We had come to Creag Meagaidh to film a walk for the BBC’s Adventure Show and, by the very nature of such activities, time is rarely on your side. It’s a slow process getting to the top and by the time you reach the summit cairn, film the final piece to camera, it’s usually a fast scuttle back down the hill again before darkness falls.

We had wandered up the length of Coire Ardair from Aberarder, on Loch Laggan-side, climbed up and through The Window, the glacial breach on the corrie’s cliffs, and made our way across the plateau in thick cloud, pretty much the standard route of ascent. It was gone 3.30pm by the time we left the summit but at least we made it back to the excellent path in Coire Ardair before darkness overtook us. It was on this dark descent that I promised myself a return visit to Creag Meagaidh to traverse the mountain, climbing it by the standard route, but descending by the hill’s curving south ridge down to the foot of Loch Moy, a much better way to treat a grand mountain like this.

While “The Window” route to Creag Meagaidh’s summit also offers opportunities to include the other Munros in the range, Carn Liath and Stob Poite Coire Ardair, you can also climb Meagaidh by the a two-and-a-half-mile ridge that curves seductively above the long and sinuous corrie that has been formed by the eroding waters of the Moy Burn. By using two cars you can easily traverse the mountain, making a great mountain day and taking in all the finest features of the hill.

Those features include one of Scotland’s greatest conservation stories, the regeneration of the birch woods at the foot of Coire Ardair. By simply reducing the number of grazing animals, sheer and red, Scottish Natural Heritage gave the trees an opportunity to regenerate naturally without having to erect the hideous protective deer fences that cover so much of our highland landscapes. The agency came in for a lot of criticism at the time, about 20 years ago, but have been proven correct with exploding regeneration of the birches, rowans and aspens and a return to the area of many birds and invertebrates that hadn’t been recorded there before. A real success story that every land manager in Scotland can learn from.

Beyond the rejuvenated birch woods the path (a new one – all the old railway sleepers that once formed this path have been removed) curves up into an altogether wilder landscape. A huge array of vegetated cliffs tower above the black waters of Lochan a’Choire, cliffs that are breached by a high bealach known as The Window, a glaciated gap that offers access to the high summit plateau.

In winter these cliffs of Coire Ardair offer some great examples of the idiosyncracies of Scottish mixed climbing – that mixture being rock, ice, snow and frozen turf! There are even a couple of relatively straightforward gully climbs for those hillwalkers who enjoy such chilly disciplines.

Going through The Window is like passing through a portal into another world. From the cold, dark confines of the corrie you enter a world of open slopes, gazing across Brae Roy towards the Loch Lochy hills before a zig-zagging path makes its way to the summit plateau. A huge pile of stones known as Meg’s Cairn lie here and beyond it a final rise leads to the summit at 3701ft/1128m.

Straddling the mountain spine of Scotland, the ancient Druim Alban, you can clearly identify the watershed with the River Roy draining to the west, and Spey Loch (just hidden from the summit view by an intervening ridge) sourcing the infant Spey as it drains to the Moray Firth in the east. Great hills surround you - the Cairngorms, the Monadh Liath, the Loch Lochy and Glen Garry hills, Ben Nevis, the Grey Corries, the Treig twins and the Geal Charn/Carn Dearg ridge with Ben Alder’s summit peeping above it.

Rather than return the way you came continue now in a south-west direction down a narrower ridge with slopes falling away into the Moy Corrie on your left and into Coire an Laogh on the right. Fropm the summit cairn a line of old fence posts will lead to a rather more permanent navigation aid.

Suddenly and without warning a drystone wall appears, an incongruous sight in such wild surroundings. This is no ordinary broken-down relic of wall, such as you’d see throughout the highlands, but a perfect example of the art of drystane dyking, perfect in its symmetry and form, stretching out down the spine of the curving ridge that falls away below you. I can’t think of any real reason for this wall other than signifying the boundary between Lochaber and Badenoch.

Beyond the end of the wall some steep ground has to be negotiated down the slopes of Creag na Cailliche from where long, tussocky grass slopes lead down to Moy, where hopefully, your car will be waiting for you, the end of a traverse over one of Scotland’s finest mountains.

Map: OS Sheet 34

Distance: About 10 miles

Approx Time: 8-9 hours

Start/Finish: Aberalder on the A86 GR479875; Moy on the A86 GR422827

Route: From Aberarder follow the path up Coire Ardair all the way to Lochan a’ Choire. Climb grassy slopes, then rocky screes in a NW direction to The Window. At the far end of this col turn left and climb the rough path that leads to the plateau, bearing right towards Meg’s Cairn. From there follow a narrowing ridge to the summit. Continue in a SW direction to pick up the ridge between the Moy Corrie and Coire nan Laogh. Follow the wall to Creag na Cailliche, negotiate some steep slopes to the SE and follow the Moy Burn to the rtoad at Moy.

What a marvellous festival it has been at Kendal and congratulations to the new organisers who took on the whole show from Brian Hall and John Porter and actually managed to improve it. Those guys were a hard act to follow.

I spent four days, along with three other judges, Jane Roussou, John Innerdale and Dave Birkett, watching some 84 films. The fact that we managed to come up with the winners of the various categories was a small miracle, but we did it. The Grand Prize, the biggie, was won by Alastair Lee’s marvellous On Sight, a great film that I particularly felt came at a very important time in the history of British rock climbing. Climbing, as we know it, has become incredibly diverse, with bouldering and indoor climbing and competitions taking the focus away from what had been trad adventure climbing - or on-sight climbing. Alastair Lee’s film has re-foccussed on what is really important and the fil itself portrayed all the drama, adventure and challenge of climbing a route, no matter what grade, on sight.

Some folk found it strange that we didn’t give any awards to Catherine Destivelle’s film, Beyond the Summits. In actual fact we thought the photography was superb (although one adventure film maker I spoke to suggested there were too many gimmicks) and the film was let down by two things: we didn’t learn very much about Catherine or what she is up to these days, and the British language commentary was absolutely cringeworthy. God only knows what made the producers hire Brian Blessed to do the commentary but it was a joke and for us, completely spoiled the film. Having said that, the film narrowly won the People’s Choice Award, so perhaps justice was done if we had got it wrong.

Finally, many thanks to all of you who came along to my own talk about the Sutherland Trail. Richard and I were delighted to see so many of you there and we hope you enjoyed the presentation. We certainly enjoyed giving it!

Since first thing on Monday morning I’ve been locked away in a room in Kendal watching films. So far we’ve seen 81 DVD’s. Being a judge at the Kendal Mountain Film Fest does have its compensations but I must admit that if I see another BASE jumping film or downhill ski film I’m going to scream. On the positive side we’ve watched some really marvellous movies and I hope that when we sit down later today to choose the winners we can agree amongst ourselves. There will doubtlessly be some worthy winners.

I believe there are still some tickets available for our AV presentation on The Sutherland Trail on Saturday evening at Kendal Town Hall. Richard Else and I will be there previewing our forthcoming television programme so it would be great to see some of there. The whole Festival looks as though it will be tremendous and I’m certainly looking forward to what is commonly referred to now as the Tribal Gathering of the UK’s outdoor community. See you Saturday!

It hadn’t been the most promising of starts. One of the wheels on my old camper van had chosen an awkward moment to sieze up so plans for a weekend away had to be put on hold. Instead we left home later than we normally would have and arrived in Glen Cannich looking for a short-day option.

The Corbett of Sgorr na Diollaid, straddling the watershed between Glen Cannich and Glen Strathfarrar, looked like a good bet since my wife hadn’t climbed it but a stalking party appeared to be heading in the same direction. I had a chat with the stalker and he confirmed they’d be shooting on the flanks of the hill above Muchrachd. He seemed genuinely sorry but I was happy to back off and go elsewhere – it’s not as if Glen Cannich is short of good walks!

At the head of the glen Loch Mullardoch stretches out west with some fine Munros rising from its north shore. Carn nan Gobhar, 3255 ft, Sgurr na Lapaich, 3773 ft, An Riabhachan, 3704 ft, and An Socach, 3507 ft form a ten mile corrie-bitten and wind-scoured ridge, a remote group of hills that requires a long walk-in along the northern shore of the loch. The ascent of Carn nan Gobhar, high above the source of the Allt Mullardoch, makes a fine circular route of about 8-9 miles from the Mullardoch dam.

I walked this route in the spring of last year when the sun shone on the lower slopes and snow fell on the tops and I recalled views of Glen Strathfarrar in the north and beyond to the big hills of the Monar Forest – Maoile Lunndaidh, Sgurr a’ Chaorachain and Lurg Mhor. I also remembered the close-up views of Sgurr na Lapaich, the most majestic of all the Mullardoch Munros, Robbed of our desired destination for the day we set off for a repeat ascent of Carn nan Gobhar instead.

As we parked the car below the Mullardoch dam and poked our heads outside it became apparent we might not yet get things our own way. It was blowing a gale and the waters of Loch Mullardoch were being whipped up into fiendish squalls. As we left the lochside and followed the course of the in-spate Allt Mullardoch we were mercifully sheltered from the wind but I knew that once we reached the ridge that runs west to Carn nan Gobhar that wind would hit us head-on. A boggy footpath runs up the length of the Allt Mullardoch into Coire an t-Sith, the fairy corrie, so we made the most of it, enjoying the tumultuous swirl and roar of peat-brown waters of the burn before climbing the steeper slopes of Carn nan Gobhar’s eastern top, Creag Dubh.

It had been a pleasant enough climb, despite the boggy underfoot conditions and the showers of monsoon-type rain that broke up the sunny spells. Clad from head to foot in Gore-Tex we were well protected from most of the elements, but even the best of waterproofs wouldn’t stop us being battered and rocked by the wind. On the high ridge that connects Carn nan Gobhar with its outlier, Creag Dubh, 946 metres, the wind was so ferocious it forced us into another unplanned route change. Instead of fighting into the gales we’d go in the opposite direction and allow the wind to blow us along – to the stony summit of Creag Dubh, down easy slopes to a high bealach, then over a couple of un-named subsidiary tops before descending Coire Eoghainn back to the Mullardoch dam and our car.

It was a good plan. The wind didn’t bother us too much now that it was blowing at our backs and we wandered over some un-named tops that were rarely visited, if at all, by the baggers. Once we left the main Carn nan Gobhar ridge there was no sign of man-made paths or tracks, only us and the wind and the occasional roaring of the red deer stags. Below Creag Dubh we took some shelter behind a rather curious 60-metre long dry stone wall and tried hard to figure out what it’s purpose was. Could it be the remnant of some older dividing wall, separating parishes or communities, or could it have been created by trainee drystane-dykers on some high-level training course?

We had no idea, but were grateful enough for the shelter it gave us to enjoy our coffee and piece. Two more cairned summits took us east towards our earlier destination Sgorr na Diollaid and I couldn’t help wonder how the shooters had fared? Like us, they had probably been battered by the wind and rain too. The elements might even have spared the life of some red deer stag.

Easy slopes took us down the russet coloured Coire Eoghainn then, just as I thought we were almost there, steep slopes of old heather and invisible streams offers a purgatorial final half hour. It was a bedraggled pair who reached the road and the short walk back to the car but by this time, with the exercise-induced endorphins flowing, we declared it a memorable walk, if only for the uncertainty of it all.

Map: OS Sheet 25

Distance: About 8 miles

Start/Finish: Mullardoch Dam

Approx Time: 5-6 hours

Route: From the dam at the end of Loch Mullardoch follow the road on the N side for a short distance to a boat hut. Just beyond the hut the road terminates and a rough footpath continues along the N shore of the loch. Follow this path to the bridge over the Allt Mullardoch. Follow the E bank of the stream into Coire an t-Sith. At the end of the path continue N up steeper slopes to the summit of Creag Dubh. Descend SE to a high bealach with a curious wall then continue ESE to a large cairn at spot height 861. Foloow the broad ridge E for a short distance before descending the slopes of Coire Eoghainn back to the start

I hope to perhaps meet some of you at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival in a couple of weeks time. I’ll be there all week, from Sunday to Sunday, as one of the judges for the film competition but on Saturday November 22 Richard Else and I will be showing a preview of our Sutherland Trail BBC film at Kendal Town Hall, as part of the Festival.

We’ll be putting together an audio/visual presentation with several video clips from the film. Essentially the route runs from Lochinver to Tongue and in the course of the route we climbed Suilven, Foinaven and Ben Loyal, although there are a number of other hills close by that could be incorporated into the route.

I also spoke to cavers, geologists, crofters, fishermen and all kinds of folk who both live in Sutherland and who visit the area for recreation. As such I sea kayaked out to Handa Island with kayaking guru Brian Wilson, did a bit of caving at Inchnadamph and even rode some of the route by mountain bike.

The television programme will be broadcast round about Boxing Day and it will appear as a DVD shortly after, available from this website. Hope to see some of you at Kendal - always a bloody good festival.

Cameron outlines the content of the new TGO Magazine

 

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Took a walk around our village this morning in glorious autumn gold and met an old friend. I greeted him with a comment about the lovely weather and he responded by saying what a marvellous morning it was for Barack Obama, the USA and the world?
While I’m inclined to agree, and while I’m delighted that the dark shadow that George Bush has cast across the world will soon be gone I couldn’t help but recall the same feeling of optimism I felt in 1997 when a young, starry-eyed Tony Blair came into power. Let’s hope Obama doesn’t turn out to be as self-serving as Blair was…

I was walking in the Borders and Northumberland all last week and missed all the media hype about the Original Mountain Marathon. I did see one headline that greatly amused me though. 

“Hundreds forced to spend the night on a mountainside,” it said and I couldn’t help but smile. Isn’t that the whole point of a two-day mountain marathon? That report just showed up the lazy journalism and lack of knowledge that produced a grossly sensationalized account of the event. And that, sadly, was the tone of most of the newspapers and radio reports. I was surprised that no-one, (usually a politician), had been wheeled out to say that mountain marathons should be banned!

 I did hear the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 and they might have had a point in the suggestion that the cost of the “perceived” rescue, some £10,000, might have been better spent, but no-one appears to object to the huge amounts of money being spent on those who insist on smoking themselves to death, or drinking themselves to death. Racing Formula One sports cars is inherently much more dangerous than fell running yet this weekend Lewis Hamilton will became a hero if, as expected, he wins the World Championship. More people die in ordinary road-running marathons than in fell races, so why is it that whenever folk choose to enjoy their sport in the mountains the popular press condemns them? If you sail round the world single-handed chances are you will be knighted. Climb a mountain solo and you are accused of being a nutter, risking the lives of mountain rescue personnel.

Or could it be that the 2008 OMM has become a victim of a hard-pressed, under funded and overworked media. When journalists are doing the job of three, which is the current state of play within most of the UK’s newspaper groups, corners will be cut and pressure is always applied to make mundane stories more sensational than they are. The current Jonathon Ross story is a good example of that. Or could it be that the nanny-state in which we live is governed to such a degree that risk-taking, in any form, whether it be in the stock exchange or in the mountains, is condemned by one and all. If that is the case, then God help us all.

The first snows of the winter lay on the tops as I left my old camper van at the end of the single-track road that runs north-east from the head of Loch Creran.

Leaving the rhododendron-choked house of Elleric behind me, I was faced with the prospect of a very wintry looking Beinn Sgulaird, its craggy north ridge rising precipitously above the farm buildings at Glenure. But Sgulaird wasn’t the destination today – I was in search of a route to the summit of its Munro neighbour, Beinn Fhionnlaidh, 3146 ft/959m.

Fhionnlaidh is a rather isolated Munro that lies between the great sea lochs of Loch Creran and Loch Etive. It’s a long whaleback of a mountain that rises fairly gently from the wooded flatlands at the head of Loch Creran to a steep blunt nose that overlooks the densely forested slopes of Glen Etive and this is the route many walkers take. I knew from previous experience that the hill’s summit not only felt appreciably shy and retiring, as the old guidebooks would have it, but positively misanthropic!

On one visit, with my old hiking pal John Hood, we stumbled and struggled into gale-force winds all the way along the ridge to the summit, cursing the mountain gods for the plethora of false tops. Time after time, just as we thought we were climbing the summit slopes another rise would appear in the mist before us. But what I also remembered from that day was the craggy nature of the higher reaches of the hill, the schistose rock interlaced in places by great bands of limestone that provide the basis for some magnificent Alpine plants.

The problem with the route we walked that day was that we returned exactly the same way! I was looking for something a little different, more of a circular route that would add something to what is a fairly impressive hill.

The Scottish Mountaineering Club’s guide to the Munros suggests a route from Invercharnan in Glen Etive, following a firebreak through the forest. This is also the shortest route, but it also required you to return the way you came. Another, very old, route runs across Beinn Trilleachan’s north-east ridge from the head of Loch Etive to Airigh nan Lochan before dropping down the chasm of Glen Ure to the head of Loch Creran. This sketchy path offers a wet but fairly easy route onto the bealach from where you can climb Fhionnlaidh’s southern slopes via its outlier, Meall Gobhar. The big drawback is that this route tends to be fairly boggy and still leaves you with having to retrace your steps back to the start.

Yet another possibility is to climb from Glenure up the length of the Allt Bealach na h-Innsig to Lochan na-h-Uraich from where some steep scrambling will take you onto the summit ridge. A descent via the main ridge back to Glenure offers a fine round trip but I was looking at the possibility of another circular route.

When viewed from the west it’s clear that the long slopes of Beinn Fhionnlaidh are split by the tumbling waters of the Allt Bharainn, creating a separate west-north-west ridge from the main west ridge. A useful forest track from Glenure leads to an isolated house at Barnamuc before leaving the forest to run above the River Creran. Once out of the forest I made my way past some old shielings and onto the lower bracken-covered slopes of this north-north-east ridge where an argocat track gave me a line to follow all the way up the ridge to a high corrie below the steep rocky slopes of Fhionnlaidh’s north-west top.

Some steep scrambling took me through a band of crags to the stony summit ridge and over a couple of rises to the summit itself, with its small cairn. My arrival at the summit coincided with a snow shower so it was no place to linger but as the shower abated on my descent the views began to appear, out the length of Loch Creran to Loch Linhhe and the Sound of Mull. I could see the Paps of Jura and Ben More on Mull and closer at hand the Corbett of Fraochaidh and the twin tops of Beinn a’ Bhheithir dominated the forested pass that runs from Elleric to Ballachulish. The Glen Etive hills all looked impressive with their snowy mantle shining in the sun and in the north the Glen Coe peaks looked grey, wintry and daunting.

I was glad to be heading west, into the sun, down to the snub-nose of Leac Bharainn and grassy slopes back to Barnamuc and the forest track. It probably wasn’t the greatest circular route the mountain has to offer but it gave me the opportunity of discovering a slightly different aspect of the hill’s character, and that’s what it’s all about.

Map: OS Sheet 50

Distance: About 10 miles

Approx Time: 5-7 hours

Start/Finish: The car park at Elleric, beyond the head of Loch Creran

Route: Leave the car park and take the private road to Glenure. Cross the bridge over the river and at the first gate turn left. Pass the farm buildings and continue left, onto the forest track that winds its way through the woods to the house at Barnamuc. Leave the forest and follow some rough Argocat tracks on to the ridge on the north side of the Allt Bharainn. Follow this ridge to a high corrie – Coire Caorainn, and scramble up steep slopes to the S to reach the main ridge. Continue in an E direction to the summit cairn. Return by following the main ridge all the way to the Leac Bharainn and descend grassy slopes in a NW direction to take you back to the forest track. Follow the track back through the forest to Glenure and the road back to Elleric