Anyone who takes up bouldering will, sooner or later, hear about Fontainebleau. I have heard it said that it’s proof that a) God exists and b) he’s a climber. I don’t believe in God and Wikipedia says that in fact the forest is littered with thousands of sandstone boulders due to the erosion of an ancient sea bed.
Handily, my middle sister has a holiday house about an hour’s drive from Nemours, the most southerly bouldering area. When my son found out about this proximity he asked if we could take him and his mate there for a bouldering holiday.
Being a glass half empty person (or as I would say, a realist) I spent some time trying to anticipate all the things that could go wrong. Taking someone else’s child away on holiday to do a potentially dangerous sport gave me plenty of nightmare scenarios to contemplate in addition to concerns about the camper van breaking down or my husband (who has been doing a lot better but only in the last few weeks so still quite fragile) breaking down. Fortunately, despite the best efforts of a hideously aggressive French lorry driver we all got there and back in one piece.
It’s a long drive from Edinburgh to Chatillon-sur-Loire especially as there were no van spaces left on the ferry from Newcastle and we used the Eurotunnel instead. The price one pays for smug environmentalism is sitting at a standstill on the A1 then being driven off the road by French lorry drivers. We’d put a couple of saltire stickers on the van but they clearly weren’t obvious enough to give the full “leave us alone we’re SCOTTISH!!” effect.
Once we’d arrived and settled in we decided to head for an area called Petit Bois near Nemours. Having done some practice bouldering on Northumbrian sandstone at least we weren’t completely taken aback by the nature of the climbing and outrageous grades given to the routes. Unsurprisingly I couldn’t manage even the easy routes on day 1, as much due to fear of falling as anything else. As the boys got stuck in we were all aware of a commotion coming from nearby.
“Allez! Allez!”
“Allez…..ALLEZ ALLEZ ALL….”
<THUD> Then commiserating and “merde” and “shit” before the “Allez” would build to a crescendo again, usually following by the sickening thud of a body hitting the deck from a great height but occasionally by cries of triumph and a round of applause.
The boys wandered over to find a group in front of a very large boulder that goes by the name of Big Jim. After offering their mats up to help cushion the landing they were welcomed into this sweaty little group to try their luck.
“Allez allez ALLEZ!”
<thud>
It was time to leave but the boys were determined – the entire focus of the holiday from that moment revolved around topping out Big Jim.
Now obviously I don’t want to be sexist but there does seem to be a tendency for males in particular to embark on heroic yet futile endeavours. Like Mallory and Irvine, the two teenagers threw everything at Big Jim. Time after time they went up, getting further each day but ultimately thwarted by the last couple of, frankly terrifying, moves. You basically had to use a tiny pocket big enough for one finger then launch yourself up to grab the top – and at this point the floor was a LONG way down, mats or no mats. I had recurring nightmares where I had to phone Jonny’s friend’s parents and explain to them why their precious son was unconscious in a French hospital.
One of the great things about bouldering in Font is that groups of boulders have been made into circuits, all marked up & colour coded for each grade. I had been reliably informed that it can be enormous fun to go around lots of circuits and that you can get into a proper state of flow. Apparently one’s climbing ability can improve dramatically after just a few days there. Apparently there are loads and loads of different areas each with their own characteristics, all set in stunning forest locations swarming with butterflies.
Thanks to bloody Big Jim I didn’t get to experience any of that. I spend most of my time being asked to video the boys’ doomed attempts while my husband was on spotting duty. Every so often they would tear themselves away for long enough to allow me to try some climbs myself. They were even quite helpful if you don’t mind being talked up a route by two slightly patronising 16 year olds. You do quickly get used to the exposure and get a feel for how to move on the sandstone so by the end I even managed up an easy blue route but I was a bit cheesed off at not having had much of a chance to explore. I went for a run at one point and after 20 minutes or so came across a whole boulder area all marked up with routes in a particularly lovely tranquil part of the woodland. It was completely deserted (apart from hundreds of butterflies) and not even mentioned in the guide book. I told Jonny about it. “Oh really?” he said without any great enthusiasm, then “Lyall just got up to that finger pocket. I really think we’re going to top out today, tomorrow at the latest!”
The mist swirls around the jagged summits of an ancient volcano. Occasionally it draws back, offering tantalising glimpses of corries and lochans below only to close back in, reducing the world to blackened rocks soaring into pinnacles and a jumble of boulders underfoot. Sounds echo through the clag – the clatter of dislodged rocks, a perpetual drip and trickle of water, clinking of climbing gear and disembodied voices echoing off the rock walls. Ravens lurk, hidden but waiting patiently for anyone to leave a rucksack unattended long enough for them to cleverly undo the zips and extract carefully packed trail mix. Here and there people emerge from the mist, a runner with bloodied knees and a lean and intelligent collie checks with a passing guide that she’s on the correct path to her intended summit then continues her scramble upwards; a young couple, well equipped, leaf through a guide book; a hill walker sits down to eat a pork pie and wonders what on earth he is doing in this god forsaken place while his guide wonders how to motivate him over the next obstacle; a mother and daughter are having a heated discussion about who’s stupid idea this was while their guide, a veteran of both the Cuillin and teenagers getting stroppy on mountaintops patiently suggests that maybe they just put on their harnesses and crack on.
A few months ago my daughter approached me after school. “I’d really love to do the Cuillin ridge with you, once my exams are over – as a treat before I leave for Uni”. Deeply touched I took about 5 nanoseconds to get onto the internet to get a guide booked and then spent some quality time reading up about the intricacies of the ridge traverse and making lists. Skye attracts some appalling weather so in general if you go for a guided traverse you book a guide for a few days then go for the two that look best for the weather – generally the hope is that you get two decent consecutive days and bivvy out on the ridge overnight. I’ve read that only around 10% of people manage a full ridge traverse on their first attempt. As our trip approached I felt that our chances were less than 10%. Daughter had been busy working hard for her exams (and also busy with a new boyfriend) and although she goes to the gym she hadn’t been out in the hills at all. The weather forecast suggested that two nice days on the trot were highly unlikely and before we set out I’d chatted to our guide, a wonderfully laid back Cumbrian, and we’d decided that a bivvy out was off the menu and we’d just see how far along the ridge we got on day one.
Even getting to Skye is an oddessy. I managed to wangle an earlier finish to work so we could beat the worst of the traffic but it was still well after 10pm when we rolled into Glen Brittle campsite. In the fading light and low cloud we couldn’t see the Cuillins properly, just a hint of something massive looming behind the campsite. We couldn’t see them the next morning either but having rendezvoused with our guide we headed on up. Our first stop was in Coire Ghrunda, sitting by the lochan surrounded by a dramatic amphitheatre of vertical rock, cascading water and boulders. The tops were shrouded in mist but every so often we glimpsed jagged towers of rock high above. It was a beautiful but slightly menacing place.
First target of the day was the munro of Sgurr nan Eag, which as an out and back meant we could dump rucksacks (having put rocks on top of them to deter any hungry and cunning ravens). It had some easy scrambling but in the main was a bit of a boulder hop with occasional views down to Loch Coruisk to add interest. Then a reverse boulder hop back to the bags and onwards. I noticed my daughter was getting ominously quiet. A 6am start is rarely welcome to the average teenager, her boots were rubbing and so far the going had been hard with little to enliven it. I started to worry that she was getting well into into type 2 fun territory. I kept asking her if she was OK, only to get a slightly hostile “I’m FINE!” back.
We stopped beside a small dripping wet cave (surely the most un-preposessing of bivvy spots) to don harnesses. I tentatively voiced my concerns to my daughter “You don’t look very happy”
“I am NOT HAPPY”
Oh God. The guide withdrew slightly and fiddled with his climbing gear.
“Um” I said cautiously “Are you ok to carry on?”
“Yes, I’ll keep going but I am NOT HAPPY”
Then I stupidly said it “Don’t forget, this was your idea”
“THIS WAS NOT MY IDEA!! You asked ME if I wanted to do this, and like an idiot I said yes”
I was non-plussed. That wasn’t how it happened was it? But now I thought about it, her version of events did sound more likely. Bugger.
“Best just put your harnesses on” said our guide tactfully “and let’s crack on”
Finally we’d reached proper scrambling territory and the next stages were really good fun (well I thought so anyway). After the first major obstacle we bumped into another pair with their guide. One of the men seemed in good spirits and asked us how we were doing. “Great!” I replied enthusiastically. At this point my daughter locked eyes with his companion, who was sitting and eating a pork pie with an air of despair. She said afterwards that something profound yet unspoken passed between them, in that instant they each understood the misery that the other felt. The trio moved on, with the guide assuring them that yes, they could definitely make it over the Inn Pin and we took their spots to eat lunch.
Whether it was the more scrambly terrain, or the effects of some food or maybe just the knowledge that there was someone on the ridge who was having a worse time than she was, my daughter’s mood improved dramatically and she even started to exhibit signs of enjoyment, especially on the couple of abseils that we did. However after Sgurr MhicChoinnich she asked whether we could descend which was fair enough – we’d been on the go for 8 hours by then, doing the Inn pin would have added on at least an hour or two more then we’d still have to get back down to the camp site. She’d done incredibly well, especially in managing to turn her mood around and dig deep enough to keep going.
After slithering down scree then hiking back down below the cloud base we eventually emerged back at the camp site and had a coffee at the excellent cafe. The weather forecast for Saturday hadn’t improved so we discussed options for Sunday. “We could go back up to the ridge and carry on where we left off” said the guide.
Deadly silence.
“Or” he said hurredly “there’s some excellent climbing at the Cioch so we could head round there for the day”
This option seemed a lot more agreeable to the Teen so we decided that climbing it was and we ended up having a fantastic day. I started to plan when I could come back and finish off the ridge myself.
Last year I decided that I wasn’t going to race any more. I got into a bit of a vicious circle where, presumably due to the <expleted deleted> menopause my running had slowed down dramatically. Unless I attached myself to the dog I had no speed and running felt like a massive effort. If I tried to put in some proper training I would end up knackered or injured or both. After coming last at the Chevy on 2021 I really thought there was no point even trying to race. The good news is that the endorphin rush after running was unaffected so I carried on running 2 or 3 times a week but was well on the way to being a recreational jogger. And to be honest, that was fine. 2022 was not easy, my husband had 3 admissions to hospital and after a period of mania over the summer a shiny new diagnosis of bipolar to contend with, in addition to yet more drugs and courses of ECT that appeared to do sod all. Really who cared if my park runs were done at what used to be my marathon pace?
The sad thing is that I do care. I wish I didn’t since I was never all that good a runner anyway but it had become part of my identity and the drop off in ability had been so sudden that it has taken a lot of getting used to. No wonder so few women over 50 race.
About 6 months ago I decided to go the full Davina and persuaded my GP to prescribe testosterone. I was generally feeling better on normal HRT but still felt a bit like someone had taken my batteries out. The menopause results in loss of muscle but the drop is more pronounced in your type 2 fibres so you lose far more speed than endurance. The numbers of mitochondria fall too, apparently. You can only get testosterone on the NHS for loss of libido so you have to be a bit creative with the truth if you just want to see if it will give you a general pep up. Crying often helps. You need to be prepared for side effects – it can cause anxiety, acne and if you rub it into the same bit of skin each day you can grow hair there like a were wolf.
The first thing I noticed was that I became a more assertive driver. Instead of seeing amber lights as a signal to brake I saw them as a challenge. The kids noted with amused approval that I was driving a bit less like a granny. Then just a general improved sense of well being, which was welcome considering my poor husband was back in hospital yet again. I felt like I just had a bit of pizzazz back. Sadly running didn’t seem any easier at first but I stopped needing to nap after longer runs and gradually could think that maybe some runs felt a little bit less like wading through glue. Then on Christmas Day I ran a PB at my local park run. This isn’t saying a lot as it’s a new course so I’ve only been doing it since July – I’m still a lot slower than my previous times at Portobello but I felt ridiculously chuffed and decided to enter my first race in 18 months.
The Greenmantle Dash is a short blast from the brewery in Broughton. You leap over a wall, cross a small raging torrent, plough through a bog then go up one of the spurs off Trahenna then zoom back down again. It’s only 3k so I thought that even if it was a disaster the pain wouldn’t go on for too long. It was quite nice to go in with zero expectations other than to try and enjoy it. It was a beautiful sunny cold day and I didn’t break a leg going over the wall, or drown in the stream or have a cardiac arrest going up the hill. The descent was OK then there was just a short sprint back along the road. Alas despite the short distance my legs refused point blank to sprint but I wasn’t last and it had in fact been largely good fun. Then, bonus, I got a prize for 3rd lady over 50. The first prize winners got boxes of random Borders goods like cauliflowers and shortbread, in true hill race fashion. So maybe, just maybe, I am not as over racing as I thought I was.
I can’t exactly remember how this came about but both my sisters are adamant that it was my bright idea. At some point last year we decided that it would be lovely to spend a weekend together, just the three of us and somehow thought that the ideal way to do this was to enter a 100K slog along the Ridgeway national trail. The last time the three of us got together on our own was a looong time ago, pre-kids when we did St Cuthbert’s Way so we do have form for that sort of thing.
RTTS was ideal as it offers different variations on the theme of “slog along the Ridgeway for 100k” – you can run it or walk it, do the whole thing in one go or split it over 2 days or just enter one day and do a mere 50k. We opted to walk it over two days as middle sister, Jenny, doesn’t do ultra running. She’d done a similar event with her husband so knew she could walk the distance and also knew the likelihood of pain being involved. “I’ve brought ibuprofen, dihydrocodeine and tramadol” she announced brightly when we were doing our pre-race kit faff.
Step 1 – Edinburgh to London. I got an email couple of days before departure from the Caledonian Sleeper asking “are you as excited as we are about your upcoming journey?”. I really don’t get this modern thing about everything having to have superlatives attached to them. Every bloody horrible housing scheme these days has a massive sign outside declaring that it’s an “EXCITING!!” development of 2 and 3 bed houses. Job adverts, estate agent blurbs….it’s all over the place. It’s like nobody can face the mundane honest truth that most things are Ok at best and more often just a bit shit. Politicians are the worst, promising sunlit uplands and delivering instead a miserable, paranoid, grey, impoverished litter-strewn shithole of a country where nothing works but where train rides are described as exciting.
Strangely enough when Becky and I boarded the sleeper, that staff didn’t seem terribly excited to see us. We were just relieved it was running at all with all the strike action going on. I like the sleeper and tend to sleep reasonably well on it. Unfortunately yet another gift of middle age has been that I have started snoring really badly. My poor sister has insomnia at the best of times and even ear plugs couldn’t drown out train noises and snoring sister in the bunk above so she didn’t get much meaningful sleep.
We dropped our luggage off in storage then had breakfast outside at an Italian cafe near the British Museum. It was seriously warm even that early, and sitting in that cafe it couldn’t have felt less like Scotland. We were far far far away from our jobs, children and husbands and we both felt a certain amount of weight lifting. We’d booked tickets for the Stonehenge exhibition at the museum which killed a couple of hours then retrieved our bags and got the train to Jenny’s place in Herne Hill.
Breakfast of champions
Our plan was to sleep in Jenny’s camper van at the race start and arrived at sunset. We then discovered that you weren’t supposed to camp at the start the night before (you could camp at the finish and get a shuttle bus) but nobody seemed too bothered about applying the rules so we bedded down. I probably slept the best of the three of us and awoke to complaints of “you snore as loudly as our Mother!” which is quite a feat.
The weather forecast for the weekend was hot and sunny but at least at the start there was some high cloud and the route at first was nice and shady under trees. My knowledge of the layout of England is pretty sketchy so I thought we were in Wiltshire but apparently it was Oxfordshire. Wherever it was, it was all very bucolic and rural until we hit the Thames and had a tarmac stretch passing some very expensive looking houses and dodging Range Rovers (presumably other cars are available in Oxfordshire but you wouldn’t know it). Afterwards we were mainly up on the Ridgeway proper for the rest of the two days which was an advantage in terms of catching what little breeze there was. It’s a surprisingly empty part of England and a very nice route with easy walking and fringed with wild flowers a lot of the way and lots of butterflies. The way is pretty popular with cyclists too, many of whom seemed reluctant to slow down or give any quarter to pedestrians.
Bucolic, Oxfordshire somewhere….
The race itself seemed very well organised. It is a big event, much bigger than my usual ultra of choice and run on a commercial basis and of course had the obligatory pair of blokes with microphones providing motivational banter at the start. And the finish. And the overnight camp. How they managed to keep up their inane and chirpy banter for hours on end in blazing sunshine God only knows, it takes a particular and rather niche talent. One had a beard and one was called Nigel. The route was waymarked within an inch of its life and the pit stops were good with a huge choice of food & drink. There were water stops between the pit stops. There were people spraying you with water. There were also big buckets of cold water for dipping caps in, although I just went for the full wet t-shirt effect and dunked my top in too. The overnight camp was well set up with fantastic views out over the plain below and stalls selling ice cream and beer etc. They transported all your gear, provided a really decent dinner and had a wee pop-up tent for every overnight participant. The other nice thing about it was that it wasn’t terribly competitive, most folk seemed to be doing it for fun or as a challenge and the cuts off were very generous.
Generally speaking the three of us get on pretty well, but there is a bit of a family habit of spectacular fallings out. These usually happen at Christmas but also at other family gatherings when emotions are running high. We reckoned that we should have a safe word to use if conversation seemed to be heading into dangerous territory and picked “halloumi” as this was the unlikely trigger of the most recent family conflagration. We only had to use the safe word once despite some fairly wide ranging chat (although most conversations circled back to “humanity is completely f*cked” and we are all in agreement on that one!).
Hot….!
Day 1 went pretty smoothly, especially once the bulk of the runners had come past. It was hot from midday on but of course one can keep a lot cooler walking compared to running. The aid stations all had water melon which was lovely in the heat. Considering that Jenny hadn’t really trained she stood up to the distance very well, but bloody mindedness is a bit of a family trait. I found the final 5k or so the most enjoyable, I suppose because I knew we could stop soon but also it was getting a little cooler and the sun was lower and casting a beautiful light through the long grass beside the track. It was very peaceful and hypnotic and…..”Can you hear Nigel?” said Becky. We strained our ears and definitely caught snatches of hearty banter being carried on the breeze. Poor Beardy and Nigel (or maybe Nigel was the one with the beard, we never worked it out) must have been at it for hours by then but their patter didn’t falter “Heyyyy, welcome to the overnight CAAAMMPPP! Are you ready to PAAARTAY?”. Once through the finish area we make a bee-line for the stalls and settled down in the evening sunshine for ice cream and a pint.
Despite the invitation to PAARTAY I turned in so early that I didn’t even see the text from the race organisers saying the earliest start had been brought forward an hour to 5am to try and beat the heat. I slept remarkably well. The same cannot be said for anyone within a 20m blast radius of my tent. Even with ear plugs in both sisters said that my snoring was reaching epic decibel levels. Sorry…
We were up, breakfasted and sent on our way by a bleary-eyed and slightly less enthusiastic Nigel before 6am and it was getting hot by 7am! It took me a while to get into it, and I had a minor sense of humour failure at the first aid station which was at the end of a pointless out and back. I felt a lot better once I’d got the first 20K or so under my belt. We passed a sign to the Uffington white horse and decided to detour to have a look at it. Well, Becky and I did, Jenny resisted then grumbled along behind us and of course it turned out that you couldn’t see any of the horse other than the tip of an ear unless you went off the ridge and down to the bottom. We didn’t do that, we’re not that masochistic. The area around the horse was a nature reserve and absolutely teeming with birds, in stark contrast to the farmland we’d passed through before. It’s easy to overlook how little wildlife there is in the British countryside until you are confronted with evidence of what it should be like.
Further along there was another potential detour to a neolithic tomb. This time the detour was short and the tomb well worth the visit, nestled under a canopy of trees. It is thought that the Ridgeway has been in fairly constant use as a travel route since prehistoric times and if you’re that sort of person (I am guilty as charged) there was something romantic about feeling like I was treading in the footsteps of generations of ancestors.
Tomb
There was nothing remotely romantic about the state of Jenny’s feet, which were starting to blister in response to the mileage and heat. Each time we stopped she applied more tape, raided her stash of painkillers then soldiered on. She also started to develop tendonitis down the front of one shin, which she had looked at by the medic at the final checkpoint. Their interaction was vaguely along the lines of:
Medic “Oh that looks sore!”
Jenny “Yup. Can you do anything for it?”
Medic “Not really, you’re just going to have to suck it up”
Jenny “Will tramadol help?”
Medic “PLEASE DON’T TAKE TRAMADOL!”
Jenny <necking tablets> “Too late! Righto, off we go!”
Apparently the tramadol didn’t do much for the pain, and a mile or so down the track most of the skin on her little toe sloughed off. I applied more tape gingerly to the raw flesh and she stoically kept plodding onwards.
Just 10k to go!
It was still very hot and with 10k to go we all knew that although that didn’t sound an insurmountable distance it was still going to take 2 hours. Becky and I decided that it was time for a sing-song to lift Jenny’s spirits! Tunes of various quality were belted out, including “Flower of Scotland” but she didn’t seem terribly grateful for our efforts. Suddenly we could see the finish area through the shimmering heat haze. The kilometre markers were at 94k and the finish looked a lot closer…..either the markers were wrong or there was going to be some kind of pointless loop or out & back. And so it transpired – the clue was in the name, the race to the stones visited the Avebury stones which were not at the finish but on an out and back. At this point poor Jenny let out a yelp and thought she’d trodden on a nail but it turned out that it was just one of the blisters under her foot exploding. She decided just to stay put while Becky and I visited the stones (in previous years the race route went through the stone circle but for some reason permission for this was withdrawn this year but we were told we were welcome to go into the circle and have a look). I’d like to go back as the area was quite extensive with a processional avenue that we only spotted from the bus on the way back.
Large stone, tiny me
After that it was just a kilometre or so to the finish – I’d forgotten that we’d given ourselves the team name of “smells like middle-aged spirit” until it was announced to general hilarity on the tannoy by a Nigel substitute as we approached. Presumably by this point Nigel himself had gone a for a wee lie down in a darkened room. Luckily there was a shuttle bus back to the start about to leave so we grabbed our bags and jumped on.
Our varying levels of fitness and endurance were laid out clearly the following morning. Becky felt grand, if a little sleep deprived and reckoned she could have managed another 50k. I had one blister and a touch of tendonitis and was grateful that I only had to walk as far as the train station. Jenny had more blisters than feet and a nasty patch of bruising over the extensor tendonitis on one leg and was very grateful indeed to be working from home that day.
The biggest endurance test was the train journey home. It ground to a halt south of Berwick with ominous announcements of trees on the overhead lines and “we don’t know how long this will last”. When we pulled into Alnmouth station to let everyone off to stretch their legs Becky phoned our parents and my dad drove to collect us. He’s always said he would be prepared to drop everything any time to come and rescue us and is as good as his word even when his daughters are in their 5th decade, bless him! We offered a lift to a couple who took about a nanosecond to decide to throw in their lot with total strangers rather than stay a minute more on that train. My dad drove us to Berwick then I borrowed my nephew’s car to drive myself and the very grateful couple on to Edinburgh. The train should have arrived just after 3pm but we got there at 7pm. I found out later that the train finally got in at 9pm having run out of food and water, with no water in the loos either. A lucky escape.
We haven’t made any plans for our next get together yet.
Operation “surgically detach teenage son from Playstation” began last year. It was all remarkably straightforward in the end so maybe I’d picked the optimum moment – just when he had finished playing Eldenring and was feeling a bit saturated at the same time as testosterone levels were starting to soar.
“Would you like to come bouldering?” I asked and he was surprisingly keen. Naturally he was obnoxiously good and within a couple of visits was squirrelling up increasingly difficult climbs but what was more surprising was that I really enjoyed it too. I can’t say that I possess any natural talent for climbing but it’s great fun and really nice to be actually getting better at something for once. Some compensation for my running going down the swanny I suppose. Son has continued bouldering twice a week and recently words that I never expected to hear issued from his mouth “I am getting a bit bored of gaming”. He has also acquired a girlfriend and spends rather a lot of time with her in the privacy of his bedroom. Working in sexual health means I don’t even need to imagine what they are getting up to but I suppose having disengaged from the playstation it was inevitable that he found something else to attach himself to.
All the bouldering meant that I started to feel a bit more confident whenever I encountered scrambles while out & about. It’s been especially useful for improving my down-climbing, which was really appalling. So I started to think that maybe I could tackle the Aonach Eagach ridge. My sisters very generously gave me a voucher for Girls on Hills for my recent Big & Depressing birthday and I originally thought I would use it for a guided Ramsay Round. I then got a really bad case of shin splints that refused to clear up so couldn’t run at all for weeks and decided to downgrade it to a couple of days being guided in Lochaber, this meant there was some money left over which would cover a guided Aonach Eagach traverse. Plenty of my friends have done it without a guide but I figured it might reduce the terror factor a bit! In fact when it came down to it I didn’t find it at all scary and I think I’d be OK to do it again without a rope in good conditions.
The traverse was booked for a Monday and I thought I’d go up for the weekend before to make the most of the visit. I was also up in Glencoe with a bunch of friends a couple of weeks ago but the weather was really atrocious and we didn’t get any of the stuff done that we’d planned. I did manage the zig-zag scramble up Gearr Aonach but that was it, no Munros bagged at all. The forecast was a bit pants this time as well. Saturday was going to be very windy but the best of the weather was going to be in the afternoon and evening so I left Edinburgh late morning. My plan was to do Beinn a Bheithir which has 2 Munros and also the Schoolhouse ridge on the way up the first one. Walk Highlands estimated 7-9 hours. The campsite barrier shut at 11pm. I was ready to go at 3pm so decided to walk from the campsite rather than drive to Ballachuilish in case I got shut out of the campsite. It was only a mile and a half extra each way but I had a feeling I might regret it on the way back.
Once I was on the walk itself I had the place to myself, I passed a farmer with two very nice collies (one of them unusually friendly for a farm dog) then saw nobody for ages. The wind was quite gusty but not problematic and the occasional very heavy shower had the compensation of spectacular rainbows.
Ascent was quick and I reached the ridge proper in good time. It looked Ok but I rang my husband to let him know I was about to start scrambling and that I’d message him once I was finished so that if he didn’t hear from he then he’d be able to direct mountain rescue to the likely resting place of my broken body. Anyway it was pretty easy with really good hand and foot holds. Enjoyable and over far too fast.
Schoolhouse Ridge
When I reached the top called Stob Ban I briefly glimpsed a figure on the munro summit ahead of me but they disappeared in a couple of seconds. While heading on up I did toy with the idea of not bothering with the second Munro but it looked pretty doable once I could see it. I was on top of Sgorr Dhearg at 6pm and guesstimated that I could bag Sgorr Dhonuill and be back down at the Bealach between the two by 7:30, maybe 8pm at the latest which still gave over 2 hours before sunset to get completely down and off the mountain. I am so glad I did because the views from Sgorr Dhonuill was just spectacular. I met the other solitary walker on my way up as she descended, always nice to see another woman out on their own. The final approach was a bit scrambly and I was slightly worried it might be tricky coming back down but in fact it was fine. Once at the top the wind suddenly dropped and the views out as far as the Rum Cuillins in the evening light were breathtaking. No way I could turn and rush back down, I spent a bit of time with the summit to myself drinking it all in (and phoned my parents to gloat a bit too).
I was back at the Bealach just after 7:30 then it was a rather boggy trundle back, which went on a bit. Once I got onto the forestry track I mainly jogged to speed things up a bit and heartily wished that I’d driven to Ballachuilish, not surprisingly. But I was back in my van by 10pm after a really enjoyable hike.
The next day I was planning a long walk to a Corbett called Fraochaidh but it was pissing down when I woke up and the forecast degenerated as the day went on, predicting thunder storms by the afternoon. I ventured out to the Glencoe visitor centre (dull) then retreated to the van with my book and read and snoozed in peace & solitude all day.
Fortunately Monday, the Day of the Trial by Ridge dawned with patches of blue sky and not too much wind. I felt a little nervous but firmly told myself that this was actually excitement. It was supposed to be raining by noon, unfortunately. I met the guide, Kirsty and other client, Vicki who both seemed very nice. Kirsty was even smaller than me and for a minute I found myself wondering how anyone so tiny would be able to arrest a fall before making a definite decision not to even let my mind go there!! Some things are better not contemplated. Anyway I wasn’t going to fall and that was that.
We left a car at our meeting point then drove to a car park further up the glen. Off we went up the first climb with superb views over to Bidean then got into harnesses, helmets & short rope before the first obstacle which was a down climb before the first munro. It then clagged in and started raining which was just in time to make all the rocks really nice and greasy. Marvellous. It certainly meant that I was pleased to have the security of a rope, whether or not that security was an illusion – it made me feel more confident anyway.
Up and down and over we went and it got pretty chilly so I needed to put on my Emergency cashmere jumper that used to belong to my granny. The exposure was huge, at one point there was just this void where the only thing between me and the rocks hundreds of feet below was a narrow slippery slab and some swirling mists. Eek. We got into a nice rhythm for the down climbs. Firstly I would lower myself over the edge, flailing for foot holds and swearing then descend with all the grace and expertise of a baby heffalump. Vicki would then try and come down facing out while I’d earnestly tell her that bouldering would be just the thing to get her facing in. We’d reach the bottom and heave a sigh of relief before watching Kirsty elegantly make her way down like the pro she was, a ballet dancer to our clod hoppers!
Guide Kirsty making it look easy!
Actually I really enjoyed it, there were a couple of slightly tricky moves but ultimately there was nothing beyond my capabilities. It is totally committing though, once you’re on it, you can’t get off and the scrambling is sustained enough that you definitely need to be quite fit. But what an experience!
As soon as we finished the difficult bits it stopped raining, the sun reappeared and everything started to dry…..of course. Oh well. We popped up to the second Munro summit then came down a fairly steep but direct route to the original meeting point. Aonach Eagach – TICK!
It’s been a rough few months – my husband has been very unwell since last summer with depression. Things reached a nadir the evening before I turned 50 when he got admitted to hospital. I must say that taking one’s suicidal loved one to a locked psychiatric ward and leaving them there scores quite high on the ”things I don’t want to experience again in a hurry” scoreboard. I decided to cancel my 50th birthday after that and stay 49 indefinitely.
In better news my husband did respond to his treatment and after a course of ECT is back home and doing well, fingers crossed. The kids definitely have some residual trauma to work through, the first thing my son said after his dad was admitted was “Oh no, so it’s going to be really crap food now for weeks!”. The pair of them still like to bring up the Time Mum Made Vegan Brownies and the Yorkshire Puddings That Bounced. Thank god for ready meals, and happily there’s an M&S food and a Waitrose near the Royal Edinburgh hospital.
I definitely needed a bit of time to destress and thought that a good long walk would do the trick. I went for the WHW since I know it so well there wouldn’t be any additional stress involved in working out logistics or worry about getting lost. I also cheated and booked baggage transfer since dog food is heavy and I only had 5 days available to do the route so wanted a light backpack. I went with AMS transfers and they were fab, very slick service.
Day 1 – Milngavie to Rowardennen youth hostel, 27 miles, wall to wall sunshine.
Let’s go!
8am at Milngavie train station, bag dropped with the AMS van and I was off! Strange to be there and not have crowds of ultra runners milling around, just me and the dog off on an adventure. Things had nearly been torpedoed before they started the night before. i’d made up some trail mix and the dogs had managed to get one of the bags while I was out of the kitchen so I had to frantically try and calculate whether they’d got a toxic dose of raisins or chocolate. I guess the advantage of two greedy dogs is that they each got half of the potentially bad stuff. Anyway it was mostly nuts so the main side effect was Meg pooping nuts for the first wee bit.
It was a gorgeous sunny day and the walking is easy so I made good time even though way points arrived more slowly than what I remembered from running the route. There was hardly anyone along the way and slowly but surely I felt the stress of the last 9 months ebb away. There is something innately soothing about walking especially if your companion is the world’s happiest springer spaniel. If I was being really picky then I would say that march isn’t the optimum time to do the way, it’s nice and quiet for sure but the scenery is still a little drab and wintery whereas in late April/May you get the fresh leaves out and carpets of wild flowers.
I had to bypass Conic Hill as dogs are banned for lambing time but it saved me a mile or so and I got into Balmaha mid afternoon feeling a million times better than I had that morning. I had something to eat at the Oak Tree inn and pondered whether to get a taxi to Rowardennan as I didn’t really want to overdo it on the first day. I knew there was a bit of a risk of Meg getting footsore, not to mention me being less fit than I was a few years ago. The local taxi service had hilariously bad reviews on Google (“be warned, this is the worst taxi company in the west of Scotland” etc) and when I phoned them they didn’t even answer so that made the decision easy – time to shoulder my pack again and get going.
The next section is one of my favourites and my legs were still fairly fresh so it wasn’t a big hardship walking along Loch Lomond in the tranquil evening light. I was planning to camp at the youth hostel but when I arrived the chap on reception was really kind and said they could pop me in one of the rooms that wasn’t usually allowed dogs. In hindsight this was probably where I picked up my viral companion, thinking about incubation times. However, oblivious of any plumes of Covid from my fellow travellers I settled in and discovered that I had packed the wrong iPhone charging cable. I knew I’d be able to buy one in Tyndrum and until then was able to borrow other peoples for long enough to keep my phone going.
The first time I attempted the WHW mobile phones didn’t exist (apart from those enormous bricks that you occasionally saw bankers shout into in films). Neither did lightweight camping gear. It was my bright idea to do it but it was a miserable experience with torrential rain, leaking tents, clouds of midges, sore feet, a thoroughly unpleasant night in Doune Bothy and an ignominious train ride home after admitting defeat at Tyndrum while my friends all carried on and completed it without me. Ah, happy days. Sometimes I miss being in my 20s but at least I can afford baggage transfers now!
Day 2 – Rowardennen to Inverarnan – 14 miles, wall to wall sunshine
After a hearty breakfast of paracetamol, ibuprofen and a brunch bar I headed off and was delighted not to be feeling too sore after yesterday’s long yomp. I made a definite effort to keep the pace slow as there was no rush and I love the Lochside section. I was booked into the Drover’s Inn and the room wouldn’t be ready until 4pm, leaving plenty of time to amble along through the woodland. Quite early on I saw a couple coming in the other direction with the bloke smoking. Who knows whether he was the culprit or whether it was some other fuckwit but a huge forest fire started there not long afterwards and I saw on the news that evening that loads of newly planted native woodland on the flanks of Ben Lomond had been incinerated.
I took the low route and this is the only time I have done it apart from in the race. It’s not anywhere close to as technical as the technical section after Inversnaid but you have to watch where you put your feet for sure. I stopped for a snack at some moss covered ruins, which would have made a very tranquil camping spot. Meg was still bursting with energy and showing no signs of weariness after her long walk the day before (the nature of her breed means she feels obliged to run ahead of me in frantic circles and probably does more than double the mileage that I do!).
I passed a nice young couple who had been at the youth hostel and had been very taken by Meg. It’s a funny thing being a more mature woman, you get considerably less attention than when you were younger (no bad thing) and you often hear middle aged women complaining about being invisible. Easy cure – get a cute dog! There were a few other walkers and you get to recognise folk as you pass or get passed & develop a good sense of camaraderie. A mountain biker came by too and we had a wee chat. I was very impressed at his ability to do a path like that, I am sure I would fall in the loch and die if I attempted it. He was doing a recce then planning to do the whole thing in under 24 hours which I thought sounded inspiring and daft at the same time. Like running it in under 35 hours isn’t deranged. I wondered what the record time for doing it on a mountain bike was. I’ve just checked now and it’s 8 hours 40 minutes!
The walkers bar at Inversnaid was shut so I made myself some instant noodles there before continuing along. As ever, this section always seems a hell of a lot easier when you haven’t already run all the way from Milngavie. Once through the technical bit I thought it would be a nice idea to paddle my poor sore feet in the Loch.
Off came the boots and socks and HOLY HELL WTF HAPPENED TO MY FEET? Gigantoblisters had eaten both little toes and my big toes were in a sorry state too. I don’t normally get too bothered by blisters so had obviously been a bit blasé by not stopping to tape up hot spots. I hobbled into the Loch, suppressing whimpers as the freezing cold water hit my blisters then hobbled back out and got the zinc oxide tape out to do as good a repair job as possible, feeling like a bit of an amateur to have let that happen. Once taped up the tootsies were a bit more comfortable and wasn’t too far to go until the end of Loch Lomond, with the stop at Dario’s post to look back and contemplate. I found myself also thinking about John Kynaston who died very suddenly of a heart attack last year, he interviewed me for the WHWR podcast and was a true gentleman. Most ultra runners here either knew him or knew of him, he did a vast amount for the sport and was just one of those folk who seem to improve the world by being in it. A huge loss.
I reached the Drover’s Inn bang on 4pm so was able to get straight into my room, get a cup of tea and lie down for a bit. The Drover’s is a bit of an institution and you have to forgive it the shared bathroom (with no shower, only a bath…yuk) and grotty windows and just go down to the bar and soak up a bit of atmosphere! I also soaked up a beer and decent meal before sleeping the sleep of the righteous hiker, disturbed only by a springer spaniel that seemed to find the room a bit hot.
The nice lady from track and trace thinks I probably started to develop my Covid around Wednesday but at breakfast I was oblivious of any replicating SARS virus and dismissed my poor appetite as a natural reaction the under-seasoned scrambled egg and surreptitiously gave my bacon to Meg.
Day 3 – Inverarnan to Inveroran – 22 miles (8 of which on a train that was actually a bus), wall to wall sunshine.
This was supposed to be a long day but I had a cunning plan to bypass the Tyndrum to Bridge of Orchy section but jumping on a conveniently timed train. It’s one of the more boring sections and full of sheep so no great loss. I told myself it was to prevent Meg getting too footsore & tired! That’s me, self sacrificing and always ready to put my pet first.
The walk to Tyndrum was 12 miles and on the Walk Highlands website it suggests it takes 5-6 hours. Nonsense I thought, it’ll be a mere 4 hours for a woman like me. Gives me loads of time to buy an ice cream, phone charging cable and catch the 14:35 train.
Precisely 5 hours after I set off I arrived at Tyndrum. Bloody west highland way is always slower going than you think it is! I still had over half an hour to spare though before the train left. The only problem was, it wasn’t a train, it was a replacement bus service and I couldn’t find any information on the Scotrail website about whether it would leave from the train station or bus stop.
First things first – ice cream. So I trailed up the Tyndrum Main Street to buy a magnum and iPhone cable at the garage shop. Sorted. Then I thought maybe I should go to the station in case the bus left from there. Of course it was the Tyndrum upper train station so back down the main street then huffed my way up to the station with my left hip making a nasty twang half way up. Big signs saying the train replacement bus goes from the bus stop. Fucksakes I muttered. Went back down and for some reason convinced myself the sign had said the bus left from the green welly so I walked back up the Main Street, starting to feel a bit flustered as time was getting tight. No bus stop. Two minutes to go. I asked someone where the bus stop was and they told me it was outside the Real Food Cafe. I’d only walked past it 4 times by now. I legged it down Tyndrum Main Street. TWANG went my hip. Meg tried to stop and eat a pile of vomit outside the Tyndrum pub and wrapped her lead round my legs. I tried to untangle myself and saw the bus pull up, waved frantically and sprinted onwards, towing Meg who had been enjoying her impromptu snack and didn’t appreciate being dragged away from it.
I must have seemed a pitiable case as I staggered up to the bus stop as the driver refused to let me pay and I sat in comfort (and wearing a mask so hopefully no harm done to my fellow passengers) for a few miles to Bridge of Orchy before getting a large beer and scone at the hotel to calm my shredded nerves.
I had undone all the good work of avoiding the extra 8 miles by my antics in Tyndrum and now had a very sore hip/IT band. However all I needed to do was get up and over Jelly Baby hill to Inveroran where I was going to camp. I took it slowly and enjoyed the views plus happy memories of meeting Murdo for a jelly baby and words of encouragement one sunny June evening 4 years ago, then set up camp in a nice bit of woodland. I had already booked dinner at the hotel, which used to get hilariously bad reviews on trip advisor (maybe the previous owners went on to operate a taxi company?) but got taken over a few years ago and the new owners have transformed it into a lovely place to stay with a good reputation for food. Dogs not allowed, hence the camping but they were ok in the bar area. My appetite was back and the evening meal was really delicious then I retired to my tent to plan how to cheat the next day and drop a few more miles to save my dodgy hip.
Day 4 – Inveroran to Kinlochleven – 11 miles, rain 😱 changing to sunny intervals
I didn’t sleep terribly well but awoke with a cunning plan. My friends Mandy and Moria were driving up to do the final 2 days with me. They were going to meet me at Kingshouse around lunchtime. So all I needed to do was pack up, have a leisurely hike back over Jelly Baby hill to Bridge of Orchy and sit drinking tea until they came by en route to Glencoe. A few texts later it was all sorted. I did some physio stretches that I remembered from when I twanged my hip in the past and it settled down to a grumble. My blisters weren’t any worse and after a hearty breakfast of ibuprofen and a brunch bar I was good to go. It was a shame to miss off the magnificent section over Rannoch moor but probably the right decision for me and Meg’s paws.
Mandy and Moi scooped me up and we parked at Kingshouse and had lunch at the new hotel before hitting the way to Kinlochleven. The pull up the devil’s staircase was compensated for by the staggering views every time you stop and look back. We could see what looked like a couple of people coming down a snow filled gully on Buachaille Etive Mor, they looked like they were roped up. Near to top a couple with a small child came down, they had literally just got engaged at the top! She looked very happy and her man looked suitably pleased with himself for having chosen such a fabulous spot to pop the question, definitely kudos to him. My husband took me to Amsterdam to propose but the occasion was slightly dampened when he developed torrential diarrhoea straight after asking me to marry him and we couldn’t leave the hotel. The only thing I could find to watch on the hotel TV was bad porn and my lasting memory is eating room service food with groaning coming in tandem from the TV and my new fiancé.
The descent to Kinlochleven is fairly endless but we chatted away and before long we had arrived at our camping pods which were tiny but contained everything necessary for a comfortable night. I got a shower (thank heavens, Mandy and Moria were far too nice to comment but I was pretty aromatic by then) and we went to the nearest pub for a drink and meal. The pre-bed tick check revealed quite a few on Meg for the first time so I got her sorted then passed out quite early.
Day 5 – Kinlochleven to Fort William – 15 miles, sunny intervals
Had the last of my ibuprofen with some custard for breakfast and was feeling a bit congested but the hip had settled right down. We hit the Way early so we didn’t end up rushing to get to Fort William. The climb out is pretty relentless and we got overtaken by a lad from the Netherlands who had stopped to fix his laces and was trying to catch up with his mate up ahead. We then watched as he powered past a way marker and off in the wrong direction. It took a bit of shouting to get him back as he had earphones in and he was very grateful not to have ended up on top of a Munro by mistake. We got the bulk of the stony lairig Mor path under our belts before stopping for lunch. Meg was definitely tired, if you didn’t know her (or springer spaniels generally) you’d think she looked full of energy but she definitely wasn’t quite as bouncy as usual and as soon as we stopped she just lay down. We had lunch in warm sunshine then soon afterward passed a man armed with a GPS and bamboo canes who apparently counted trees for a living. That really didn’t seem like the worst job in the world to me and he certainly seemed quite content in his work!
After Lundavra I got a nasty painful area on the front of my shin, tibialis anterior territory so the pace dropped off. We passed a lady of a similar vintage to us who was yomping along despite a huge rucksack, heading south and she had already done the Great Glen Way. We got chatting and she explained that she had just being diagnosed with bowel cancer, had a huge tumour and was scheduled for surgery and chemo in April. She had reacted to the news by shouldering her back pack and heading out the door. She was worried that if she got a stoma that might stop her hiking. We wished her all the best and watched in awe as she strode off with an air of utter determination. I hoped it all went well for her and it put my leg grumbles into perspective.
I don’t have good memories of the fire road from the race and limping down it this time didn’t endear me to it either. The last few miles of the way are the most unprepossessing I think. They should install a zip wire down. Tired hikers would pay any amount of money for it! But the end comes eventually. I still haven’t hiked the whole thing properly from start to finish so will just have to find a spare week sometime for another go with no hopping on buses or getting cheeky lifts. Five days was always going to make it a bit of a push but I needed to get back in time to see my daughter in her play. Unfortunately I started up with a hacking cough as I drove down the M8 and tested positive as soon as I got home so am isolating instead, which gives my blisters time to heal I suppose.
One thing that struck me during my hike was the kindness of all the people I met. From receptionists sneaking me and my dog into a room, lending me phone chargers, drivers of rail replacement buses and my lovely friends who drove all the way up to walk with me even though I hadn’t had a shower for 2 days – I really do hope that I haven’t repaid them by giving them covid.
Is summer in Scotland over-rated? I always look forward to it but in reality there’s too many insects, it’s too wet & clammy most of the time and there are too many tourists with a high percentage of numpty. Yesterday in the Altnafeadh car park a couple asked if this was the path to the Hidden Valley. However there’s much fun to be had alongside the midge, tick & grockle dodging.
A couple of months ago one of the Lakeland fell running clubs summited all of the Wainrights in one day. Impressive stuff. A Carnethy member suggested on our Facebook group that maybe as a club we could take it a step further and bag all of the Munros in a day. As far as we know this has never been done before. The suggestion was met with enthusiasm so a small organising committee was formed and 53 days later it happened. It was an absolutely brilliant day and probably one of the best and most inclusive things the club has ever done. Everyone could play a part, all you needed to do was sign up for a Munro or Munros that suited your capabilities. The oldest bagger was 79 and the youngest age 3. Many kids took part (and many Carnethy Canines). Some folk took on absolutely epic days out, others might do a one or two mountains but have to travel huge distances to get them. The group WhatsApp was pinging all day with summit photos, speculation about how far along the Cuillin ridge our Skye lads were, and come the evening some stirring tales of last minute summit dashes and at 8 minutes to midnight the final summit shot.
I picked Ben Vorlich and Stuc a Chroin as I had been planning to do them with my daughter on a weekend earlier in the summer but Ellie’s hay fever was horrendous and she started developing asthma symptoms. We did a nice but small hill behind Strathyre instead (Ben an t’sheehan) then it was off the GP for inhalers. I added on Ben Chonzie since it was nearby. We were encouraged to go in pairs if possible for safety so my friend Mandy also signed up and Ellie reckoned she’d do at least part of it too.
The main logistical challenge was going to be parking as these were such popular mountains. However a club member very kindly offered up the area in front of his house near Lochearnhead for camping which helped us out as we could then hike up Ben Vorlich from Glen Ample without needing to drive anywhere.
The weather forecast was a bit mixed and some folk were in clag all day but we were incredibly lucky, we had a bit of drizzle coming off Ben Chonzie but otherwise lots of sunshine. Mandy and I set off early to get a parking space at Ben Chonzie, leaving the teenager to get a sufficient amount of sleep for her needs. I still don’t know how to pronounce it properly – Ben-eehone? Ben Honzie? It’s not the most exciting of hills but very runnable. We followed a good landrover track up until a cairn marked the start of the hill path then further on there were fence posts to follow. Easy peasy, up and down in under 2 hours.
Back at the campsite Ellie was awake and we cooked up a brunch to fuel us for the tougher part of the day. Ellie isn’t a runner so we were hiking the next two hills. The walk up Glen Ample was pleasant then a very steep bulldozed hydro track meant we gained height very fast. Then onto a hill track which petered out leaving the final ascent quite rough but fun. Taking that route meant we didn’t see many people at all until the top of Ben Vorlich. Meg the dog was having quite possibly the best day out of her life, judging by her body language anyway. Stuc a Chroin is a more intimidating looking beastie and we spent most of the way across trying to spot any kind of path up the prow. Getting closer didn’t shed much light on it. I remembered the walk highlands route description mentioning using a “slabby” rock as a marker. This was unhelpful as we were surrounded by rocks and they all looked pretty slabby to me. We defaulted to the tried and trusted technique of “follow someone else” and followed a young couple onto a path that tracked around to the east and then up a very steep slope. It was quickly fairly apparent that this was actually the bypass path but it was exciting enough for Mandy to let out a gleeful “I can’t believe I am doing this at 60!” half way up.
The summit was reached swiftly then we came back down a fairly nasty steep eroded path. We could see a party of three heading up the prow so that made it obvious where we had gone wrong but Mandy reckoned she wouldn’t have enjoyed the scramble anyway. We got onto the boggy Ben Vorlich bypass path and decided to follow that back to the road then hike down to the campsite rather than going back the way we’d come. At this point Ellie turned a nasty shade of green and said she wasn’t feeling well. Unfortunately options were limited and she had to just dig deep and keep going, with a stop every so often to sway worryingly and declare she needed to urgently sit down. Argh! Mandy was a complete hero and ran all the way back to the campsite then drove up to meet us so at least we didn’t need to do the final road walk.
The teenager malfunction resolved after dinner and a good night’s sleep and she said she’d mostly enjoyed the day despite it and hadn’t been put off mountains. This was just as well since I had decided to take us both up the curved ridge the weekend after, as a treat…..
The Curved Ridge
I’d done a bit of reading about this. Descriptions varied wildly, from “easy”, through “easy if you know what you’re doing” to “you might need a rope” and “tricky to find the right route” then “you could end up on the Rannoch wall by mistake and die a horrible death”. I don’t have a lot of scrambling experience so hired a guide.
The day started well, in that I could see at least half of the Buachaille from the hobbit hut window. I then proceeded to try and burn down the hobbit hut by making porridge. It turns out that you can’t use a jetboil to make porridge. After the smoke detector finally stopped and we’d more or less got most of the toxic smoke out of the hut I hoped that we’d used up all of our bad luck quota for the day and therefore were unlikely to plummet off the mountainside.
We met our guide, Sam at the Altnafeadh car park and managed to park up without taking the bottom off the car which is no mean feat. It must be an odd job, being a mountain guide as you meet complete strangers then have to be responsible for their safety, assess their capabilities and plan the day accordingly and hopefully make them feel as if they have achieved something pretty epic. Mind you, in my job I have to meet complete strangers and make them trust me enough to insert metal instruments where the sun don’t shine so it’s not a dissimilar skillset. Anyway, Sam was absolutely brilliant and although the day was challenging it was fun and I never felt at all unsafe.
After we had told the couple looking for the hidden valley that they were at completely the wrong mountain we headed off to the start of the scramble. We were roped up for most of it and although most of the scrambling was straightforward some of the moves were a bit tricky. Ellie and I can proudly claim to have created a few new climbing moves, which we have christened “the fish out of water”, “the spaghetti move” and “the splat”. I was feeling quite proud of myself until two lads came ambling past without ropes or helmets and ascending like they were just climbing a flight of stairs, which made me realise that one person’s “easy scramble” can be at the limits of another person’s (ie my) capabilities.
The only time I felt exposed was while having lunch on top of the Crowberry Tower when I made the mistake of looking down. Bleugh. After watching my attempts to down climb back off the Crowberry Tower, Sam suggested that it was maybe a bit too wet to go back down the way we came up. Sensible chap. Ellie and I had done all the Buachaille Etive Mor tops earlier in the year anyway so no need to hike any further on a damp day and we went back down the tourist route, chatting happily about past adventures, future plans and how to persuade my son to leave his beloved PS5 and come along next time.
10 years ago was the first time I did the Chevy Chase race. Back then you could do it as a walk (time limit 8 hours) or run (time limit 6 hours). It didn’t even occur to me to enter the run, the walk was a big enough challenge and I’d trained hard. I remember being over taken by the front runners while I was heading up Cheviot – they were actually running up hill! Later on most of the runners were walking but still powering past. I nearly passed out going up Hedgehope, it was so steep – I had to sit down for 15 minutes or so to recover. I was in absolute awe of all the runners, they seemed to be on a level of fitness that I could barely contemplate BUT I really wanted to be that fit myself. I finished well under the cut off in 6 hours 24 but could barely move for the next 5 days.
The next year I was on the start line as a runner but the race route was shortened due to the weather. I remember thinking that I might have struggled to get around if it had been the full route. However by 2013 I was properly hill fit and finished in 4:38 which I was very pleased with. My peak years were 2015 – 4 hours 26 and 2017 – 4 hours 17. Never fast enough for even an age group win but I was in the top ten women so I was chuffed and wondered if I could get faster. I think that ship has sailed now! Last year the race was cancelled due to Covid but what with injury and unfitness and being clobbered by the menopause I think I would have collapsed half way up the Cheviot and needed stretchered off.
I wasn’t planning to do the Chevy this year since in a moment of utter madness last year I’d entered the Spine Challenger. Maybe I thought I needed a bit of motivation but shortly afterwards I got a bout of hamstring tendinitis so I couldn’t really start to train properly until March this year. Having done very little endurance training for the last 2 years meant it was too much of an uphill struggle, even with the benefits of my trusty oestrogen patches, so I saw sense and pulled out. Then I saw there were still Chevy places and entered without thinking too much about it. I haven’t raced since the Carnethy 5 last year, which didn’t go well and am really only just getting my mileage back to something respectable. I’d kind of forgotten how tough a race it is and that you can’t just wing it.
Since the walk part of the race was abandoned there have been cut offs for the runners. I’d never bothered to look at them until this year and thought, in my new found state of unfitness that actually they looked a bit tight. Hmm, cut offs. So Carnethy operates cut offs in our two big races – the Pentland Skyline and the Carnethy 5. These will limit the amount of time that marshals are stuck out on exposed hill tops and potentially stop anyone entering the race who isn’t really fast enough to get around in good time. It hadn’t quite hit me until now at how much these cut offs favour men since their average finish time in fell races are considerably faster. Looking at the Chevy results from 2019 there were 141 male finishers, 52 were MV40 and 41 were MV50 so it certainly looks like the 50+ men aren’t too put off entering. There’s a big drop off with age after that with 7 MV60s and 2 MV70s. There were 43 women which shows already how male dominated fell running is. 12 of them were FV40 but there’s only half that number of FV50s and one solitary FV60. So on that highly unscientific study I would conclude that women over 50 are a lot less likely to enter a race like the Chevy than their 50 year old male counterparts. That chimes with the experience of a lot of my female friends who are all perfectly capable of running the Pentland Skyline route but say they are far too intimidated by the cut off to enter the race. I don’t think there are easy answers to this as race organisers have to consider the safety of runners and marshalls out on a remote course in what can be appalling weather.
So this year was my first experience of a pandemic race and it all seemed very well organised and covid secure. Fortunately it wasn’t raining at the start which made the al fresco registration more pleasant but it was pretty humid and rain was forecast later. I started well back and kept the pace very easy out to Broadstruther and felt Ok at this point. At Cheviot knee I was starting to feel it and had fantasies about being timed out but found out when I got there that I was 7 minutes ahead of the cut off so had no choice but to keep slogging on. I’d brought my poles along and settled into the uphill but was feeling pretty murderous on most of the ascent. Stupid bloody race. Stupid legs. I should give up running. I will pull out at the first opportunity. How the HELL did I ever manage this race in under 4 and a half hours? etc etc. The gradient eased off a bit near the summit and I got my head together and decided that I should just keep at it. I got a good line off Cheviot and although I was at the back of the pack there were plenty of other folk around. By the top of Hedgehope it was raining and clagged in but I was moving well enough to stay warm and by then virtually all the climbing is over thank goodness. Just a 10 mile bog trot back to Wooler, although this year a lot less boggy than usual. I got back under 6 hours but I think I was last, everyone behind me was timed out.
It’s really hard not to compare my performance to those from 4 or 5 years ago and get rather despondent. However I need to remind myself that I am still a lot fitter than I was 10 years ago. Also I am hoping that I have weathered the worst of the menopause related performance deterioration and that maybe things will plateau in my 50s. Hopefully that wasn’t my final Chevy Chase! Covid meant no cake in the Youth Hostel afterwards which would have been a major disappointment if it hadn’t been for the chip stall doing free chips for all finishers. I would definitely do it again for the chips.
I did my winter skills course a couple of years ago but haven’t really had the chance to wield an ice axe in anger since. I didn’t really expect my first full on winter mountain experience to happen in May but I suppose that’s Scotland for you. It’s been a very cold spring then this week there was fresh snowfall on the tops. I decided that now we are graciously permitted to leave our local areas I would really try and make the most of the summer and get out and about as much as possible. Maybe we’ll get a 3rd wave or maybe we’ll be vaccinated enough to dodge the bullet but I am not going to hang around to find out. However, I am definitely not going to get sucked into Munro bagging as I don’t really want to start feeling obliged to climb boring hills for the sake of it. But I fancied a nice outing and thought Stob Binnein plus or minus Ben More would be good fun. I wondered about doing it as a run at first but was put off by the recent snow plus the initial part of the ascent looked unrunnable. And you can carry more stuff hiking including a decent lunch and thermos. Half way there I remembered that I’d left the dog harness and lead drying on the radiator. I hoped that I’d stashed a spare lead in the car or we’d be stuffed as there were sheep everywhere. Thank goodness for my foresight as the spare lead was there in the back. At the start on the path there’s a memorial stone for a young guy who died on Stob Binnein which certainly gives you pause. As I set off up the steep slope I felt vindicated in my decision to hike. This was a completely unrunnable gradient. I wasn’t sure I fancied coming back down it being towed by an excited springer spaniel either so started thinking about the alternative route back down the glen to the west. At this point I heard the pitter patter of innov8’s behind me and got overtaken by a runner who hadn’t even broken sweat. I reclassified the ascent from “unrunnable” to “unrunnable for menopausal hill runners who have spent lockdown eating too much home baking”. The first mile or so was pretty steep then eased off. A man came hiking down and said he’d turned back due to the weather looking grim. He looked fit and very well equipped so I added that to the memorial stone and told myself that turning back is never the wrong decision. Especially on your first winter conditions mountain hike by yourself. We reached the snow line soon after with the usual “do I or don’t I stop and put spikes on” going on. I figured it was the right time when I asked myself whether I would fancy a slip at this particular point and answered with a resounding NO! It was snowing too so time to get the jacket back on as well. Meg was having a wonderful time rolling around and digging snow holes so all seemed fine in her world. After a bit of unpleasant blizzarding the clouds cleared leaving a good view of the route to the top and also the surrounding mountains. Just magnificent. It was pretty easy until the final approach. The path was hidden under deep snow and the best route wasn’t that obvious. I followed the innov8 footprints but felt a bit precarious at points and wondered whether to swap poles for axe. Unfortunately I’d made the mistake of packing the axe in the rucksack rather than having it in a side pocket where I could easily grab it. Lesson learned. Then quite abruptly we were at the summit cairn so I took a photo of Meg. I tried to get her to pose looking triumphant and noble beside the cairn but instead got a blurry shot of her in a patch of snow looking dim. Now the decision of whether to bash on and get Ben More too. This was a no brainer. It was right there in front of me and looked pretty easy. Let’s go!
Once down at the bealach I stopped for some tea and a snickers. Ben More looked a bit less easy from this angle. I also sussed out the start of the route down west into the glen which looked ok but a bit rough. Setting off again the path was under wet snow which balled up under my spikes. It was really quite steep. I suddenly started to feel a bit odd and stopped. Looking back at Stob Binnein I estimated I was maybe half way to the top and looking up revealed vey black clouds. I did a bit of a check in. Legs – tick. Both still attached, a little tired but definitely capable of getting me up. But then I’d have to get back down then hike over potentially nasty terrain into the valley. Hmm. Dog – showing definite signs of anxiety. Maybe a bit cold. I definitely did not need a canine malfunction on a 45 degree snow slope. Head – actually not in the game any more. Since I was alone and not bagging summits anyway I reckoned Ben More could wait and turned and picked my way back down again to the bealach. From there I headed west and made a very slow descent as it was all a bit of a slippery jumble of wet snow drifts, hidden bogs and holes. Not helped when I spotted sheep and had to put Meg on the lead. There was a short spell where I definitely stopped having fun but fortunately got down below the snow line without mishap. The threatening weather had gone and I found a beautiful spot beside a cascading burn to sit in the sunshine and have lunch. Meg somehow managed to extort most of my cheese sandwich off me by pretending to be starving to death. There was a huge glacial erratic further down which made a good landmark to head for. It’s always incredible to imagine the landscape as it was buried under glaciers. I thoroughly enjoyed the hike back down the glen, it was peaceful, sunny and warm. I love reading about mountaineering and would happily watch the film Everest on a loop (my family don’t quite understand why I like watching men with beards fall off mountains or die of exposure but it’s all so heroic and yet so futile! Just like life) but I don’t think I am a natural mountaineer at all! I definitely like my hills to be of the rolling variety. Nevertheless it was a great day out.
How on earth did it come to this? Locked down AGAIN since Boxing Day and no end in sight. Why is the UK being so unbelievably crap? I mean, I know it’s easy to be an armchair critic and hindsight is a wonderful thing but even so…..it has not been a shining example of how a rich democratic nation should respond to a pandemic. So. Where did we go wrong?
Pandemic planning – well we bodged this for a start. What little planning we did was based on influenza. Despite SARS and MERS we put no measures in place that would deal with a similar illness. And where the hell was all the PPE?
Didn’t take it seriously. Scary SARS-like bug in China? People starting to die in Lombardy? Nah, nothing to worry about, it’s not going to bother us here. No need to cancel that half term ski trip.
Lockdown too late. I don’t think this is a controversial opinion.
Lockdown too lax. Now I wasn’t complaining at all, thank goodness we weren’t confined like in other places….BUT….I can’t help thinking we could have got numbers down faster if lockdown was stricter. And if we’d got the numbers down then track and trace would have stood a better chance of working. If it had been less amateur anyway.
Hopeless track & trace. So crap. Just look at Taiwan or South Korea as an example of how to do it properly.
Making the second lockdown even more ineffective than the first. You only need to go outside to see that everything looks fairly normal. Loads of folk out & about, roads full of cars. And who can blame people (including myself) if they can get away with it. But it just means it goes on for EVEN LONGER while unemployment rises, mental health deteriorates and cancer care goes down the plug hole. I’d rather just open everything up, build field hospitals and let everyone take their chances than a continuous half arsed quasi-lockdown. My husband strongly disagrees with me on this one and he’s probably right!
Shutting the borders A YEAR TOO LATE! Ye gods you couldn’t make it up. So we respond now to a scary mutant virus by shutting our border. Was it not scary enough in February 2020? Did we not see all the people dying in Wuhan?
We’re a nation of fatties. Obesity has sky-rocketed since I were a lass. The UK has gone badly wrong somewhere and sadly it’s often the obese that are getting Covid severely enough to be in ICU. No point blaming individuals since I don’t think there has been a collective loss of willpower since the 1970s. Modern Britain makes people fat for many different reasons unfortunately and this has to be addressed – not just for Covid but for all the other medical consequences of obesity.
I suppose that we’re not entirely alone, plenty of other countries have done almost as badly. Our vaccination program is going well although who knows whether it will be enough against turbo mutant Covid strains. But we should learn from this and be better prepared. We need to study the countries that coped well and copy them. We can’t just cross our fingers and hope that it won’t happen again.
Meanwhile the current lockdown goes on and on with no end in sight. The whole population of Edinburgh is kettled in to within 5 miles of the council boundary and is going stir crazy. No prospect of being allowed to travel out. No prospect of holidays. Constant patronising adverts on the radio badgering us to behave, as if we’re a load of naughty kids and all this is our fault and not the sodding government’s.
Aaargh
Thank heavens for the weather. We’re actually having a decent winter for once – lots of cold and snow with some bluebird days to get out and enjoy it. Lucky for me that I am in a pandemic proof job and that I am someone who derives pleasure from being outdoors. There are plenty who aren’t so fortunate.
runswiththedug 