.

Ballater
Brown Sugar Café, 8 Bridge St. Ballater.
Deeside Books, 18-20 Bridge St. Ballater.
HM Sheridan, Butchers, 11 Bridge Street, Ballater.
Outdoor Shop/The Bothy Café, 43 Bridge Street, Ballater.

Aboyne
Hilltrek Out Door Clothing, Ballater Road, Aboyne.

Banchory
Out There Active Wear Ltd, 3 Dee Street, Banchory.

Inverurie
Craigdon Mountain Sports, 51 High Street, Inverurie.

Laurencekirk
Castleton Farm Shop, Fourdon, Laurencekirk.

Tarland
Tarland Post Office, Melgum Road, Tarland

Prince Charles outside Ernie’s Bothy

This blog has never had any real need for a Royal Correspondent, but I had to appoint myself to the job today for the official opening of the refurbished Gelder Shiel Bothy on the slopes of Lochnagar.

Back in May, the Ballater Charitable Chiels drove up en masse from Balmoral to carry out a major renovation of what up until then had been a cold, unwelcoming doss. The MBA, including your truly, were there, having drawn up the plans and been involved in negotiations with Balmoral Estate, but the real work was done by the experienced and tooled-up tradesmen of the Chiels, who had wanted to adopt the project as a tribute and memorial to their former president Ernie Rattray (who had also been a member of Braemar Mountain Rescue Team for many years).

Today (8th October) the transformed bothy – now called Ernie’s Bothy – was officially opened by HRH The Duke of Rothesay, better known to most as Prince Charles.

The Chiels were once again there en masse, along with members of Ernie’s family, and four of us from the MBA – Bert Barnett (who drew the plams), Kenny Freeman (project manager for a gazillion bothy work parties and renovations, Ian ‘Piper’ Shand (joint MO for the bothy) and myself (MBA Eastern Area Rep).

Prince Charles chats to the MBA crew: Bert Barnett, Ian Shand and Neil Reid. Photo by Kenny Freeman

Bert, Kenny Freeman and Ian outside the bothy

A jolly nice day out it was too. After a couple of pretty moist and mochy days, the sky cleared and the sun shone – and the four of us piled into Piper’s Land Rover to get a lift up there.

Prince Charles arrived, drams of Lochnagar 12-year-old Malt Whisky were handed round in commemorative glasses (all courtesy of the Lochnagar Distillery I understand?), speeches were said (some great stories about Ernie!) and a plaque was unveiled by the Prince and Ernie’s widow, Dot.

Refreshments at the opening

Then Ian Shand played a tune on the pipes, ‘Ernie’s Awa Tae The Hills’, which he had composed in memory of Ernie.

Charles stayed around to meet and greet the assembled cast (we chatted, no-one will be surprised to learn, about the amount of litter left in bothies) and then signed the bothy book before going back down the road.

Prince Charles signed the bothy book. (And there’s always one… so did Kenny Freeman!)

Before he had left, though, the bothy got its first official visitors since the opening, a quartet of Joyce K Low, Alan Ferrier, and two others whose names I missed, who had arrived intending to stay the night before tackling Lochnagar. They looked slightly puzzled as they arrived and had to wind their way through lots of identically-jacketed Chiels, but then came to an abrupt stop when they saw the guy in between them and the door was the next King of Britain. Cue much back pedalling as they decided they weren’t in such a hurry after all! At least they were able to enjoy an unexpected dram while they waited though – and a very nice drop it was too.

I’m not much of a royalist, but I’m with Charles on this one, hoping that people will treat this bothy (as any bothy) with the respect it deserves.

The plaque in honour of Ernie Rattray, unveiled by HRH Prince Charles and Dot Rattray