Beinn Mhanach

Viaduct and Beinn Mhanach

Friday, 26 May 2023

Ascent:      808 metres
Distance:   21 kilometres
Time:         5 hours 4 minutes

Beinn Mhanach    952m     2hrs 49mins

After the longest walk of the year yesterday, John and I decided to tackle Beinn Mhanach, not one of my favourite Munros but on John's to-do-list for his fourth round. The narrow sliver of parking space at Auch along the A82 is no more accommodating than it was in 1990 when I first climbed this hill. On that occasion the walk took in the four other Munros from Beinn a' Chreachain to Beinn Dorain. Today was supposed to be easy but still required 8 kilometres of walking along the Allt Kinglass before facing the formidably steep 600 metre climb on the grassy slopes of Beinn Mhanach. It was my wedding anniversary and this year it would have been 44 years. The walk gave me time to reflect on our happy years. I also realised that in the 1990s the anniversary had coincided with the walking week when John and I would climb 20 or more Munros when our lungs and legs were in better fettle.

It was a hard slog in humid conditions with not even a breeze. A faint path eased its way through the steep slopes. The final hundred metres was a gentler gradient but the concave slope made it seem never ending. It led to a barren featureless summit hosting a pile of rocks that vaguely resembled a cairn. The views were good but the upturned saucer meant the hills were not seen to best effect. The forecast had been for overcast conditions but we were regaled with patches of blue sky. Having decided that the adjacent top of Beinn Chuirn would add no advantage to the day, we retraced our steps to the track, my quads were burning with braking on the steep slopes.

The 8 kilometre walk out was easy going involving about six crossings of the burn. What was surprising was the scale of major construction taking place at Auch on the land before the railway viaduct. New bridges, barns, and fencing, extensive work on the river beds, electricity and broadband cables being trenched by a panoply of earth moving equipment and established contractors. I had assumed it was being driven by some hydro investments but we were told it was the estate that was responsible for an investment that was obviously running into £millions. We presumed the estate must have been bought by a hedge fund or a company the had grand designs for some tourism venture.

We reached the car on the parking strip and were swayed by the passing commercial traffic before we dumped ou sacks, swung the wing mirror out and joined the throng of traffic on the A82.  It was obviously the start of a bank holiday weekend and a good reason to escape the overcrowded highlands. 

Allt Kinglass and Beinn Mhanach

Beinn Dorain and Beinn an Dothaidh from Srath Tarabhan

Beinn Manach summit

Yesterday's hills: Sheasgarnaich & Creag Mhor

Summit towards Beinn an Dothaidh and Achaladair

Creag Mhor and Beinn Sheasgarnaich

Beinn Chaluim and Creag Mhor beyond EU Birch regeneration fencing

Thursday 25 May 2023

Ascent:       1410 metres
Distance:    27 kilometres
Time:          8 hours 2 minutes

Creag Mhor                 1032m     3hrs 12mins
Beinn Sheasgarnaich   1078m     5hrs 13mins

John had suggested a couple of days hillwalking as the weather was fine and he was stepping up his drive to complete his fourth round of Munros. He arrived on Wednesday evening so we could make an early start and we agreed to attempt Creag Mhor and Beinn Sheasgarnaich. It is a longish walk and whilst we would probably have added Beinn Challuim in the halycon days of yore, we knew that as seventy-year-olds those days are sadly behind us .

The day proved the best of the week, a crisp sunny day with a breeze to keep us cool. It took slightly longer to drive up to Glen Lochay and then follow the glen which was resplendent in its late Spring attire. The parking is now about a kilometre short of Kenknock. We were about to set off when John and Gayle, old friends and neighbours from Aberfoyle, arrived with their bikes for the 8 kilometre trek towards Creag Mhor. We chatted for a while before walking along to Kenknock and relishing the fine panorama of hills that enclose Glen Lochay. We took the old private road to Glen Lyon that is now closed for casual traffic and reached the start of the higher level track to the Allt Bad a' Mhaim, the impressive burn that provides an unpathed route to Creag Mhor. 

The track is like the ice age parallel roads elsewhere in the Highlands, remarkably level with sections of EU funded regeneration plantings of Birch and Scots Pine protected by fencing and gates. What a travesty that these environmental schemes that were supported by the EU are now dependent on a UK government that gives as little priority to these schemes as it does to the regulations that made such a difference to beaches and air quality. We followed the burn, a steep climb of 650 metres through mainly long grasses dappled with wild flowers. It was worth it for the wonderful glen and we spent 10 minutes just inhaling the remote beauty of the ravine before traversing up to the ridge of Sron nan Eun. We looked for John and Gayle as we began the final climb to Creag Mhor but they had probably gained 45 minutes by the use of their bikes. They had continued on to Stop nan Clach and watched us from there as we spent 40 minutes having lunch and a break on Creag Mhor. Probably one of our longest stops on a summit but the conditions were mesmeric.

The descent to allow the ascent of Beinn Sheasgarnaich requires a significant detour to the north west to avoid the rocky ramparts to the north. There is then a 400 metre climb to Beinn Sheasgarnaich, up a steep ridge to the fine viewpoint of Sron Triabh and then a gentler climb to the summit. It was almost 5pm when we arrived and again the conditions were sublime so we relaxed and took in the 360° skyline. Time was there for the taking not the walking.

I had contemplated a more direct descent but we elected to head to the track from Glen Lyon which meant a 3 kilometre descent past tiny lochans, over the boggy ground, along the meandering burn and then climbing a few of the fences that protected the new tree plantations. The supposed prize was a 5 kilometre walk down the track to Kenknock and then back to the car. It was almost 8pm as we sauntered along to the car park having enjoyed the perfect evening light but thoroughly exercised by a perfect day on some of Glen Lochay's fine hills.

Allt Bad a' Mhaim

Beinn Challuim from Creag Mhor

Beinn Sheasgarnaich from Creag Mhor

Ben More, Stob Binnen and Cruach Adrian from Creag Mhor

Beinn Mhanach and Beinn a' Chreachain from Creag Mhor

Beinn Sheasgarnaich summit

Looking south from Sheasgarnaich

Lochan below summit of Beinn Sheasgarnaich

An Stuc, Meall Garbh and Meall Greigh

Lochan nan Cat, An Stuc and Meall Garbh

Saturday, 13 May 2023

Ascent:        1278 metres
Distance:     20 kilometres
Time:           5 hours 29 minutes

Meall Greigh        1001m      1hr   58 mins
Meall Garbh         1123m      2hrs  57mins
An Stuc                1117m      3hrs  32mins

I had planned to walk the Lairig Ghru earlier in the week with John and Keith. My rucksack was packed the night before and I planned to arrive in Aviemore by 9am. We would walk through the Lairig Ghru camp in Glen Derry and then return via Lairig an Laaoigh, the Fords of Avon and Ryvoan to Loch Morlich. Alas, an electrical fault on the car: no information readings or radio, meant I had to abandon the trip after 5 miles, it was 6:45am and a public holiday so no local garage would be open. It was Friday before the car was repaired.

Saturday was to be fine so I planned to climb the three Munros at the eastern end of the Ben Lawers range that contains 7 Munros. I had already climbed the other 4 on what would be a sixth round. I am not attempting another round but old habits are difficult to dispel. I left at 7:15 a.m. and was walking an hour later from the Ben Lawers Hotel on Loch Tay.  Several new houses have been built where the road crosses the impressive Lawers Burn. We had parked on the waste ground of some derelict buildings on our first foray to Meall Greigh in 1991. It was now the splendid garden of a new stone-built cottage.

The initial walk starts at the back of the horn carver's cottage and climbs quite steeply alongside the burn. It was a dull morning but the cloud cover was expected to burn off by mid-morning and it was good to climb in the cooler weather. The birch woods were sparkling with their neon green leaves making you think you were in Finland. There are a couple of stiles to cross before you enter the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve and open moorland. There was little to see initially, the hills were lost in the morning cloud cover. After the shielings a path forks off to the right, and 15 minutes later the cloud cover dissipated, I was confronted by the challenge of the steep flank of Meall Greigh. I began to pick up some pace having passed a couple on the early part of the climb and, as the cloud disappeared, I could see a walker reaching the top of the steep path that emerges on the top of Sron Mhor, the outlier of Meall Greigh.

The final kilometre to the summit of Meall Greigh is a pleasant walk on a well-defined path that rises at a more clement incline. The sun had burnt off the cloud across the Ben Lawers ridge but there was a thin layer of cloud shrouding Loch Tay below. The skylarks were providing a soundtrack that would probably win the Eurovision if only they didn't have such drab-coloured feathers. A ptarmigan crossed my path and presumably made a diversion to distract me before returning to its nest. The summit cairn was a loose pile of stones that I tidied for a couple of minutes before sitting in the morning sun, taking a drink and sending some photographs. Life was good and as I was leaving a young woman arrived at the summit asking if this was the real summit. There is another cairn a few hundred metres away but it is 8 metres lower and on the route across to Meall Garbh, She seemed reassured.

It is an easy and pleasant descent to the bealach, Lairig Innein. Just before I reached the start of the 290-metre climb to Meall Garbh a couple of female hill runners passed me, they were talking incessantly on their descent. The air was so still that I had heard them approaching when they were half a kilometre away. I envied them as they began the climb but managed to lose not that much distance before they reached the ridge and galloped away. The lone walker ahead had arrived at the summit just ahead of me and we chatted for ten minutes before setting off for An Stuc, it was to be his 70th Munro, a quarter of the way around. He had that infectious enthusiasm for the Munros that seems endemic when you reach this number of Munros and he shared his plans for the year ahead. He also had an enthusiasm for cycling and cricket so our conversation was non-stop as we climbed the steep loose gulley that defines An Stuc as a difficult hill. It had only just passed noon as we reached the summit and there were another dozen walkers scattered around the cairn. They had come across from Ben Lawers, the summit of which was heaving with walkers. The visibility was excellent although clouds had begun to form in the west.

After a lunch break, I left my acquaintance who was going to take his time on the descent and descended to Bealach Dubh. I followed a winding and steep path down Ravens Gulley, the final patches of snow were visibly melting in the midday sun. There were three other walkers using the same route that I passed on reaching the boggy path that meanders to the south of Lochan nan Cat. The views back to An Stuc and Meall Garbh were exceptional, the corrie is probably the wildest location on the Ben Lawers ridge. It is a couple of kilometres of extremely boggy conditions to the shielings from where a track contours below Ben Lawers. A few hundred metres along the track an excellent grassy path is marked by a cairn and descends alongside the Lawers Burn. It eventually zig zags down to a footbridge and then you are on the final couple of kilometres leaving the Nature Reserve and following the birch forest back to Lawers. It had been a good outing on a near-perfect day, I had felt lethargic at the start but picked up pace as the day progressed. I was home before 4 p.m. and celebrated with a beer and a bath before starting to watch Eurovision. After the first three efforts, I decided that writing up a blog post and an early night would be preferable.

Meall Greigh ascent

Ben Lawers, An Stuc and Meall Garbh from Meall Greigh

Loch Tay from Meall Greigh

Ben Lawers, An Stuc and Meall Garbh from Meall Greigh

Ben Lawers from An Stuc

An Stuc above Lochan nan Cat

Lawers Burn, An Stuc and Meall Garbh

The Shielings and East Mealour

Route: Anti-clockwise

A Coronation fit for History

As Ronnie Corbett would say, "I know my place". It felt like that over the Coronation weekend as we watched the magnificent or grotesque (you decide) processions to and from Westminster Abbey and the ceremony inside the Abbey. They were finely performed by a cast of thousands who had taken the King's shilling to become players in the pomp and circumstance of King Charles III's Coronation for a slowly evolving monarchy. Over the centuries the monarchy has transgressed from the embodiment of absolute power to a soap opera that keeps on giving. What has not changed is the embedded entitlement that filters down through society and is maintained today by the subtle inclusion of celebrities to ensure that it thrives through the lens of a largely supportive press and media. In reality, it is a marriage of inherited elitism with populist culture. 

I had not intended to watch the Coronation and assumed it would take place on Monday, a public holiday. But it was raining and Gregor, who was staying overnight, switched on the TV on Saturday morning. In the rain-filled streets of London, thousands of people were camping out along the Mall, and others were arriving on early morning trains and buses. The sultry voice of Kirsty Young was interviewing the said celebrities who had been courted by the monarch. It rained on the parade as thousands of relentlessly rehearsed soldiers, sailors, horses, and carriages infiltrated by Bentleys, and Range Rovers, all in uniform or sparkingly clean, clipped and clopped along the Mall and down Whitehall. Images were broadcast to the nation and the world of a happy and glorious country where the monarchy has been long to reign over us as well the other parts of the empire that have not yet seceded.

The seating arrangements inside Westminster Abbey reflected a pecking order that has stood the test of time. The Royal Family and their extended cast of grandees along with world leaders, the leaders of armed forces, the various religions, then a list of celebrities that have featured in recent editions of the Tatler or Vanity Fair or been cajoled in some of the King's charitable causes. And in the stalls the charity workers, community stalwarts and NHS staff as a reward for looking after the King's subjects.

The service itself was a jumble sale of centuries-old traditions and strange rituals with crowns, sceptres, orbs, oaths and holy oils that mingled with some superb musical interludes performed by orchestras and choirs. The service was supposed to last 90 minutes but with extra time lasted 2 hours. The invitees were to take their seats an hour or so before the King arrived and had to wait for twenty minutes or so after he was led out by the leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, one of the very few key players not looking like an escapee from a pantomime. There was no half-time for a butter pie and a visit to the toilet and like most city centres nowadays, the Abbey has no public toilets so aged bladders were at bursting point.

I tried to reflect on what the Coronation had done to influence my perception of the monarchy. King Charles has in some ways exceeded my expectations since his arrival on the throne. Mainly by his focus on climate change, young people,  and his charitable works. However, despite the claims of a slimmed Coronation and invitations to the Great British public at the expense of MPs and their partners, it didn't feel like that. It was a hotchpotch of elaborately enacted customs, hand-held weaponry, and stilted readings whilst our multi-layers of leaders showed docile deference to the King. A costume drama that even Netflix couldn't afford to make. According to the Government, it is not possible to give the cost of the Coronation before the event but estimates of about £100m have been made. If its anything like the Covid Test and Trace estimates this could be massively exceeded and let's not forget that an extra public holiday reduces the GDP of the UK by 0.4%

In this respect, the monarchy is still a massive cost to the country and it is unwilling to be transparent about its wealth and how this is acquired or managed. Despite the efforts of the working Royals to generate goodwill by carrying out numerous engagements, they still seem stage-managed to show the status of the monarchy. A stark contrast with the Nordic and Dutch monarchies which are more informal and have a far lighter carbon footprint. They are more in keeping with an egalitarian culture that the UK only pretends to observe.

Spot the Orb competition

Wansfell

Lakeland scene at High Skelghyll

Monday, 1 May 2023

Ascent:      510 metres
Distance:   10.5 kilometres
Time:         2 hours 31mins

Wansfell Pike      482m              39mins
Wansfell              487m        1hr 05mins

It was the end of the May weekend. We left the Airbnb at Skelwith Fold at 10:00am and sauntered up the nearby hill of Latterbarrow that overlooks Windermere. I had arranged to meet my old walking friend Mark, who lives in Ambleside at lunchtime. He had already walked over Loughrigg and Silver Howe and it was his birthday. After a catch up we decided to walk up the nearby Wansfell from his house. It would give us a chance to chat about past walks, politics, families and assorted other topics including battery storage and podcasts.

Mark has climbed all 214 Wainwright hills 21 times and has walked on the Lakeland Fells almost every day since retiring to Ambleside 8 years ago. He knows every path so we could concentrate on talking, route finding was axiomatic. As we were discussing the Rory Stewart/Alistair Campbell podcast that interviewed Tony Blair, an aggressive walker close to us shouted that Blair was a terrible man as I would know if I had ever met him. I retorted that I had had lunch with him and that compared to the last five Prime Ministers, he was a genius. He hurled some more abuse at me before accelerating away on the climb as we continued to blether but kept him at a close distance. 

We reached Wansfell Pike shortly behind him, he hurried off for the Wainwright summit of Wansfell, 2 kilometres away and 7 metres higher. We followed as I was keen to climb the Wainwright and I was looking forward to extending the argument, not so much to praise Blair as to inveigh against subsequent prime ministers who have brought us to the present crisis. It was quite boggy, Mark had not anticipated taking in Wansfell as well.  He suggested an alternative route off the hill to avoid returning by the way we had come. Our adversary reached the summit slightly ahead but instead of returning and having to pass us, he diverted across a boggy section below the path. 

The weather had been improving so we took some time to scan the skyline towards the line of hills that were a Roman high street and culminate in the eponymous High Street. We took a circuitous route back to Ambleside dropping down above Troutbeck to High Skelghyll. It extended the walk and gave us more time to continue our perpetual conversation. It was after 4pm when I set off home, pleased to be travelling north and avoiding the exodus of bank holiday traffic heading back from the Lake District to the English cities.

Mark on a charge towards Wansfell

Looking northeast from Wansfell to High Street