Tag: Arrochar Alps

Howff

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My one worry was where to park for this, but I phoned the girls at the Inveruglas Visitor Centre and they said to stick the motor out of sight in the long-stay parking and that’s what I did. It was dinner time, so a BabyBel and a Pepperami were used as leverage against the tide as midges circled and dived while I got my kit together. This is my first bad experience with the wee bastards this year. Oh joy.
I walked by the  Sloy Power Station as the rain pattered down, the cars fleeing by my left ear. Do I drive that fast here? It doesn’t seem right when you’re on the pavement.
It was wet but, as I climbed the hydro road I was definitely overheating, gulping in lungfuls of muggy air to try and cool down. It didn’t work, and felt like I was going to burst until I got into clear air and was distracted by the lambs, now a bit bigger, but still shiny white. I wanted to throw a stick for one that stood looking at me, but I have no idea if lambs fetch sticks. I mean, they’re just like dogs but with horns, so they might. You might scorn me, but you don’t know do you, because you’ve never tried it either.Imagine if proper dogs had horns, how scary would that be.


Ben Vorlich is a marvel, it’s the ugly sister of the Arrochar Alps, less defined in shape than the others from most viewpoints, but when you’re walking it’s flanks it commands both your attention and concentration. It’s a mass of crags, tumbling waters, steep grass and dark jagged shapes all around you. You have to make your own route through it and any sense of it being an accessible wee hill just off the A82 is quickly lost if you lose yourself in the drama-filled eastern corries. Maybe not ugly sister then, Twisted Sister.

The hydro road is a blessing, you gain so much height so quickly using it. When you see how steep and rough the ground is around it any thoughts of cheating are easily beaten down with a broom of smugness, because like a rocket, it launches you into the wilds of Coire nan Each.
I love this place, it looks too rugged to be this close to home, huge faces of rock, some stark, some split and some crumbling at their own feet. A torn blanket of green thrown over it soften just a corner or two here and there. I just stood there watching the clouds chasing each other through the jagged teeth on the skyline. Glorious.
Behind me, the east side of the loch is rugged too, crag and natural woodland, it’s colours surging out from under a blanket of indifferent grey.
I’ve walked these hills uncountable times over the years, but this time I was completely caught unawares, I could see the beauty, I always do, but this time as I just stood there and lost mysself in the scenery I could feel it right inside me too.
After breaking my little reverie I turned back to the coire to search for my home for the night, I knew what I was looking for, but not necessarily where it was. So, I zigzagged my way higher and higher, crossing the coire until I found what looked like the grassy mount that hid a cave inside, formed by rock fall debris from what must be thousands of years ago. The shape looked right, but the front was a mess of freshly moved earth and rock. “Oh crap, where am I going to go now?
As ever, I’m running late with a Trail Route, the cave was the plan, but now there was Plan B making an unexpected appearance. I had bivi gear and it was raining, so unless I wanted misery for supper, at midnight, at 1am, at 2am… I had to get inside or at least under something, I was looking for a howff.
The coire is howff central, there’s plenty of free-standing boulders that I could get under, there were shelters between rocks, big indentations in crags where chunks had fallen out, but nothing had me phoning the estate agents for a schedule. Looking for bits of pure blackness is a good policy, it means depth, and that means cooking out of the rain.


I was in the rain clouds now at around 600m, in every billowy gap that passed I’d hopefully scan the crags, as I’ll be honest, it was getting late and I was hungry and tired. Everything was running with water too, many likely candidates turned out to be a cherub short of a garden water feature and I had an awful feeling I was going to have to scramble up that wet crag to get to that good looking one on the left or, oh what’s that over there, halfway up that wide gully? Big dark cleft, looks nice. I traversed the slopes and climbed the gully. I took my pack off and eyed it, it was big enough, but a little low. There’s some water in the back, but enough room to get all of me and my gear in.
I thought about putting an offer in, but I took some cooling-off time. Leaving the gear (Surely I sign that I already aad one foot inside the door?), I climbed the gully and surveyed the other side, a steeper drop, harsher crags, but with two big boulders at the bottom. I could get under that one at the left, I’ll go back down and see.
I got back to my kit and never left again, enough with the fannying about I said to myself.

After using packs with zipped bottom compartments, I’ve changed the way I pack. The Macpac Amp had the camp gear at the bottom in stuffsacks, bivi bag, mat and sleeping bag. Everything else goes in an Exped liner that I can pull out and it can sit in the rain if it likes while I set up camp. Works well, perfect for this trip in fact and I got everything set-up and inside the howff without getting it wet.
The mat was the new Alpkit Airo 120, and I split the difference at each end with my head on my rucksack, a little gap with my waterproof trousers underneath and my feet only overshot the end when I stretched out. magic. My cooking gear went into the roomy interior, which was a little swampy right inside, but between me and that was a big flat stone which took bottles, stove, and even my lamp. I took that Alpkit hanging lamp which would have been nice in the cave, but in here it was just as good and I never used a headtorch all night.
I got my boots well inside in the dry, slipped into my bag and lay back. Comfy. I was completely out of the weather, it wasn’t claustrophobic at all, everything was to hand and I was cozy. The stove went on. This was the Vango Ultralite’s first trip, and it’s a cracker. Smooth control and a mighty flame to delight seekers of hot beverages.


I stuck my iPod on and cooried in as it got dark. Between songs I could still hear the roar of the water cascading over crags, through rocks and under the ground. Nature’s symphony, not so much of the melody, but a bottom end to frighten any metal band. The rain got heavier and over a couple of hours the roar got louder and a little erratic as the water got heavier and a growing wind tried to blow it back uphill.
My howff wasn’t immune to this and around the edges water began to creep in and drip down, just in a few places at the edge, so not a problem. I just shuffled a little further in and the water was miles away. That rock I can feel won’t annoy me unless I lie right on it. Well no, that rock is what my ship ran aground on, and as I watched the restless natives of Coire nan Each ransacked my cargo hold and escaped with every barrel of joy I had carefully packed for that night.

Why am I cold, I’m uncomfortable too. I rolled over one way, another way, up and then down. Checked the zips and drawcords. After a good deal of faffing about it occurred to me to check the mat, and it was indeed flat, Stupid bugger, I must have left the valve loose. I blew it up (always have the valve where you can get to it from inside your bag), feeling the comfort return beneath me. I tightened the valve properly this time and relaxed back in near darkness.
No, my arse is frozen, what the hell is going on with this thing. I blew it up again, now sans iPod, tttsssssssspppppprrrrrrsssssttttttt… No, no, I switched on my lamp, slid over and peeled the mat back to see the water on the lower skin being bubbled by air escaping through the tear made by the rock I’d moved on top of and had been using as a saw with every body movement. I wasn’t fixing this in the wet, but I was getting cold, and this would make me colder. I was already damp, the hot ascent in humid air had seen me sweaty indeed, the Montane Meteor DT had done its best but I had layered dry clothing onto damp baselayers and lying in my bag hadn’t seen the sweat fly out through all the technical fabrics, everything had just gotten damp now. In fact, the inside face of the bivi bag was wringing and the Quantum fabric of the Rab Neutrino bag was doing just as you’d expect, it was licking condensation off the bivi and chucking it straight into the down. I zipped up my Primaloft pull-on, pulled down my hat and thought warm thoughts. Warm and dry thoughts.

I did sleep, several times in fact. When I looked at my watch I was always surprised by the time, so I was slipping away from time to time. I saw the sun rise as point of red under the rain in the distance and I saw the coire bathed in soft golden light through thinning cloud. When I decided to put the stove on after 7, it was a little greyer, but still dry. Outside.
Everything was wringing inside, the top of the bivi was like a wash basin, the hood of the bag was transparent with moisture, rivulets of condensation ran around looking for something to soak into as I shifted around.


I filled the howff with steam from myself and the pot on the stove and thought about it, maybe less clothes would have kept the moisture down, but the mat had the insulative qualities of wallpaper in that state and I was trying to stay warm. maybe it was all just my breath? If I’d had enough room to put the mat inside the bivi maybe the whole thing could have been avoided? Who knows. It was a bunch of new kit on it’s first trip, something was bound to go a little sideways.
My feet and the socks on them were dry, praise be. I slipped them into my mids, strapped on my mini gaiters and stood up for the first time in ages. A few spits of rain.
I took a few shots and packed up. My sleeping bag gurgled as I compressed it into its stuffsack. That’s wet.
My best pals just now are those Klean Kanteen bottles, they are just so nice to use, big lids, the wide mouth is great to drink from, and I can see that yellow one in the dark. I swigged from it and stowed it in my side pocket as I left.
I contoured around the way I came last night, checking out the other options I’d looked at for diggs, I think I got the best deal. I looked back at the little crack I’d slept in, the context it lay in; high in a mountain landscape the measure of any in Scotland.
What the hell was I moaning about, a damp sleeping bag? Eejit, just learn from it, sleeping in the howff was a great experience. Especially so, as I was looking for somewhere against the clock and found something that was pretty much ideal.

The wander down was a joy, I felt light of foot and of heart. The hills were clearing and the sun was spilling through in ever bigger patches. Summits be damned, wander the corries, they don’t have to be passageways or somewhere we look down into and think “Ooh, that’s nice”. Go and see it up close.

The Sloy pipes are a familiar sight from the road and elsewhere, and I decided to make a detour and visit the other end on my way back. The top station is built like a wartime bunker, well that’s late 40’s utilitarianism for you, and it’s awfy steep looking down those pipes from the side of it. It’s fascinating though, the water comes from Loch Sloy in two huge underground tunnels which er, externalise themselves here from the hillside and go into the building to be channeled into the pipes. It’s interesting stuff, and the whole place is a mix of well maintained and new, and the hasn’t-been-touched-since -1949. Must take a kicking from the weather up there.
The hydro road down was even better than the day before, less rain, better views and the last bit with the little shortcut next to the gorge is lovely.
The visitor centre was open, there was cuppas, rolls on bacon, banter with the girls and tourists milling about looking for refuge from the midges. Nae chance.

Driven to distraction (in a van)

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Tonight, I had planned to unwrap the Terra Nova Laser Photon Elite that’s just arrived for test and see what it’s all about, but Phil and I decided it was way better to head to the Arrochar Alps and bike some trails. We’ve maybe five weeks ’til the WHW*Falldoon  (that’s what it’s called, aye…) so we have to plant arse on saddle at every opportunity.
Having stuff like this to ride and explore on foot so close to home is just bloody marvellous. I will never tire of it.
We rode the same route we walked a few months back, and that doesn’t mean it’s at all lame. The start is climbing, hundreds of metres of it, which I actually fared pretty well on, getting right to the top before popping a lung out. The return is on very rough singletrack with some hairy descents where Phil left me like I was standing still. New bike, old head, something I need to work on!
The views of cloud capped Alps were as fine as ever, Beinn Vane always looks like a rugged wonder, amountain of greater stature than its lowly height would suggest. Ben Lomond sits across the road and looks on like it’s the Grandpa, and it kinda is.
It was a great evening, some rain, some wind, but we pushed all the way and got back to the motor very pleased and very mocket indeed.
Ach, I’ll unwrap the Photon tomorrow. I’ll tell you though, it’s awfy light…

Come on, let’s go space truckin’

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It was late by the time I left…

How many of my tales have started with that comment, Jeez. Planning is one thing, but unless you send a memo round to the rest of the world there’s always a chance that some unwitting soul will call upon your presence, and then with the liberal application of Sod’s Law be in a position that you would become a heartless bastard if you refused to respond.
I’d hoped for an easy day after the long hours of Thursday, but I was up out of bed not long after 0600 and away on a callout midmorning. And, I hadn’t packed anything for a night in the hills that bobinson and I had pencilled in for what looked like the last good night of the weather window.
I got back after lunch and at 1500 I finished packing, that was easy enough, regular kit and a couple of unobtrusive bits of test kit. Ten minutes later, Bobinson was at the door and we were away. Neither of us had managed lunch, so it was stop #1 at the local M&S Simply Food for now food and later snacks. Stop #2 was the Post Office in Dumbarton to get a parcel away Special Delivery, now we could get to the hills.
But time had raced on, and any plans of heading North meant ascending and pitching in the dark. As we reached the road junction at Tarbet we’d already made up our minds that we were going to the Arrocher Alps and not turning right, but not which Alp we were heading onto. It wasn’t until we were at the “temporary” (if they’re there any longer OS will put them on the next map) traffic lights near the top of The Rest that we decided on Beinn Ime, the highest of the Alps at 1011m. Maybe not the wisest choice given that the sun was already slipping out of view behind lower peaks and it gave us the most ascent, but it’s central and a great viewpoint. Maybe we just fancied our chances at beating the sun, and maybe the thought of standing with a cuppa the next morning surrounded by the other peaks while watching the sunrise over an inversion is enough to make you take a wee gamble.

As the above shot courtesy of bobinsons camera shows, it was bright enough as we started up from Butterbridge. Bright and hot in fact, the two of us were soon dripping sweat from the ends of our noses and my eyes were stinging. In the coire it was like high summer, and there was a lot of stopping to look at the view.
Tiredness must have had a part in it, both of us had had a long week. There were no brave faces, just a mutual appeciation of our unexpected shortcomings.

As we crept higher it cooled and an equilibrium of sorts was reached, on the move was fine as we were labouring, but the sun was weakening and it was getting cold on my hands and stopping for a rest was chilling.
Rather than follow the usual line to the Glas Bhealach, we climbed the wide Western face, taking the mostly grassy line to the left of the summit. It’s very steep and rocky, and much drier underfoot than the usual route, an absolute joy and well worth it to pick a route through seldom visited crags. It did save us some time at the cost of plenty extra effort, but seeing the sun slip over the edge of the day was worth the wheezing I was experiencing while I watched it.

The warm light faded to grey and blue, mist filled the glens and drew a flat line right around the horizon, pierced by the shapes of familiar peaks, Cruachan, Lui, Lomond, and lonely Beinn Buidhe (below in the distance) at the head of Loch Fyne looking a little like a Nessie cartoon, or a very lazy Jaws.
The temperature plummeted and a wind whipped up from nowhere. I layered up when we hit the ridge high up and we made it to the summit as the stars started to pop out one at a time, the brightest showing off their superior wattage on the still luminescent pale blue sky.

We paced the summit, now in darkness, trying to find a pitch where we could communicate from the tent doors, not trip on guy lines, see the sunrise and avoid the wind. Never the easiest when you’re packing a side and an end entry tent combo, but we stuck ourselves just north of the summit cairn on the edge of the crags on quite flat ground. The tents went up straight and easy, all the new pegs and guys were a joy and the battered old ‘Comp felt like new.

We paced the summit, catching what we could as the blackness above and grey below swallowed everything up. In Glen KInglas silent cars made cones of light in the mist as they followed each other along the invisible road. To the South, the orange glow of the streetlights was absorbed by the low mist and went no further, leaving a clear sky now flooded by stars.
The mist rippled around Ben Lomond like a slow wave curling around a lone rock on the beach, and not too far beyong the central belt was actually a million miles away.

The tents looked like an oasis in the cold. With my light hanging inside the ‘comp, its unnatural colour and shape should look out of place, incongruous, maybe even offensive to some. But to me it looks just right sitting there. Aye, I’m a soft modern man with my mild adventuring, and it’s a sign that I’m carrying something of my daily comforts with me, but I’m sure just being there anyway is halfway to something, and that has to be better than going nowhere to nothing.
We caught the path of one satellite as it arced overus, and then another running parallel. The sky has its A82 as well it seems, but the occasional shooting star reminds me that the sky most definitely isn’t ours.

A hot dinner of chicken tikka, a Farley’s Rusk and a cappuccino while I lay in my bag felt like the end of the day, and indeed a calm fell upon us and we both slipped away into worlds of thoughts, ipods, occasional biscuits and hopes of a warm sunrise after a good nights sleep.
But.
The wind was unexpected and unwelcome in its velocity and persistence, the tent rattled away with fresh enthusiasm due to its newly found confidence after its revamp, while I lay and listened to Tom Baker reading an old Doctor Who novel. It had seemed like a good idea, Tom Baker’s wonderful voice should have been like a pint of 1970’s cough mixture; I should have been sleeping in minutes. But the producer had apparently told him “Yes, put funny voices on for the different characters, that’ll be great”. No, no it’s not, it’s really annoying.
I’m sure that kept me awake, although I did nod off several times and wonder where the hell the plot was when I came back before I switched to metal and found myself much more relaxed.

It was cold as well, very cold. I nipped out for a pee as it got lighter and the grass was coated in ice, the damp patches in the grass had frozen over and the sky was filling with streaks of mist and layers of fine cloud. Ben Lomond now had a fluffy blanket over it, but the blanket was following its contours, giving it appearance of a mountain pie freshly dusted with thick flour.

Bobinson stirred and popped his head out. He’d had a cold night in his summer sleeping bag and the worsening weather wasn’t the thrilling start to the day that we were expecting. The sun was a distant pink dot that rose from the layer of mist, winked at the world briefly and disappeared upwards into the thickening cloud. This half hearted appearance was a sign, and the gap between the mist and clouds finally closed.
A meager breakfast, a five minute involuntary snooze from me and we were packing. Plans for further exploration were canned and the tourist route down was selected as the prefered target.

The ground had taken on a lethally slippy coating in the night, it was like another hill altogether we’d found ourselves on. There were slips, arse plants and many colourful exclamations as we made our way through the crags. As we lost height, quite rapidly as is normal for any Arrochar Alp, we found a wee cave which of course was explored and noted for future emergency bivying.
Stray from the tracks or the recommended Munro’s guide route and it’s amazing what you can find.

It started spitting, a light cold rain, the little bright gaps having left for parts unknown. It could have been a little sombre, but the hillside was bursting with colour, fresh greens and warm browns and we were stepping purposefully down to the truck.
As we reached the road we could see a broken line of folk leaving the carpark and heading upwards. Looking back up at where we’d been I don’t know if I’d have had the resolve to do that, it seemed like a day for observing rather than participating. But fortune favours the brave, or maybe the optomistic too.
As we sat in Arrochar eating hot rolls and enjoying fresh cuppas the sky did start cracking up and blue was seen, a patch of sunlight drifted over the flank of Beinn Narnain. Maybe folks did find that view up there that can make the day worthwhile.

As we enjoyed the tasy fried fare, my phone rang. It was Joycee “Where are you?”
“We’re back down, at the roll shop next to the garage in Arrochar”
“Ooh, me and the girl are in the Cobbler carpark, we went out for a galavant, we’ll come round”
So the girls came to say hello and have a cuppa and a muffin. Unexpected, unplanned, unlikely, that seemed to fit in with the general theme.

But, there was a price, too many hours of activity and concentration without enough sleep to keep the steam at a usable pressure.
The fire went out and I went down. Worth it, as ever.