Garbh Bheinn, Loch Leven

Black Mount over Rannoch Moor

Stob Coire Sgoilte

Pap of Glencoe and Loch Leven from Torran nan Crann

Aonach Eagach to the south

Looking down on Stob Coire Sgoilte from the summit

The Mamores and Ben Nevis from the summit

Pap of Glencoe and Loch Leven from the summit

Aonach Eagach from Garbh Bheinn summit

Thursday, 23 March 2017

Ascent:      861 metres
Distance:   6 kilometres
Time:        4 hours 52 minutes

Garbh Bheinn      867m     2hrs 58mins

The winter has been mainly wet, and windy and the mountains are clothed in clouds; conditions that are not conducive to hillwalking. But neither has a lingering hamstring tear that has restricted my activities for the past 6 weeks. For the first time, I was subjected to kinesiology tape and ultrasound. I was told to give running a break with the result that my fitness deteriorated steadily.

At last, there was the promise of a clear day and there had been a big fall of snow at the start of the week. A day in the hills called. Garbh  Bheinn and Mam nan Gualainn at the opposite side of Loch Leven were the two nearest unclimbed corbetts and I had intended to climb them together in a day. Given my lack of activity this year and the dump of snow, I had doubts about whether they would be both doable.

It was cloudy as I left home at 7:30am and the A84 up to Crianlarich was infested with trunk road works with waits of over 10 minutes before trundling along behind a lead vehicle. I missed the 8:35am bus from Crianlarich so had to drive to Loch Leven. It was worth it for the views and the chance to take photos on Rannoch Moor and in Glencoe. I found the parking spot by the bridge on the B863 by Caolasnacon. I had camped here on a family holiday in 1965 and had ambitions to climb Garbh Bheinn, which looked magnificent from Torr a' Phloda, the small hill at the lochside. Unfortunately, family camping holidays were mainly spent setting up camp, breaking camp and travelling as far as we could between breakdowns in the 15-year-old Bedford van. There was no time for walks.

The skies were blue and the overnight frost was evaporating, there was a cool breeze but it felt warmer than I had expected. The path from the bridge climbs quite steeply and soon becomes a boggy track with the overnight ice breaking under my footfall. This was going to be a hard slog. After 500 metres of walking, I came to a path that climbed steeply to the ridge of Torran nan Crann above. From here the path follows the ridgeline, there were sections of solid ice that were beginning to melt and therefore doubly slippy. Eventually, the ridge drops slightly to a gap before the massive peak ahead.

It is Stob Coire Sgoilte, a symmetrical conical peak that hides the summit of Garbh Bheinn. It ascends from 375 metres to 800 metres, an unrelenting climb. There were footsteps from the day before and I followed them to the bottom of the climb. The walker had veered to the right, making a rising traverse, the footprints gave a clear trail in the soft snow that was 18 inches deep. I foolishly followed until at about 600 metres the trail finished, and the footsteps went down again. Whoever had attempted the route must have felt as I did and decided to give the hill a miss. I was resting every 20 metres or so of height gain, not something I normally entertain but exhaustion dictated frequent halts. I decided to continue on the rising traverse until reaching the rock and scree slopes that the snow had not settled on. The scree was loose and the rock was fractured. There was nothing for it but to persevere, the steepness requiring me to use my hands to balance on the scree and to pull up the shattered metamorphosed Eilde quartzite.

I had never ascended a hill so slowly and, by the time I reached 750 metres just below the bealach leading to the final slope to Garbh Bheinn, a rest break was required to take some food and drink to replenish my energy levels. The blue skies had given way to high white clouds but it was not cold and the breeze had remained just that despite the forecast for stronger winds. The final push to the summit was easier apart from a 2-metre drop down a vertical rock face onto a tricky icy gulley that I avoided by climbing upwards over more loose quartzite. The flattish summit was a bit disappointing and the weather had become colder with the views less spectacular than earlier in the day. It was almost 1pm and I had expected to be on my way down by noon. There was time for a few photos and more food before departing.

The route down was so much easier I simply followed a good path down the apex of the ridge from Stob Coire Sgoilte. It zigzagged through the occasional rock outcrops and the heather. Why had I not followed my instincts and ascended by this route instead of following the aborted route up the snow-covered scree slopes? The sky was brightening so I stopped for 10 minutes to soak in the views across to the Mamores and down to Loch Leven with the Pap of Glencoe looking splendid in its white raiment. I was down just before 3pm too tired to contemplate climbing Mam nan Gualainn so I drove home for an early bath as Eddie Waring used to say.

Indyref2

"Oh! What a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive!"

Sir Walter Scott 

Well, that was a birthday present I could have done without. Just when you thought things couldn't get more confused and uncertain the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has announced that there will be another independence vote, indyref2. By doing so she has made investment decisions less likely and released the handbrake on another downhill ride for the Scottish economy. I understand the reasons and share many of the frustrations that she cites including the unwillingness of the Westminster Government to entertain a less strident Brexit strategy. But is it really wise to have a repechage on an issue that has dominated Scottish politics for the last decade? It has been to the exclusion of using the now extensive powers of the Scottish Parliament to make progress on devolved matters. And let's face it there has been a significant deterioration of public services since 2008 most notably health and social care, education, police, and the complete range of community services from sports to libraries, arts, and local community facilities. All of which are devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

At the last referendum, there was an optimistic but unrealistic assumption that North Sea oil and gas would cover the substantial deficit between income and expenditure. That is no longer the case as can be seen from Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland 2015-16, North sea oil and gas revenues peaked between 2006 and 2013 and are now in terminal decline with extraction dipping from 118.7 m tonnes to 66.9m tonnes in 2015.

The net deficit between income and expenditure from 2015 to 2016 was £14.8bn, a very significant 9.5% of the Scottish GDP.  This compares to the UK as a whole having a net deficit of 4.0% over the same period. Even whisky exports fell by 10% between 2012 and 2015. Scotland has not recovered from the last recession as well as other parts of the UK. The most recent evidence on education performance shows that Scotland is now lagging behind England as well as the majority of European countries in school performance. Threats to free schools from local authority control are not the answer. It is the failure of funding to keep pace with inflation, the loss of support services and the failure to train enough teachers as the baby boomer tranche of teachers retire that is at the heart of the problem.

Scotland's economy has stood still or regressed since 2008, this is partly a result of the financial crash, in which the activities of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland played a significant role. It is also because the Scottish Government has focused too much attention on blaming Westminster for all problems whilst failing to provide constructive leadership for the delivery of Scottish public services. The facts are unassailable from unemployment to GDP to average incomes to school performance to health services and housing investment.

Add this to the fact that the economic case for independence is now even less positive than 2014 and it can be seen that indyref2 will be another risky venture that will divert attention and resources away from the things that really matter.

The half-truths and lies that have emanated from both the first minister and prime minister do no credit to either Holyrood or Westminster. I find the dilemma particularly vexing. Whilst the UK government is possibly the worst in my lifetime with policies that contravene all that I hold dear, I believe that it is devolution to the most local level, councils or communities, that is vital to engage and activate citizens and local businesses in shaping future changes. Independence will work against this in a world that requires stronger global alliances to prevent obscene profit-taking by global companies. It is more extensive and independent local governance that is required to set priorities and deliver local services that respond to the needs of localities that the Scottish Parliament should realise is the better means to improve public services by engaging its communities.

The Scottish Government has been a centralising force and has certainly failed to reflect the ambitions that Donald Dewar promised when proposing and delivering the Scottish Parliament. His case for devolution was one of subsidiarity where decision-making was taken as close as possible to communities. He saw the Scottish Parliament devolving many of its powers to the local level not sucking up more from the localities. Instead, powers have gravitated to Edinburgh under successive first ministers. Police, colleges, economic development, health, education, roads, and transport have all been subjected to greater centralisation. 

What is increasingly evident is that centralisation and the emasculation of local governance have resulted in no commensurate improvement in the services. No surprise there, it is almost inevitable that central government is too remote to deliver services in the era of neo-liberal politics. The growth of inspection agencies at a time when the funding and powers of local governance are diminishing has been an own goal. Equally, the transfer of many services to external providers has been exploited for profit, and services have become commercial transactions without the supposed safeguard of competition for the citizens. 

The fundamental tenet of public service delivery is to serve and engage the citizen, this works best when there is a transparency and common understanding of the issues.