The damp, if well sheltered camp at Melgarve

MAY bank holiday. Weather forecast was good so ideal for a little run-out to test drive the bike with all the camping gear I’ll be taking to France next week for our La Manche to the Med tip.

Last year on our LEJOG trip Hamish and I stayed in B&B’s. It worked well. The B&B’s were invariably excellent, we ate out every night and we didn’t have to carry much gear. How much does a credit card weigh? But for the French trip we thought we’d camp most of the time, and perhaps stay in a gite or something similar every third night or so to charge up batteries, take a shower etc. I don’t know about Hamish but I enjoy camping and even after 40-odd years backpacking I still get a kick out of putting the tent up and crawling in to cook a meal and falling asleep to the sound of birdsong. Other than that I’ve just been voted in for another term as President of the Backpackers Club and since the club caters for bikepackers as well as backpackers it’s only right that I should camp on any trip like like.

But bikepacking isn’t quite like backpacking. Over the past few years I’ve managed to pare the weight of my backpacking gear down to very acceptable standard. On normal weekend trip the base pack weight of my gear – that’s everything other than food and water, is in the region of 7-8 lbs/3-4kg but when bikepacking there’s a temptation to carry more gear in the false hope that it’s the bike that’s carrying the weight, and not me. It’s easy to conveniently forget the fact that no matter how good the bike is my feeble, ageing body is the engine that propels it!

That’s not helped by the fact that the makers of bike touring panniers appear to  have been bypassed by the ultralight fashion that has taken the outdoor industry by storm. My two Ortlieb Bike Packer Classic rear panniers weigh 2.08kg, and that’s each. Almost 9 pounds before I put any gear into them! And that’s before I consider the weight of my front panniers which are another 1.4kg each. If someone was to suggest I use a backpack that weighs 9 lbs empty I’d laugh in his face.

Now, to be fair, I haven’t carried out an exhaustive search to see if there are lighter panniers on the market. I suspect there are, although my old Karrimor panniers are just as heavy as the Ortliebs, so what I have to do now is make sure I’m not tempted into carrying too much of everything else. In that mode, I’ve carefully chosen my camping gear for a balance between weight and practicality and that’s what I wanted to discover on my little shakedown trip over the May Bank holiday.

May Bank holiday. Huh. You’d expect decent weather wouldn’t you? After all it’s been a long cold winter and the spring has been non-existent. You’d the think the weather gods would feel sorry for us and give us some sunshine over the holiday weekend. Well the gods that look after Badenoch and Strathspey must have a mean streak because it’s been lousy. No sooner than I had set my wheels in motion that the rain started. Not just a little spring shower but that wet, drizzly stuff that soaks you through, especially when it’s propelled by what feels like a gale force wind.

The Ridgeback Panorama almost fully laden. Front panniers still to go on

Of course the wind was in my face. Usually is, and by the time I had gone 10 miles I felt as though I was soaked through. I’ve been using a Montane Velocity jacket, made from Pertex Shield, and to date it’s worked beautifully but today I felt damp and chilled inside it. I was wearing a pair of Altura full length trousers (I think they’re made for mountain biking) as I’ve been searching for decent cycling leg wear other than lycra, but they were soaked through in no time at all and my gloves felt squishy and slippery on the handlebars. It wasn’t a day for cycling.

Fortunately I wasn’t going far. About 20 miles up to Melgarve at the start of the Corrieyairack Pass. When I arrived there were about 50 red deer stags milling around, looking as wet and miserable as me. A band of trees gave me some shelter from the wind and a bit of a view and I had the tent up in minutes, my new MSR Carbon Reflex1. I had been a little worried because this is an inner erecting first tent and I was scared it would get soaked through before I got the flysheet over it but I guess the experience I have from my old MSR Hubba helped. The inner stayed dry.

My new NeoAir Xlite was blown up pretty quickly and the accompanying Thermrest Antares sleeping bag was unstuffed for its stuff sack. Although I won’t be taking it to France I was using my beloved titanium Caldera Cone meths stove and in no time at all I have water boiling for a brew.

Despite the patter of rain I had a good night and everything worked as it should. I suspect the Antares sleeping bag might be a bit on the warm side and I found it to be slightly voluminous and a bit bulky when packed. Might need a re-think on the sleeping bag. The problem is my other lightweight bag, a Rab Neutrino 200, only has a half length zipper and if the nights are warm in France I think I’d prefer something that allowed me to unzip the whole thing and use it as a quilt. I wish I knew what the weather was going to be like over the next few weeks!

I think we’ll be cooking by gas so I’ll take my Whisperlite gas stove. It’s not the lightest on the market but I do prefer a ground hugging stove as opposed to something you screw into a cartridge and then have to balance a pot on. A titanium MSR Kettle, a couple of water bladders and my usual knife/fork/spoon will complete the kitchen. Not to forget my 35 years old Sierra Cup which doubles as a plate and whisky sipper!

As regards clothing them simplicity will be the key. Although it looks silly on me I can’t find a practical alternative to lycra cycling shorts. I’ve tried some Altura padded boxer shorts to wear under ordinary shorts but they are not as comfortable as regular cycling shorts. I might take one pair of bib tights in case it’s chilly and I have a very nice Scotland/Lion Rampant cycling jersey from Impsport to wear. I’ve been told that if the French think I’m from Scotland and not England then the positive feelings from the Auld Alliance will kick in – it’s worth a try!

As well as my Shimano touring shoes I’ll take a pair of sandals for evening wear, or perhaps even a pair of Crocs. Although they do look hellish and are not particularly comfortable they are extremely lightweight. Evening dress will be further enhanced by a pair of Rab trousers, a couple of tee shirts and a lightweight Mammut soft-shell.

I’ve no ideal what the final weight will be but I’ll also need to carry my bigstrawberry8 juicer (to recharge iPhone, camera battery etc), and my iPad so I can write up my daily blog. I’ll also take my little Leica d-Lux6 compact camera, a little camera with an amazing lens quality. A couple of water bottles and that, as they say, will be that!

If anyone has a good alternative to lycra pants please let me know…

This spring I’ve been working with VisitScotland to develop Scotland’s Natural Trail as part of the Year of Natural Scotland.

My interest is simple - I want to get as many people as possible to visit some of the natural treasures we have in Scotland whether they be fabulous landscapes, sites of historical significance, or places where folk can try some of Scotland’s great produce. In short, we have a huge amount to offer visitors in Scotland and not just great mountains!

VisitScotland is also organising a competition, the prize of which is a 5-day tour of Scotland’s Natural Trail with Rabbie’s. I’ll be on hand some of the time to talk about Natural Scotland and offer advice.

You can enter the competition here: http://www.visitscotland.com/win/dailymail/?utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=surprise&utm_source=Explore+Scotland’s+National+Trail+Cameron+McNeish&utm_content=Explore+Scotland’s+National+Trail+Cameron+McNeish

And if you want to discover more about Scotland’s Natural Trail you’ll find it here: http://www.visitscotland.com/e-brochures/natural-trail

IT has felt like a really long haul but I suspect that’s just because winter has been so drawn out. Here in Newtonmore the forecasters are predicting snow before the weekend and with the cold winds, long spells of bitter weather and so much snow on the ground since January it’s been difficult to get in a good sustained stretch of cycling training.

Interesting to look back at this time last year when Hamish and I cycled LEJOG. The weather was awful then too! Day after day of north winds, cold and a lot of rain. We even had snow on our last day. Part of the reason for choosing to go to France this year, and a month later, is in the hope the weather might be a bit more summery. And the wine too, of course…

Essentially the kind of cycle touring I enjoy calls for a lot of long slow rides but with one or two exceptions most of my rides have been around the 30-40 mile mark. Hamish and I did go out last week and cycled from Glen Coe to Oban and back, a total of 77 miles, and that felt OK so we’re fairly confident the mileage in France won’t kill us. From now until we leave in mid-May I’ll be trying to get in a few longer rides, and I hope to get in a couple of overnight bikepacking trips, just to break in the gear so to speak.

Last year, on LEJOG, we were glad to book in at hotels, B&B etc every night. We didn’t carry camping gear at all but I was rather keen this year to make our French trip as much of a cycle-camping tour as anything. After all it’s what I do and I’m still, after all these years, President of the Backpackers Club. So what kit will I be using, and how lightweight can we go?

Over the past few years I’ve become quite fond of my MSR Hubba tent, a double skinned, single person unit that packs up really small and weighs under 3 lbs. For this trip I’ll be using the latest in the line of Hubba designs, a Carbon Reflex 1, which is essentially the Hubba design with carbon fibre poles to reduce the weight. The tent I’m using weighs in at about 2.5 lbs, or just over 1kg.

I really like this tent. It’s freestanding and the little pole on the top, which crosses the main semi-hooped pole, gives some extra headroom in the tent itself. It’s very similar in design to the old Phoenix Phreerunner, which shows how advanced Ken and Alan of Phoenix were in their tent design back in the eighties and early nineties. Internal space isn’t massive, but I’ll only be sleeping in it and not holding a ceilidh so it’ll be fine and besides, there is a good large porch, certainly big enough to take both my panniers and still leave room to cook.

I’m well aware that you can buy lighter tents and that tarps are even lighter still but we’ll be camping mostly in camp sites so I want an element of privacy. A double skinned job is best for that and many tarp models are nowadays dependent on using trekking poles to suspend the fabric. We won’t be using trekking poles on our cycling trip and I don’t fancy trying to suspect a tarp from a bike frame…

Inside the tent I’ll be using the latest ThermaRest air mat - the NeoAir XLite. This is well shaped, almost coffin-shaped, and weighs in at a respectable 350g, which is a bit of a saving on my usual ThermaRest mat. I’ve been using an older, thicker model of the NeoAir mat for a couple of years and have become used to the comfort of it, although it took me a little while to trust it. That’s largely because the first one I bought went down on me, if you pardon the phrase, on my first night out. That did little to give me confidence in it. Anyway, this newer generation NeoAir is lighter and more packable and I’ll try it out a couple of times before I commit myself to it.

Something else I’ll be trying out is a new ThermaRest sleeping bag. The Antares bag has zoned insulation - ie most of top, less at the sides and even less on the bottom. Two elasticated straps (called SynergyLink Connectors to be really technical, or a bit geeky, whatever you like) allow you to slip the NeoAir mat in between keeping your bag centres and eliminating potential problems with sliding, twisting and cold spots. Problem is I like to turn from side to side in the course of a night and with this set-up I’ll find myself turning around inside the bag rather than have the whole bag turn with me.

However, I’ll try it out on my shakedown trip and see how I get on with it. If it doesn’t work out I have a lovely little Rab Neutrino 200 that I’ll take instead. The Antares is a little heavier than the Neutrino, and weighs in at alb 15oz/890 gms. It has 750+fill Goose Down and is a little wider at the shoulders than the Neutrino.

Not sure yet what I’m going to cook on but I’ll certainly be carrying my MSR Titanium Kettle as a single pot. I’m greatly tempted to take my lovely titanium Caldera Cone meths stove but I’m unsure how easy it is to get meths, or denatured alcohol, in France. I suspect we’ll end up carrying several screw-on gas containers (we won’t be flying to France so we can carry some gas from Blighty) and using some boring old lightweight gas stove. Ho-hum…

But maybe we won’t do much cooking… What’s the point of travelling through the world’s most famous gastronomique country and cooking up flavoured pasta from a packet every night? I suspect we’ll eat out as often as possible and just brew up in the morning. Which makes me think - should I carry one of those new fresh coffee thingies? Fresh coffee and croissants and freshly baked baguettes for breakfast?

And finally the best news of all. Hamish has bought himself a new saddle - a Specialized job - which he reckons has solved his sore bum problem and might, with a bit of luck, eliminate his need to slow down every hundred metres to de-clench is buttocks. There is nothing worse than slip-streaming someone only to have to do an emergency stop every time he decides he has to brake and de-clench. Slip-streaming takes on a whole new excitement under such conditions. Let’s hope the new saddle is a success!

SOME news from Mountain Aid, an organisation I think is well worth supporting, especially after this winter’s dreadful tally of mountain fatalities.

“Dear Mountain Aid supporters,

WELL, after a lot of faffing around, much uncertainty and a general acknowledgment that our familiarity with France is pretty scatty we’ve finally hit upon a route that might just take us from La Manche, the English Channel, to the shores of the Meditterranean.

Part of the problem, and this vividly portrays my lack of knowledge of all things French, was that I spent ages pouring over maps looking for a channel town called La Manche. It took a long time before I realised that La Manche is French for The Channel. Doh…

We then decided to use the European Bike Bus, get it to drop us off at Calais then pick us up a fortnight later in Montpellier. Why Montpellier? Well, it’s the only Med coast town I’ve been to. I know there was an airport so if things went wrong and we missed the bus we could always fly home. Well, that’s the theory.

As it happened we decided we’ve like to take a coastal route for much of the way, down through Normandy to Brittany then down the Atlantic coast to Bordeaux. The Canal de Garonne and Canal de Midi would then take us across country to the Med at Sete, just south of Montpellier.

This all looked pretty good until we worked out how long it would take us – much more than our allotted fortnight, so we cut short the northern section and decided to sail from Portsmouth to St Malo, and cycle from there.

This then, is our proposed route. If anyone has knowledge of this route we’d love to hear your thoughts. We’ll be using touring bikes with panniers, carrying camping gear and mix camping with B&B accommodation.

Day 1/Thursday 16^th May

Portsmouth to St Malo – Brittany Ferries 20.15 (Check-in 60 mins before)

Day 2/Friday 17^th May 21 miles/35km

Arrive St Malo 08.15. Mont St Michel etc. Cycle to Dinan

Day 3/Saturday 18^th May 38 miles/63km

Dinan to Questembert on V3. Dinan-Plouasne-Mauron-Ploermel-Questembert

Day 4/Sunday 19^th May 46miles/77km

Questembert to St Nazaire. Questembert-Muzillac-La Roche Bernard-St Joachim-Saint Nazaire

Day 5/Monday 20^th May 73miles/122km

Saint Nazaire to Chateau d’Olonne on Velo Ocean. Saint Nazaire-Pornic-Les Moutiers en Retz-Bourgneuf en Retz-Beauvoir sur Mer-St John de Monts-StGilles Croix de Vie-Chateau d’Olonne

Day 6/Tuesday 21^st May 60miles/100km

Chateau d’Olonne to La Rochelle. Chateau d’Olonne-LaTranche sur Mer-Marans-La Rochelle

Day 7/Wednesday 22^nd May 60miles/100km

La Rochelle to Royan. La Rochelle-Chatelaillen Plage-Rochefort-Marennes-Royan

Day 8/Thursday 23^rd May 57miles/95km

Royan to Lacanau. Royan-ferry across La Gironde-Pointe de la Grave-Hourtin-Lacanau

Day 9/Friday 24^th May 40miles/65km

Lancanau to Bordeaux By Velo Route to Gare SNCH Bordeaux St Jean

Day 10/Saturday 25^th May 68miles/114km

Bordeaux to Les Mas d’Agenais. Bordeaux-St Macaire-Les Mas d’Agenais

Day 11/Sunday26th May 74miles/123km

Les Mas d’Agenais to Moissac. Les Mas-Agen-Moissac

Day 12/Monday 27^th May 51miles/85km

Moissac to Toulouse. Moissac-Montech-Toulouse

Day13/Tuesday 28^th May 63 miles/105km

Toulouse to Carcassonne. Toulouse-Castelnaudry-Carcassonne

Day 14/Wednesday 29^th May 63miles/105km

Carcssonne to Beziers. Carcassonne-Le Somail-Beziers

Day 15/Thursday 30^th May 30miles/50km

Beziers to Sete.

Day 16/Friday 31^st May 15miles/32km

Sete to Montpellier

Braving the cold in Rothiemurchus

I’D got myself all double-wrapped to go out for a 50-miler on my bike today, despite the fact the temperature is hovering around the freezing mark, there’s a gusty wind blowing and every so often a flurry of snow reminds me winter hasn’t finished with us yet.

I made a flask of hot tea, lathered jam on some slices of Soreen malt loaf, packed it all in my saddlebag and then I heard it. The cry of the banshee… It seemed to come from just over the Spey, as though it had rolled down from the Arctic tops of the Cairngorms, gathering spindrift and malevolence in its wake before hitting our little village with a shriek and a wail of foreboding.

Despite my good intentions I chickened out. The thought of riding for upwards of three hours in these freezing, windy conditions just didn’t seem worth it, especially since I could bash out a boring but energetic session of short recovery reps on the turbo trainer – in the warmth of my office!

It’s a week now since I’ve been out on the road, although I did have a bash around Glenmore and Rothiemurchus on my mountain bike during the week, (though I ended up pushing my beloved Gary Fisher hard tail through miles if deep snow.) That little outing certainly didn’t ease my growing concern that I’m not getting enough miles in preparation for our forthcoming expedition through France, from the Channel to the Med! Injury, illness, and crap weather has made any kind of training plan inconsistent to say the least and every time I thought things were improving and I was reaching a reasonable level of bike-fitness something else would turn up, usually in the form of snowy, windy weather.

River crossing in Glenmore

And no matter how many sessions I have on the turbo trainer I can’t seem to get it into my head that it’s doing me any good. It’s all very well doing short recovery reps but I don’t want to be a Mark Cavendish – I just want to be able to cycle 70-80 miles each day for a couple of weeks, at a reasonable pace, and not feel totally knackered every night and I feel for that I have to put in the miles.

I’ve been out walking the hills a few times but that’s a very different kind of fitness, and it’s not even been much of a winter for that. But… before I really start to feel sorry for myself, the weather is set to improve during the course of the week in the run-up to Easter so, with all due respects to skiers and those wintry breeds who love the snow, I hope there is a massive thaw and all this white shite vanishes overnight. I just want to get out on my bike…

My mate Hamish isn’t apparently faring much better. The curious thing about this winter is that we’ve had it comparatively easy here in Badenoch while areas of the Borders and northern England have seen some really rough conditions. Hamish tells me inconsistency is his biggest problem too. We were supposed to meet earlier in the week in Melrose for a couple of big mileage days cycling in the Borders but the weather put paid to that too. Ho-hum…

On the more positive side we’ve been doing a bit of planning, booking ferries and the bike bus, and generally sorting our route out. After some good advice through this blog, we decided not to spend 2-3 days cycling along the north coast from Calais to Brittany before turning south. It was too much time going through landscapes that were familiar to us and we could better use the time on a bit of sight seeing and perhaps leaving our route from time to time to get into some hills.

Instead we’ve booked an overnight ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo and after a wee turn round Mont St Michel we’ll head south, through Brittany to the Atlantic coast. We’ll go as far as Bordeaux then head across to the Med via the Canal de Garonne and the Canal du Midi. All going well!

And now I have to delve deeply into kit mode and sort out some ultralight camping gear for the pair of us. I’ve been looking carefully at the question of tents and although I’ve been tempted by some of the newer semi-tarp  tepee type tents ( phew try saying that after a few glasses of chardonnay) I’m not convinced they would be much lighter than a good double skinned standard unit, like Vau De’s Power Lizard or one of Terra Nova’s very lightweight  Laser Competition tents both of which are about a kilo. Apart from that, we won’t be carrying any trekking poles to keep the thing upright!

If anyone has any other ideas about good light tents for cycling touring please get in touch.

Sleeping bags will be easy enough – we’ll just go for the lightest, down filled bags we can find, and we’ll probably use Thermarest NeoAir Xlite sleeping pads.

Stoves are interesting. When Chris Townsend and I hiked the GR20 a few years ago everyone told us we wouldn’t be able to buy screw-in gas cartridges but only Camping Gaz. That was true, so we carried stoves that worked with both screw-in canisters and the old Bluet type. It was quite a good stove actually but I’ve no idea what I’ve done with it. Anyone know how easy it is to get screw-in gas canisters in France these days? It’s a few years since I’ve camped in France.

A titanium pot and a mug will complete the camp kitchen and I hope to get the whole camping gear down to about 3k or less. We’ll probably camp most of the time but we won’t be averse to the odd night or several in a hotel or gite. Not at our age…

So there you have it. Writing this blog has cheered me up a bit and would you believe it  - the sun has come out! But it’s still bloody cold and windy. It can only get better… m’mm, seem to recall saying that before.

Cameron

Cycling below the impressive Pap of Glencoe

WHAT a week it’s been for cycling here in the Scottish highlands. High pressure has meant sunny days that are generally pretty cold but dry. Just occasionally I’ve felt a hint of warmth from the low winter sun but it’s been enough to make me optimistic and think of spring. It’s just around the corner. Thank goodness.

My old buddy Hamish Telfer came to visit for a couple of days and we took the opportunity of getting out on the bikes and chatting through a proposed route to take us from Calais on the English Channel to the Med  later in the year. Since it was so cold here in Newtonmore we thought we’d travel through the balmier climes of the west coast and while it was a tad milder it was still only about 5C. Still, we were well wrapped up and didn’t intend going too far.

We parked my camper van half way along Loch Leven between South Ballachulish and Kinlochleven and decided to cycle our road bikes round the loch in a clockwise direction, taking in a wee diversion in Glen Coe to visit Hamish MacInnes. It was superb. The snowcapped Mamores looked Alpine under the blue sky and even the long climb out of Kinlochleven didn’t feel too bad. The loch was still and reflected the peaks around it and not for the first I realised that Kinlochleven was one of the finest village settings in the highlands. The road from the village climbs high above the loch offering great views away to the glorious west. Garbh Beinn of Ardgour looked particularly fantastic, one of the finest hills in Scotland, resplendent under snow against a sky of cobalt blue.

The top of the long hill out of Kinlochleven

We swung off the main drag at Glencoe village and took the old road to Hamish MacInnes’ house. I only half expected him to be home but he was, busy checking over some of his new Mark 7 MacInnes stretchers. It was good to catch up and get his thoughts on the controversy over his old house at Allt na Reigh which was owned for a while by Jimmy Savile. Interestingly Hamish had much the same thoughts as me – perhaps it would be best used as a mountaineering club hut. Hamish suggested the Scottish Ladies Climbing Club might take it on.

Hamish’s partner, Moira Kerr, wasn’t at home which was a pity because Hamish Telfer and I both knew her well from our old athletics days. We were all coached by the same guy, John Anderson, more recently of Gladiators fame. No doubt we’ll catch up with her at a later date.

We didn’t wait too long with Hamish Mac – he was busy and coffee and cake were calling loudly from the excellent cafe-cum-craft shop next to where Paul Moores used to have his climbing gear shop. A large cappuchino  and a fruit scone later and we were on the road again, wheeling happily along the cycle track towards the Ballachulish Bridge.

A bit of a breeze had picked up and swept across the open loch but we were on the home run along the north shore and we weren’t in any rush, cycling in the sun beneath the towering spire of the Pap of Glen Coe. It had been a great little loop.

Back home in Newtonmore we hauled out the maps of France ands tried to work out a route from La Manche to the Med. We wanted something a little bit different and we wanted to avoid Paris and its notorious drivers. We are going to be dropped off by the European Bike Bus in Calais and picked up about 16 days later in Montpellier so we decided, as both of us live within sight of hills and mountains, that we should get as much coast as possible into our route. This is what we’ve come up with;

From Calais down the coast of Normandy and Brittany to Mont St Michel and then across Brittany to La Baule just west of Nantes where we’ll pick up a veloroute all the way south to Arcachon, west of Bordeaux. From Bordeaux we’ll follow the Canal de Gironde to near Toulouse where we’ll pick up the Canal du Midi which we’ll follow all the way to Sete on the coast. Sounds simple enough…

That’s the plan and it should be great unless we get gale-force south-westerlies coming off the Bay of Biscay but it couldn’t be any worse than our trip last year when we had the wind in our faces all the way from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

If anyone out there knows this route or if anyone has any advice about cycling a route like this in France it would be great to hear from them. For the moment we’ll keep the research going… and getting out on the bike in this springlike weather.

Cameron

HERE in Scotland we can boast of some of the most beautiful and diverse landscapes in the world. From the rolling hills of the Borders to the arctic landscapes of the Cairngorms, from the mist  shrouded western isles to the wild grandeur of the northwest highlands, few would argue that this little country of ours is one of the most beautiful in Europe.

In winter that beauty is often emphasised by a covering of snow, when every gully and corrie is picked out in stark shades of black and white and mountain slopes appear as curved and sensuous lines against the blue of the sky. In such conditions I want to be amongst these mountains, I want to immerse myself in their grandeur, I want to soak in the peace of them, take from them something of their timelessness and implacable nature. Being amongst mountains simply makes me happy.

But there’s more to it than that. We live in a very sanitised, prescribed society where health and safety considerations often give the impression we should all be bubble-wrapped and protected from ourselves. We live in a grossly over-regulated country where knee-jerk reaction and a persuasive media can easily shape and bend public opinion. Many live in a nine to five regime of repetitiveness with only weekends and an annual holiday to break the monotony. It’s perhaps not surprising that an increasing number of people are discovering a respite from such lives, and that escape is often found in the wild places of Scotland in the form of adventurous activities such as mountaineering.

This sense of escapism is important and that’s why so many folk become hooked on what appears at first hand to be a completely pointless exercise of expending a lot of effort to climb to the top of a mountain, only to turn round again and come back down.

Although there are very few places on this overcrowded planet where man has not trod, there is a sense of true ‘wildness’ on our high mountains. Signs of man’s presence in minimal and in winter, under a cover of snow, that perception is heightened, when even the footpaths vanish from sight. It’s then that I can experience the fleeting nature of man’s, and my own, time on this planet against the more lasting reality of nature. Mankind, and his successes and failures, somehow seem insignificant against the age-old, slowly evolving world that gives us every sustenance and life.

That all may seem very grand and worthy, but it’s probably the core reason for my own love of mountains. But there is also the challenge, the adventure, and the risk.

Our winter mountains are not only beautiful but are often potentially dangerous. So are our cities, so are our road networks, so are our own kitchens! We wouldn’t handle bare electrical wires, we wouldn’t knowingly walk out in front of a bus, we avoid certain city streets late on a Saturday night. Winter mountaineering is like everything else – you recognise the risks and you try and manage the risks. You find out what skills you need to cut that risk to a minimum and you learn those skills. In terms of mountaineering we learn how to navigate in bad weather; we learn how to use an ice axe and crampons; we learn about avalanches and how to avoid them and we learn how to recognise that often lost instinct for survival.

In the world we live in today those base instincts rarely surface. Our bubble-wrapped society protects us too much, but expose yourself to the bare elements of nature and they will appear, like the embers of a small fire. We have to breath those embers into a full flame, to recognise again those base instincts, intuition if you like, that protected our ancestors from sabre-toothed tigers and the like. Such protective instincts are there, in every one of us, we just have to fan them into life, and we can do that by going to the mountains.

I don’t want to comment on the fatal accidents that have occurred on Scotland’s mountains this winter, other than to say that accidents do, and will continue, to happen. I will continue to try and minimise the risks I face when I go to the hills and even after 40 years of climbing mountains I’m very aware that I’m still learning. What I will leave you with is an attempt at explaining the feelings I experience when I stand on of a Scottish mountain in winter. I suppose it’s a bit like taking drugs, and when I experience it I want more.

There is considerable physical effort involved in climbing a mountain and this exercise releases endorphins in our body – a kind of feel-good natural drug. The excitement of tackling risk and challenging situations releases another natural drug called adrenaline – this heightens our awareness and sensitivity. Add that to the sheer pleasure of being in a remarkably beautiful environment and a sense of achievement and the resultant mix is highly potent. A natural high like no other that I know of, a sensation that can last for days.

The accidents in the Scottish mountains this winter have been tragic. But consider those deaths against the 6.5 million participation days every year in the Scottish mountains when hundreds of thousands of people are refreshed and rejuvenated, inspired and re-equipped to go back to their normal everyday world. We need to continue to educate and train people, we need to continue to warn people of the dangers of the hills, but we also need to put the accidents into some kind of realistic perspective.

Cameron

PS Both photos taken on Beinn Liath Mhor in Torridon

JUST when I thought things couldn’t get any worse this winter I heard the news this evening that two of the mountaineers caught in an avalanche in Chalamain Gap in the Cairngorms today have died in hospital.

Needless to say my thoughts are very much with their friends and relatives. God only knows what sort of emotional turmoil they’ll be going through.

Just like the folk who died on Bidean last month and the those who have died in the Cairngorms more recently it’s a very sad picture. Happy people going out for a great day in the hills and not returning. I find it all so sad.

But what I find even more sad is the barrage of ill-informed comment from various tabloid journalists who know next to nothing about our love of mountains, about mountain safety or mountain rescue. Like Dorothy Grace Elder, who incensed listeners on BBC Radio Scotland yesterday with her call to curb access to Scotland’s winter hills. Apart from the fact that thousands of people gain immense joy and satisfaction from climbing and walking on our mountains how did she propose we close down the hills? Tie red tape all round the base of the hills? Call the military to stand guard and stop us setting foot on the hills? There was a strong sense of a lack of joined-up thinking in her knee jerk reaction.

The rubbish she spouted was also very badly researched for someone who claims to be a journalist. She kept on about there being over 50 deaths a year in Scotland’s mountains but the figures she was quoting included fatalities in non-mountain situations. I would have thought she’d know mountain rescue teams are often called to search for elderly people who go missing, or folk who have been swept away in floods, et. etc.The year she was quoting – 2011, there were 21 fatalities on Scotland’s mountains, and some of those were people who died from natural causes, like heart attacks.

The problem with people like the ex-MSP Miss Elder is that they see themselves as ‘campaigning journalists’, ever in search of a cause to sell more column inches. Doesn’t really matter what the cause is, and at the moment mountaineering is a very soft target.

I have no doubt at all that organisations like the Mountaineering Council of Scotland and the Scottish Avalanche Information Service will already be trying to think up fresh ways of  getting their messages across. Despite its love of wind farms the current Scottish Government has supported mountain safety and has financially backed the likes of SAIS and Geoff Monks’ excellent Mountain Weather forecasts. As Patron of Mountain Aid, a charity that supports mountain rescue in Scotland I’ll certainly be doing what I can to help further the cause of education and mountain training. This is all positive stuff.

My real concern is that people will be put off going to the hills because of the ranting of these campaigning journalists. We need positivity at this time, not negative calls to ban people, to charge them for being rescued, by making insurance compulsory or by suggesting that those who encourage people into mountaineering are irresponsible.

Twenty three deaths in the Scottish mountains in one year is awful – but bear in mind that in the same year there were 6.5 million participation days, when all those people went to the hills, got themselves a little bit fitter, cleared their mind of all the rubbish our over sanitised society has thrown at them, and came home refreshed and rejuvenated by the natural world.

We have to put these very sad and unfortunate accidents into perspective. The vast, vast majority of hillwalkers, climbers and scramblers get untold joy from the hills. Long may that continue, in both summer and winter.