Storm Frank floods Aberfoyle

Forth floods Aberfoyle from the flank of Creag Mor

Main Street Grand Canal

Police Scotland without a motorbike??

Water junction

Land Rover delusions

Another one bites the dust

Well, that was an eventful morning. After a night of Storm Frank, formerly known as torrential rain, the flood levels had reached their highest levels by mid-morning, and still, the cars tried to get through. A timber lorry hauled out a car that was bobbing about between the hedgerows and towed it to the road opposite the Baillie where it was then dunked again as the river levels continued to invade the village. Then a brand new Range Rover Evoque was driven at speed into the deepest part of the flood before it began to float and then waltzed around in the swirling floodwater by the old post house. I have seldom seen such a carefree or careless, you decide, exhibition of driving.

We entertained a young couple from Aberdeen who had sensibly decided to wait for the floods to recede and needed a restroom. They are hoping to attempt to return home later but they may have to wait a few hours, or maybe days, before they can escape. Meanwhile, they have left their car in the drive and we have escorted them through the woods to beyond the floods where they can catch a lift back to Forest Hills to spend time with their family.

The views looking down from Creag Mor showed that Aberfoyle had acquired a couple of new 'Frankwater' lochs on either side of Manse Road. The main street was flooded, and bags were being dispensed as part of the usual belated and often pointless but nevertheless ritual celebration of flooding. Richard wore his waders to get through to buy his paper but even the co-op was closed so no crossword only cross words. The flood damage to the shops and Forth Inn could be substantial and expensive to rectify as was the case following the Aberfoyle Deluge three years ago. Maybe the Woollen Mill will be having a genuine flood sale!

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the go-ahead for the ever-so-expensive flood prevention measures. They could have been constructed years ago (2002-2003) but for the onerous and time-consuming bidding process set up by the Scottish Government to evaluate proposals for grant assistance. The outcome of the Scottish Government's obsessive control of capital spending has been an over-ambitious and the costly designed scheme by consultants, who alone cost far more than the total cost of the council's original scheme in of c £300k. As soon as government funding is set aside for any development, it attracts a queue of financiers, construction companies, and engineering consultants eager to play for high stakes in the complex bureaucratic process that is endemic with centralised government funding regimes. £12m is a high cost for the Aberfoyle flood prevention measures and with Dumfries and Aberdeenshire now propelled to the front of the queue following Storm Frank, it may be a long time for any approval, if at all.

And so it came to pass, the Scottish Government published its National FloodRisk Management Plan on 11 January 2016. It contains 42 schemes costing £235m and there is no mention of the Trossachs or Aberfoyle although elsewhere in the three-part report it acknowledges that the annual cost of flood damage in Aberfoyle is up to £500,000, not nearly enough to justify £12m on the cost-benefit analysis. Sadly this takes no account of the lost days of education and this must be running at 3 or 4 days a year for the 90 children. There was another day lost to flooding on 26 January that made the national news when the Fire and Rescue team sent out a boat to belatedly retrieve the children from school, they had already escaped by the path through the woods behind the school but some teachers were floated through the village to waiting taxis. The days when professional staff lived in their communities are long gone, their commuting must contribute considerably to climate change.

Storm Frank enforces parking restrictions

Beinn Dearg, Glen Artney

Beinn Dearg from the south

Mor Bheinn and Ben Halton from Sron na Maoile

Deer on slopes of Sron na Maoile

Looking south to Campsies

Looking towards Sron nan Broighleag from Sron na Maoile

Descent of Beinn Dearg

Sron na Maoile on descent from Beinn Dearg

Tuesday, 29 December 2015
Ascent:      870 metres
Distance:   14 kilometres
Time;         4 hours 20 minutes

Beinn Dearg     706m       2hrs  48mins

All my remaining munros and corbetts are more than 2 hours drive away and, at this time of the year when daylight hours barely make 8 hours, it makes walking an exercise in stumbling along with a head torch as well as lots of night driving. I have done little walking over the past two and a half months so I needed something nearer and less time-consuming. Fortunately, I had received a copy of the new SMC guide to Grahams and Donalds for Christmas. It is a fine addition to the Scottish hill walking publications. And more to the point it has provided me with dozens of hills within 2 hours drive to while away those short winter days.

Gregor had phoned and suggested a day out on the hills on Tuesday, the only half decent day according to the forecasts. It meant driving back from London on Monday and although I had originally intended to have a stopover in Lancashire or Yorkshire, the flooding there made it a hazardous option. We left Brixton at 9am and drove through an empty London making the M1 in little over half an hour. We stopped in Hemel Hempstead to visit old friends but thereafter the drive up the M1 and M6 was an exercise in extreme patience, not my strong suit, with long queues of family full cars making their way home from Christmas visits. It was 10pm before we reached home and Gregor was arriving at 9am and had left it to me to find a suitable walk. The new book was the perfect assistant and I decided to head for Glen Artney and climb Beinn Dearg, a hill at the head of a 7 kilometre long ridge. The forecast was for a dry windy day before the onset of Storm Frank.

As always it took time for us to sort out some gear and have a drink before setting out at 10am. Glen Artney is approached from the east on a long single track road from south of Comrie. The glen was basking in bleak midwinter, all colours banished from the landscape, even the red squirrel that scurried across the road had a mousy look about it. The few isolated houses were looking grim gripped to earth by the grey skies. We parked opposite the church in a generous car park that had two cars in it. We walked back along the road to the former schoolhouse, climbed the locked gate and dropped down a steep track to the river where a concrete bridge carried us over the raging currents. A track peels round to the left and passes a finely constructed stone barn beyond which there is a wooden gate leading to a large bog. The track continued but became impassable as the mud became inches deep.

We headed up the slopes towards the southern top of Sron na Maoile. The going could only be described as mind-numbingly rough with long flattened grass lying on root beds balanced on drainage channels. It continued like this for about 300 metres of ascent before the slopes became steeper but easier underfoot. I knew it would be difficult because of my long lay off but I managed a steady pace. We saw a lone walker on the top of the ridge and he started heading down towards us, we must have disturbed a herd of deer and for about five minutes they raced through the gap between us, I estimated about 160 head of deer, by far the largest herd I had ever seen. Reaching the top of Sron na Maoile revealed a long curving and undulating ridge that terminated at Beinn Dearg. It looked a long way in the grey winter light and the views were less than inspiring although a shaft of light fell briefly on the Braes of Doune wind farm and the Campsies were visible through a gap in the hills.

There was a faint path scored into the grass and heather that meandered round towards the next hill on the ridge, Sron nam Broighleag. The wind was becoming quite strong from the south-west and slowed progress in places although it was generally pushing us along. Several smaller herds of deer played hide a seek with us as we followed the roller coaster of a ridge. There were even more drops and climbs leading to Stuc na Cabaig, the next high point on the ridge. There has been some talk that this is higher than Beinn Dearg so I was careful in taking its height on my altimeter. It registered exactly the same as Beinn Dearg but that was another two kilometres away involving even more decent and ascent.

We found some shelter below the summit of Beinn Dearg, which has no discernible cairn, where we drank a flask of coffee before setting off on the descent. Any notion of continuing to cross the Allt Glas and climb Mor Bheinn, another Graham, was ruled out by the diminishing daylight, it was already 2pm. The route down was fairly obvious along the southern ridge of Beinn Dearg and then across the interminable leg sapping boggy grassland before crossing the Allt Coire Choire in spate. Despite the wet boggy ground I still had dry feet in my boots, Gregor was in a pair of trainers and by this time his feet were well and truly wrinkled.

We found our way back to the track beside the barn and dropped down to the bridge. The climb back up to the road was steeper than I had hoped but we were soon back at the car and talking to the man in the next car who had climbed the adjacent corbett, Meall na Fearna. The real treat came next, a mere 50-minute drive to reach home by 4:30pm, it was barely dark.

Orkney: Green and top of the class

Saab 340 at Kirkwall

Bleak Midwinter

Electric buses for the 10 minute airport shuttle

December Red Admiral in Office

St Magnus cathedral

Dusk at 3:15pm

My last work trip of the year was to Orkney, the day it was declared the best place to live in Scotland for the third year running according to the Lloyds bank, although I do have some doubts about the methodology. The unpredictability of the flights to the islands persuaded me to fly early in the day. Unfortunately the closure of the Forth Road bridge had diverted all the Fife vehicles onto the M9 from via the Clackmannanshire bridge. It meant that traffic was reduced to a crawl at times and I was relieved that I had started extra early to arrive at Edinburgh airport in time for the flight. 

It was on time and flying conditions were pretty reasonable although the cloud cover prevented me enjoying the slice of geography that lies beneath the flight path. The Saab 340 plane with its distinctive engine whine and the rattles from almost 30 years service has a charm that veils its age but its reliability is now in question and there seem no obvious replacements for this plane, which was designed to cope with cross winds, but has not been built since 1999.

Kirkwall airport is a haven of peace compared to most airports and I was soon on the Orkney Green all electric bus to the centre of Kirkwall and my B&B. I called into the Council offices to discuss my brief for the following day and was surprised to discover a red admiral butterfly flitting round the customer centre. Apparently this has happened for the last couple of years and with the December temperature at 13ºC there was a summer feel right down to the steady soft rain, however by 2pm the foreboding darkness suggested otherwise. 

I prepared for my session in the afternoon and then went to see Alistair in the evening. It was great to catch up with his family. It has been four years since I had spent the best part of a year in Shetland and our conversations were multi layered as we reprised and fast forwarded our lives. A hearty meal in a nearby hotel followed and I was well lubricated as I travelled back to Kirkwall by taxi. I discussed the reasons why Orkney was top place to live with the taxi driver and the local folk I came into contact with. The consensus was that it was about people, communities, good quality of services and absence of rapacious commercial practices. Then there was lots of space, freedom from restrictions, excellent local produce and no shortage of housing or jobs.

The next day was the hard reality of discussing with a group of senior managers how to cope with the Scottish budget, which had grabbed another 4% from the Council coffers. The Scottish Government had elected to implement the austerity measures handed down from Westminster and not to use their new powers to alleviate the damage to local services. How many lost jobs would this mean, what facilities would need to close and how could they square strategic decisions with the natural desire of local councillors to protect their services? 

It is the problem everywhere that I have been this year and I despair at the time and effort that goes into the liquidation of local services instead of focusing on how to inspire and deliver new and better services and identify new sources of investment. At least Orkney has access to new funding streams from marine activities, tourism and green activities that seem to be universally embraced by its communities. Chancellor Osborne has performed the most devious trick of allowing more freedoms for localities but only within a straight jacket that squeezes harder each year. The issue in Scotland is whether and when this will be unlaced by the Scottish Government as they realise that financial accountability is devolved and cannot totally be blamed on Westminster.

A Hard Day's Night in the Monaliadhs

Tramping across from Geal Charn to Carn Dearg

Sunday, 2 December 2007

Ascent:     1285 metres
Distance:  31 kilometres
Time:        10 hours 43 minutes

Geal Charn             926m     2hrs  5mins
Carn Dearg             945m     5hrs  30mins  
Carn Sgulain          920m      7hrs 31mins
A' Chailleach         930m       8hrs 19mins  

This post is taken from my log book of the fourth round of Munros as one of the Big Walks that I intend to add to the posts on the blog.

 go this wasn't one of the longest for distance or time but for sheer determination in strenuous conditions it ranks amongst the hardest of days. Nearing the end of the fourth round of Munros, I was exploiting every opportunity to fit in walks and hills when it would be easy to find an excuse for staying at home. The Monalaidhs are not the most exciting hills and they are a good distance away requiring a long winter trip up the A9.  If you attempt to climb all four with daylight hours at their minimum in December, they have to be an A to B walk. How I persuaded John and Mark to join me, an unrepentant Munro basher, on this folly I don't know. They both described it as one of the daftest walks yet in a year of strong competition but their sense of adventure prevented them from refusing.

We needed two cars so I persuaded John to drive up from the Borders and I drove Mark up. We were to meet at the car park at the end of Glen Road above Newtonmore at 8:00am, which meant leaving home at 5:30am to pick up Mark and drive up a near-empty A9.  John was late, unusual for him, so he
transferred his gear into my car and I drove the 20 miles to Garva Bridge for the start of the Geal Charn climb. We started shortly after 9:00am and walked west to east. John's car was left at the foot of the A' Chailleach path so he would be able to drive us back to collect my car at Garva Bridge once we had completed the walk. Even Eddie Stobbart would have had problems with the logistics of this outing. 

Conditions were quite benign at the start of the walk, there was little wind but visibility was not good and the tops were clad in cloud. I was struggling in the early part of the ascent with a heavy cold. John and Mark were forcing the pace up the two-foot-wide bog that doubles as a path. There was little sympathy for me, after all, I had dreamt up the crazy walk. Mark told John to let me suffer because I would probably be pushing the pace in 5 or 6 hours once I had got into my stride. It was warm work with poor views and the prospect of a very long cold day.

By 700 metres we had reached the fresh snow level and walking became even more difficult. As we reached the large cairn of Geal Charn we were treated to some shafts of sunlight but it was only fleeting. As we began the ever-so-long traverse across to the next hill, Carn Dearg, we realised that this would be quite a difficult walk. We had to make tracks in the snow that was over a foot deep with deeper pockets from wind-blown snow. I used my cold as an excuse to follow the tracks that Mark made over the next 3 hours. We had some food at the top of Carn Dearg but wasted little time as the winter light was already fading. We knew that we would be descending in the dark and, ideally, wanted to reach A’ Chailleach before the last light of the day.

We didn’t even stop to put on head torches for the long undulating leg to the inconspicuous summit of Carn Sgulain. The snow was less deep on the south flank of the ridge and we made more rapid progress than during the leg to Carn Dearg. It was almost 5pm and dark as we reached Carn Sgulain and again we stopped only briefly to drink and eat before the descent down a steep snow bank and then a tramp back up more deep snow to reach the cairn at A' Chailleach. I was beginning to feel frisky and took the lead in the dark as John and Mark both found it hard to distinguish features whilst wearing glasses. The double jeopardy of night and snow concealing the ground conditions.

I found some earlier footprints that helped as they confirmed my compass readings leading to A’ Chailleach. At the summit, it was pitch dark but the cloud cover had vanished and we could see lights in the glen below. I found a reasonable route to the river down the snow slopes and then through the heather-clad muddy slopes. Surprisingly we managed to cross without too much difficulty using our walking poles. They are always worth taking for river crossings in the dark, but they have also been useful in keeping our balance through the deep snow all day. The sense of achievement as we eased our way down the track for the last mile was evident and the jocular remarks about my stupidity in devising the walk began to lighten our mood. We made a quick getaway in John’s car to Garva Bridge where we picked up my car. The drive home was quiet on the A9 and I made it home by 10pm. 

I had now completed 260 Munros in just over three years and it left me with just 24 to complete a fourth Munro round. I could begin to believe that a finish was possible in the spring and that I could, with a few more unusual combinations of hills, achieve the round in 80 days. 2007 had been a splendid year on the hills although my running mileage had plummeted as work was now regularly taking 70 hours a week with the Council struggling to come to terms with coalition working and multi-member wards. 

At the summit of Geal Charn

Where are the Huskies when you need them

'Cold and crisp but not very even' ground conditions

Reprise of the Tartan Tories

In the 1970's the SNP became a significant political force and today's popular mythology would have us believe that they were a left-of-centre progressive party. This may have been because of  Margo MacDonald, the poster girl for the SNP who fought and won the Govan by-election. She was a genuine champion of social justice. The party embraced a wide cross-section of political views and the leadership during the 1980s was right of centre, led by Gordon Wilson and with many SNP Councillors and MPs fairly right-wing local businessmen who abhorred any form of socialist enterprise. There were others in this first flush of SNP growth such as George Reid, who has been an excellent speaker of the Scottish Parliament, and Margaret Bain who were far more progressive.

In recent years the SNP has embraced a lurch to the left and Nicola Sturgeon is certainly genuine in her commitment to social justice. Alex Salmond was more AC/DC depending on who he spoke to and whom he wanted to denigrate. The vast army of voters who switched to the SNP at the last general election came from the left, dismayed at the Labour Party with its drift to the centre under Blair and Brown and the absence of any effective Scottish leadership or direction since the loss of titans like Donald Dewar, John Smith and Robin Cook. The mediocre performance of the Lab/Lib government up to 2007, as well as disenchantment with Blair's Iraq adventure, was a  key reason that the SNP took power in the Scottish Parliament,

The SNP have been very skilful since becoming the government in 2007 at pillorying Labour for the economic recession, their failure to effectively challenge the Tories on austerity and their support for Trident. This played well with the electorate, as did the constant refrain that Scotland's increasingly fragile public services were the result of Westminster's control of tax and spending. Well, that no longer applies and there was the opportunity from the onset of the Scottish government to augment tax by 3p in the pound. Now that these powers have been transferred to the Scottish Government there is no longer any excuse for not protecting services if this is the proclaimed priority of the SNP.

It could be the tipping point for the SNP as they seek to be returned to power in the Scottish election next May. They decided in the Scottish budget not to deviate from the UK tax rates or to allow Councils to raise Council tax to offset the massive cuts they have already made and which will cut even deeper next year. It is time for the SNP to decide whether they are prepared to invest in services or simply continue to shadow the policies of George Osborne. The day of reckoning is approaching and after eight and a half years of SNP rule that has been sustained largely by criticism of the tribal politics at Westminster. They now have to be accountable. Clearly, they are frightened of deviating from the UK too much. After all oil prices are down from the $110 that they predicted before the independence referendum to $40, whisky sales are falling and tourism has had a mixed year as visitors from England have thought twice about visiting a country that seems to have turned its back on the UK.