The Rough Bounds of Knoydart

I’M involved in an exciting project with GORE-TEX Outdoor Products this summer and autumn which I’m really looking forward to. The company is offering young people an opportunity to share their outdoor passions by taking part in a variety of expeditions throughout Europe.

The GORE-TEX^® Experience Tour is inviting young people from all over Europe to log on to Facebook and apply for a chance to take part in a variety of outdoor challenges.

Young outdoor enthusiasts from all over Europe are being invited to apply for the chance to learn and discover more about the great outdoors. Whether it is the first ascent of an untouched summit; filming an outdoor documentary in the Scottish wilderness; a photo expedition to Norway’s Lofoten archipelago or manufacturing a legendary trekking-shoe each unique experience will see young people standing toe to toe with those who are a little longer-in-the-tooth or a genuine greybeard - like myself!

GORE-TEX^® has mobilised a group of outdoor specialists from different countries who are all ready, willing and able to share their passion, knowledge and experience. By uniting the young outdoor community with older, more experienced individuals, the project aims to uncover fresh new attitudes and develop innovative ideas that push the boundaries and ultimately enhance the development of outdoor sports.

The professionals include four-time world champion ice climber Ines Papert, extreme climber Robert Jasper, internationally acclaimed shoemakers Lukas und Lars Meindl, and myself. My project will be to impart as much knowledge about wilderness living as I can to two young people during a week long expedition to Knoydart, on Scotland’s west coast.

As such, the GORE-TEX^® Experience Tour is looking for two young and enthusiastic individuals who are fit, tough, keen to learn, open minded and up for a challenge. The successful candidates will take part in a week long expedition where they will discover what remote really means. They will work together with myself to learn all the skills they need to backpack in the wilds of Scotland as lightweight as possible.  More importantly I want to try and impart what knowledge I have about wild land connection and learning from the landscape itself. The idea is to discover what wildness can teach us, in the hope we can take such knowledge back into our everyday lives and so learn to live more in harmony with the land around us.

The youngsters will record their experiences on film and on the last 2 days of the multi-day trek they will step out on their own – video camera in hand – and make their own diary of their days and nights alone in Knoydart. The whole project will be filmed by the UK’s leading adventure film maker - Richard Else, and a DVD will be produced covering every aspect of the journey.

So, if you’re between 18 and 25, and want to learn more about lightweight backpacking and living in harmony with wild landscapes, log on to the Gore-Tex Experience Tour Facebook page and tell us why we should choose you to come to Knoydart with us.

Life’s a beach at Husinish, west Harris

GOT home after a week of rain and gales on the Outer Hebrides. Despite the weather we managed to complete the rather loose itinerary we had prepared which included walking to Reinigeadal and climbing Clisham as a recce for a BBC programme we’re filming this summer. Also managed to squeeze in a visit to the excellent Hebridean Celtic Music Festival and saw Runrig, along with about 4000 others in the Big Blue Tent in the Lews Castle grounds in Stornoway. Runrig were superb, it was just a pity about the Hebridean weather the rest of the time.

Back across to Harris later this week to start filming our Hebridean Journey, which should be broadcast round about Christmas. It looks like being a combo cycle/walking journey. I tried walking the length of the Hebrides a few years ago but there was just too much road walking involved in connecting up the good bits. Makes sense to use a bike for the long road sections. Despite that, we’ll still have some good walks, including the 26 mile Harris Walkway which I had the pleasure of officially opening away back in 2001. We’ll also take a long trek north of Clisham through the hills of North Harris and visit the old village of Kinlochresort.

But in between all of that I’ll be helping present a big rock climbing outside broadcast from Stron Ulladale. Put it in your diary now - Saturday August 28, BBC 2 Scotland and Sky Channel 990. Tim Emmett and Dave MacLeod will be attempting a new route on the extravagantly overhanging cliffs of Stron Ulladale and there will be lots of pieces about the Hebrides in general, including film of the two lads climbing five new routes on five different islands on five consecutive days. I haven’t seen the films of that yet but I’m told it’s brilliant.

Standing stones at Callanish, and below, a dour day on An Clisham

THERE’S an old folk song that says: “Cairn O”Mount lies bleak and bare and cauld lies Clachnaben.” The hills almost lived up to their reputation last weekend but managed to redeem themselves at the last moment.

We were heading across for a weekend at the Stonehaven Folk Festival and I thought we’d stop en route for a wee leg stretch on Clachnaben near Banchory in lower Deeside. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t at its best and it rained and blew, blew and rained for much of the way. However, on the way down the hill things improved and by the time we parked the camper on the summit of the Cairn O’ Mount road the wind had blown much of the cloud away, the rain had stopped and it looked as though it would be a pleasant evening. What we didn’t expect was the spectacular sunset over Clachnaben, the hill we’d climbed earlier in the day in the cloud and rain.

The Stonehaven Festival was a huge success and congratulations must be given to the organisers for getting a great programme together. We didn’t get too involved - we only had Saurday afternoon and evening, but we spent it well. A great session in the afternoon, hosted by Danny Couper and Arthur Johnstone was a real treat and it was good to catch up with dome old pals - Freida Morrison, who I’ve collabarated with on various radio programmes over the years and Jane Fraser, who I haven’t seen for donkeys. I used to deputise for her on her weekly folk music programme from BBC Aberdeen. Good to see my old pal Andy Hall, who was photographing the event and others who I had met during the years we ran the Badenoch Folk Club.

Highlight of the weekend for me was the Show of Hands concert but unfortunately one half of the band, Phil Beer, has taken ill and had to pull out. His band partner Steve Knightley did a solo gig instead and he was absolutely superb. This guy must be one of the country’s top singer/songwriters and he took the hall by storm. Must make an effort to book another Show of Hands concert before too long.

Home yesterday but we’ll be away again on Wednesday - over to Harris and Lewis to research a couple of television projects to be filmed later this summer and to take in the Hebridean Music Festival. I already have tickets for the RunRig concert in Stornoway on Saturday. Looking forward to that very much, also to renewing aqucaintance with Clisham.

I had just walked over the rocky tops of Bla Bheinn on the Isle of Skye, descended to the shores of Loch Slapin and thought it was time for a well deserved break. I wandered round the head of the loch, agitating a flock of oyster catchers who didn’t mind showing their annoyance with some high-pitched shrieking, and stopped in the shade of some trees as I approached the village of Torrin.

Lying on a bed of Durness limestone, which accounts for the surrounding greenery, there’s been a community here at Torrin for over 2000 years and our Celtic ancestors would have treasured the fertility of the place.

I’ve been busy trying to finish writing a book about the long walk I undertook through the Isle of Skye last year and at various times I’ve found myself caught up in some old Celtic insights. For example, the Celts believed one of the portals to their “otherworld” was through wild animals, which perhaps explains why we become so excited when we meet a wild beast face to face in the wilds, be it a deer, a marten or a fox. And now here in Torrin I found myself absorbed by the beauty of the surrounding woodlands.

The word ‘druid’ comes from the Celtic words for oak tree – duir, and knowledge – wid. The oak has a special significance – it was thought to be a portal to sacred knowledge. Druids also tended to meet in woodland groves and they often slept on beds made from rowan (which was sacred to the triple-goddess Brigid, and used as a protection against enchantment) to try and induce prophetic visions. Hazel was used in much the same way.

Druids, who have been much romanticised in modern times, were simply a hereditary class of priests and magicians who characterised early Indo-European societies. They were the Celtic equivalent of the Indian Brahmins or the Iranian magi, and like them specialised in the practices of magic, sacrifice and augury. They were the wise men, the councillors of the Celtic world.

The wood of various trees all had a function in the Celtic world, sometimes practical, sometimes symbolic. For example the sap from the birch was used to treat rheumatism and, with an accompanying spell and chant or two, was even thought to promote fertility. The yew, even today found in churchyards throughout the country, was associated with death and re-birth. The first three letters of the Celtic alphabet were associated with trees – Beith (birch) Luid (rowan) and Nuin (ash) and when a tribe cleared a tract of land they always left a tree in the middle. The symbolic power of the tree was very important, and it was here, below the spreading branches, that their chiefs would be inaugurated.

Here was a connection with both heaven and the underworld – the branches reaching to the sky, connecting us to the power of the elements and the ever changing heavens, while the roots extended far below the earth to whatever powers the ‘otherworld’ could provide.

The special relationship the Celts had with trees was recognised by Alexander Carmichael in his Carmina Gadelica, a collection of prayers, incantations, runes and blessings, collected from the Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland between 1855 and 1910.

“Choose the willow of the streams

Choose the hazel of the rocks

Choose the alder of the marshes

Choose the birch of the waterfalls

Choose the ash of the shade

Choose the yew of resilience

Choose the elm of the brae

Choose the oak of the sun”

Amidst the general starkness and rock and water-dominated landscape of Skye, this area around Torrin really is something of an oasis. I chose an ash, the ash of the shade, and sat below it, allowing its essence to seep into my own being, expanding my own mind to the skyward reach of the uppermost branches. And did I gain any divine revelation? Was I aware of my spirit being refreshed and revitalised? Well, not exactly, I was still a little bit footsore but it was a great feeling to sit in the shade for a while, at least until the midges drove me on. The good old midges – they have a habit of bringing you back to earth with a bump.

First of all a huge thanks to everyone who has bought a copy of the first series of Wild Walks. These are the monthly mountain walks I do for BBC Scotland’s Adventure Show. I usually head out with cameraman Paul Diffley, of Hot Aches fame (check out his terrific climbing DVD’s) and we climb a hill with me blethering about the associated tales, legends and geology of the hill and past experiences of climbing it. We’ve had some great days out and it’s really good to be able to share our little expeditions with viewers.

Wild Walks 1 went down really well and we’ve now put together the second series. From Schiehallion to the Isle of Skye there are mountain walks suitable for all ages and experience.

In this second collection I climb the Buachaille Etive Mor in Glen Coe; Ben Starav in Glen Etive; Braeriach in the Cairngorms; Beinn Tianavaig on the Isle of Skye; Beinn Alligin in Torridon; Schiehallion in highland Perthshire; Creag Meagaidh on the Lochaber/Badenoch boundary; Stuc an Lochain in Glen Lyon and A’Chailleach in the Monadh Liath on snowshoes! We’re now workin g on Wild Walks 3!!!

You can check out the full range of our DVD’s in the SHOP on this website.