A great ski guide – and a whole new way of seeing the Cairngorms

Posted on November 15, 2025 by cairngormwanderer

Book review:

Skiing and Snowboarding in the Cairngorms National Park

By Blair Aitken, Jamie Johnston, Katie Henderson and Scott Muir

First things first: this is an excellent book. A labour of love by the four authors, all experienced ski mountaineers, it’s everything a skier or snowboarder could ask for, packed with information from the popular three main ski resorts to remote gullies where getting there is an expedition in itself, and from easy-angled runs up to extreme slopes and gullies which may only be possible under rare ideal conditions.

But more than this, it’s a challenge and an inspiration.

My skiing days are so many decades in the past I’d have to count myself as a non-skier – but reading through these pages I’m so tempted, and wish I’d kept it up all those years ago. It’s not just the descriptions and the excellent action photography: looking at the maps and photo topos of the hundreds of ski runs here, I realise how much of the Cairngorms I’ve never really seen. Just in the same way you have to be (or have been) a rock climber to really see cliffs properly – a non-climber’s eyes seem to slide over a rock face without registering the detail – reading this guide gives an insight to the ski mountaineer’s different way of looking at these familiar mountains, picking out skiable lines from a chaos of gullies, channels and outcrops, seeing possibilities where non-skiers see dead ground.

Of course seeing possibilities doesn’t necessarily translate to knowing the way, just the same as rock climbing – hence the guide book.

Logically laid out, this guide covers the majority of the National Park area (including as far east as Mount Keen and west and north to the Drumochter hills and the Monadh Liath) with clear maps and excellent topo diagrams and photos illustrating the location and character of the hundreds of described routes and gullies.

Route descriptions and clear maps – in the book at least: the blur here is caused by my scanner.

As well as being clearly named and located, the over 360 routes are graded according to steepness (low angled, medium angled, steep and extremely steep), and each has a note of its aspect, its starting altitude, and its vertical drop. After the vital statistics comes the route description, which may contain notes on desirable or essential snow conditions as well as any advice on best line or points of interest.

This alone would make this book an essential buy for skiers, but the authors of this book weren’t just thrill-seekers sharing spots for a quick adrenalin rush. Throughout the guide there’s a good deal of history, local culture and folklore which adds interest and depth, all coming from a sound knowledge and love of the Cairngorms.

 And then there’s the introduction.

After explaining the easy to understand grading system, it talks about snow and how the way it falls and drifts, will affect the ease and safety of skiing, as will different slope aspects and terrain forms. There’s also useful advice on navigation – very different on ski from on foot! It’s great advice, and also a reminder that there is a significant element of risk involved in off piste skiing in remote locations.

Adding to the value of this book is a fascinating chapter on the history of skiing in the Cairngorms, from the pioneers to the popularisers to the heyday of the ski resorts and back to the modern trend which sees more people leaving the tows behind and going back to off piste, ski touring and extreme skiing.

It all amounts to a substantial body of knowledge excellently presented.

In fact this book had its roots 15 years ago, when one of the authors became involved in a plan for a Scotland-wide guidebook. That fell through but Jamie Johnston decided to tackle the more manageable task of doing a guide to the Cairngorms. It wasn’t much more manageable as it turned out, and despite being able to call on support and knowledge from the late Adam Watson, Jamie wasn’t getting anywhere fast. Then just last year he came across the other three authors who were independently working on a Cairngorm guide. All four joined forces and suddenly – with much burning of midnight oil – it had all come together.

And it’s one of those books which you very much can judge by looking at the cover, that perfect shot from high in one of the Braeriach gullies, skier poised to launch himself down between the jaws of a narrowing gully, with the shapely form of Cairn Toul and Angel’s Peak beyond. That standard of photography is maintained inside, with the illustrations as inspiring and informative as the text.

If you ski, get this book. If you don’t ski… you maybe still want to think about it.

Skiing and Snowboarding in the Cairngoirms National Park costs £25, and is available at https://www.british-backcountry.co.uk/guide-book/cairngorms

Posted in skiing, Stravaiging, Topography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Scene of the crime

Posted on October 24, 2025 by cairngormwanderer

There’s not, to be honest, much of a view from the site. The foreground is all low-growing heather and heath, with a couple of rounded heathery hills framing an unremarkable glen disappearing down towards an unseen Glen Ey.

Just a few paces north-west and there would open up a wide panorama of the great granite giants of the central Cairngorms that couldn’t fail lift your heart – if you were alive. But a grave doesn’t need to have a view, and this site was the final resting place of Sergeant Arthur Davies, near the source of the Allt Cristie Beag at the back of Carn Liath. It’s marked only by a rough, uninscribed stone set upright in the ground, so inconspicuous that this was my third visit to the area in an attempt to find it.

Whether it’s a tranquil rural setting or a remote and desolate place probably depends as much on the weather as personal views, but this was, over 250 years ago now, the scene of hot temper and sudden, fatal violence which saw a soldier and new husband murdered and left lying out on the hillside for months before his robbed and animal-scavenged remains were found. But for all the horror, it was a tale which ended years later with the acquittal of his probable killers over a hundred miles away in a trial which is remembered mostly for the farce of vital evidence being allegedly supplied by a ghost.

Sgt Davies’ murder took place in the still unsettled times after the 1745 Jacobite Rising. In the years after Culloden Government troops were billeted in areas of suspect loyalty all around the highlands, which very much included the area around Braemar.

In summer of 1749 Sgt Davies, of General Guise’s regiment of foot, was billeted with a company of eight men at Dubrach, a small farm on the south bank of the Dee just below the confluence with the Geldie. With him was his wife of 10 months. On September 28 of that year Sgt Davie left Dubrach with four men on a routine patrol, to meet with other soldiers from the regiment based at Spittal of Glenshee. The Sergeant, however, had a taste for hunting, and left his men while he went on a side trip with his gun. When he finally arrived at the Spittal his men had been and gone. The Corporal with the other group questioned Davies’ wisdom in travelling alone, saying that for his own part he was worried enough travelling with his men, but Davies replied that as long as he had his weapons he wasn’t afraid of anyone.

A foolish remark: he never made it home.

A search of the hills was undertaken for a number of days after he failed to appear, but it wasn’t until June the following year that his remains were found, the bones scavenged and partly scattered by animals. He was identified by his clothes and hair. Missing were his money – over fifteen guineas which he had saved and was known to carry with him at all times – and two gold rings and the silver buckles from his shoes.

The scene of the grisly discovery. The gravestone can just be seen in the foreground grass and heather towards the left of the image.

Suspicion had by this time fallen on two men, one of whom had suddenly come into enough money to take a lease on a farm. They were local men, Duncan Terig, also known as Clerk, and Alexander Bain Macdonald. They were charged in 1753 and went to trial in Edinburgh the following year.

The narrative put by the Crown held that the two men had met with Davies on the Hill of Christie (presumably Carn Liath, where the body was found) and murdered him, taking his valuables. The Crown’s difficulties lay in getting anything more than circumstantial evidence. They did have one witness, a travelling man, who claimed he and a friend, by now deceased, had been lying hidden on the hillside and had seen the two accused meet and exchange words with Davies. Davies turned and walked away, whereupon both men shot him. The witness said he and his companion fled unseen. Possible, I suppose, but it is and was then a pretty bare and open hillside, and hiding there in the presence of three men all looking for deer to shoot would have been somewhat challenging. However even if he spoke the truth, this convenient eye witness was rather less conveniently uncorroborated.

The Crown’s other source of evidence was even less credible: a ghost. Three witnesses spoke of having been visited by Sergeant Davies’ ghost, first asking that they go to where his body was and give him a decent burial and then naming the accused as his murderers. One can imagine the jury of Edinburgh tradesmen struggling with this bizarre claim, but when, in answer to a question from the Crown one witness said the ghost had spoken to him in Gaelic – a language Sgt Davies never spoke in life – their credulity was tried to breaking point. The jury found the two accused men innocent and they were freed.

It’s a story that certainly has its comic aspects, but standing in the short heather moorland looking down at the rough stone that marks where his bones lie in the thin earth there is an air of solemnity rather than levity, and it’s easy to envision the scene as three men argued and one turned away in anger before two shots rang out and musket balls slammed into flesh, ending a life in brutal violence.

The intervening quarter of a millennium between Sgt Davies’ violent death and my visit on a sunny autumn day allows a certain sense of perspective though, and contemplation wasn’t allowed to turn to gloom as I decided that, since I was so close, I’d be as well taking a wander up to the nearby summit of Carn Liath. Within just a few metres I walked into view of that jaw-dropping Cairngorm panorama I spoke of at the start of this post. The mountains stood out sharply in the autumn clarity of the air and the sight literally stopped me in my tracks, for all that I’ve been there often before. The great trenches of upper Glen Dee and Glen Derry are so obvious from here and seem to split the central Cairngorm massif into three mega-mountains. To the left there is the conglomerate of Beinn Bhrotain, Cairn Toul and Braeriach; McDui and Derry Cairngorm seem one deeply corried mountain in the central position; and Beinn a Bhuird and Ben Avon complete the trio on the right. Carn Liath offers one of my favourite viewpoints for the central Cairngorms and today was no disappointment.

The Cairn Toul-Braeriach massif
A cloud-capped Ben McDui towers over Derry Cairngorm
Beinn a Bhuird and Ben Avon complete the Cairngorm triptych.

There was a further treat as I approached the summit cairn across the grey scree cap which presumably gives the hill its modern name: from the hidden ground opposite my approach rose a whole flock of Golden Plovers, about 40 or 50 of them, flying around the hilltop in co-ordinated, sharp-winged elegance before disappearing towards the Geldie. A lovely sight.

The flock of Golden Plovers pass in front of a cloud-capped Beinn a Ghlo to the south.

After soaking in the views for a while I turned back to the track I’d come up by and enjoyed a lo-ong freewheel on the bike down Glen Cristie, coming out at the bottom of Glen Eye with a brief cycle back to the car at Linn o’ Dee. And as a satisfying way to end a wonderful day, I had the added bonus of being able to help a driver who had been forced off the road by a bus. With one side of the car in a ditch it wasn’t getting out under its own power, but I managed to get a tow rope on and pull it out. Any day you can do a good turn is a good day.

Posted in History, Stravaiging, Topography | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Climb each hill like it’s your last

Posted on October 13, 2025 by cairngormwanderer

The picture shows an old man lying in the heather looking across a loch at a great cliff face.

The cliff is the massive Creag an Dubh Loch and the man is Dod Thomson, a bothy pal of many years standing and one-time climber of these crags. We’d both turned up at the Glas Allt Sheil bothy for an MBA meeting the following day and blethered (or Dod blethered and I nodded) into the evening, mainly about the cliffs, climbs and climbers of his youth. Most of the tales centred on Creag an Dubh Loch, where Dod had climbed many routes, summer and winter. One of those was seconding the first ascent of an E7 – impressive enough even now, but an outlandishly hard route in the 1980s when it was done. So it was no surprise in the morning when Dod suggested a wander in to the Dubh Loch, just a leg stretch from the bothy.

More stories and reminiscences livened the walk in. Dod was clearly not as fit as he once was – he’s 76 after all – and by the time we reached the near end of the loch he was happy just to sit and gaze at his playground of yesteryear. He clearly enjoyed recounting his past escapades (let’s face it, Dod just enjoys talking!) but at one point he said, speaking to himself, it seemed, as much as to me: “I’ll no be back here again.”

He may or may not – he’s been through a lot and is still a tough old git – but his words came back to me this weekend as I was toiling up Sron Riach of Ben McDui wondering if the cloud that shrouded the upper reaches was going to clear or not. I’d made myself no promises about getting to the top but knew that, having started, stubbornness would almost certainly take me up there. And it occurred to me then, with legs already aching a little, that at 68 I’d reached an age when it was realism rather than pessimism to admit that I’d never know which trip on any hill would be my last visit there. I suppose anyone of any age can say the same but, with over half a century of wandering these hills, I once made a rough guesstimate that I’d been up McDui at least a hundred times, summer and winter, by all the usual and unusual routes and by rambling peregrinations that could scarcely be called routes at all, so contemplating the possibility of never again being there is not just a casual fleeting thought. It cuts deep.

Speaking with a friend just a few days earlier I’d ventured that for all my love of the whole Cairngorm area, what rugged at my heart the most was the plateaux: the wide spaces, the sense of altitude and of scale, the wave-like contours of the landscape and the granite boulder and grit surface with dotted tufts and patches of hardy plants and mosses; the distant horizons and the big skies above, the stillness of the desert or the howling battering gales of the Arctic, each with their crystal clarity or snow-blown blindness. It’s a landscape of intensity and of extremes and it makes me alive.

The beautiful austerity of the McDui plateau

That conversation had possibly influenced my choice of walk this day, and the ache in the legs had brought back the memory of Dod’s words, and both were intensified by what was turning out to be a tremendous October day. Cloud remained stubbornly around the higher tops, but it was wispy and there was sun above and the air was dry and heart-clutchingly clear. As I climbed higher on Sron Riach, that great staircase from glen to plateau, I revelled in the crunch of the granite grit under my boots, the unyielding hardness of boulder fields and my automatic shifts of balance as an unwedged boulder teetered when I stood on it. I spotted the two ptarmigan quietly sneaking off across the boulder-scree, the beginnings of their white winter plumage giving them away. I gasped aloud on looking over to the west to see shapely Cairn Toul now looming massive over the intervening slopes, and looking to the south and seeing the black Devil’s Point thrust up in front of bulging Beinn Bhrotain capped with a curve of impossibly white cloud. Oh my! If this were to be my last visit to Ben McDui, what a treasure trove of memories it was supplying. Memories upon memories: I looked across again at Cairn Toul coming clear through its veil of thin cloud and remembered being there just earlier this year, in high Coire an t-Sabhail which gives the summit its elegant curves, clambering over the block and boulder fields of the corrie bowl and then steeply up a grassy ramp set against the back wall of the corrie to finish just yards from the summit cairn. Another treasured day.

The two ptarmigan quietly sneaking off across the boulder-scree, the beginnings of their white winter plumage giving them away
Shapely Cairn Toul looming massive over the intervening slopes
Black Devil’s Point thrust up in front of bulging Beinn Bhrotain capped with a curve of impossibly white cloud

Memories too of the last time I came up McDui by this route, traversing from the top of Sron Riach towards the final steep climb up near the ridge south of the Tailors’ Burn. That day was snowy and my muscles burned with the effort then too. But at some point on that section of climb I realised I relished that ache: the burn of getting there, of gaining height, of climbing that mountain, of achievement, of being alive rather than just existing.

All these memories, not overwhelming but adding depth and spice to the intensity of being alive right now, of climbing that mountain right now: the wind in my face, the placing of my feet, the push of the thighs, the upward glances taking in the changing gradient of the slope, the reveal of the changing mountainscapes opening up as I climbed. It was a day to catch at the heart, to bring exultation and tears of sheer joy and delight.

Up onto the plateau took me into the cloud, but it was thin stuff and no barrier to the sunshine from above, which gifted a subtle fogbow, nor to fleeting views of the hills around – Cairn Toul, Angel’s Peak, Braeriach – with their ephemerality making the views even more magical.

A fleeting glimpse below the cloud into the complex depths of the great Garbh Choire, Angel’s Peak sneaking into view behind the shoulder of Cairn Toul

At the top there were people – of course there were – but I sat beside them in the lee of the cairn and we said hello, a group on a guided walk with Glenmore Lodge. I chatted with an English couple loving their trip, and with the guide, who was a friend of a friend, and I took a photo for them to capture their own memories of a special day. Where was I going next, they asked. I’d started the day wondering if I’d ever get up McDui, but to be up high was such a joy it wasn’t to be abandoned too quickly. “Back over Derry Cairngorm,” I replied. I knew what a pull it can be getting up that slope from the McDui col, but I didn’t care. The high wind-sculpted clouds in the big blue sky, the endless fields of orange-pink granite, the mountains pin-sharp in the crystal-clear air, and the knowledge of those spectacular views across to the Sputan Dearg cliffs and to the rocks and slopes above Lochan Uaine… the legs could be tomorrow’s problem.

Derry Cairngorm from the north, under that big Cairngorm sky.
Looking across from Derry Cairngorm to the cliffs of Coire Sputan Dearg.

And that’s how it was. The scree slope to the top of Derry Cairngorm was taken slow and steady and the long gradual descent along the ridge to the south went painlessly in the increasingly warm and windless afternoon. Back at Bob Scott’s were waiting two good close pals of many a convivial bothy night, and we were later joined by two impressively athletic hill runners and a quartet of west-coasters on their first visit to a bothy.

If this had been my last hill day I couldn’t have asked for one finer but, of course, that was always no more than a theoretical possibility to be considered, not in any way a prediction. Already on Saturday night I was thinking about a wander for Sunday, and on Sunday morning the legs felt up for it, so off I went: a smaller day, sure, but another of those perfect days with no shortage of joy and moments of pure euphoria. I’ll maybe share that one next time.

Posted in Nature, Stravaiging, Topography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Anatomy of a bothy work party

Posted on August 5, 2025 by cairngormwanderer
The work party crew. Photo by Juls Stodel.

Everything had been planned in advance. We knew what we wanted to accomplish, we’d gathered all the tools and materials we needed, and made sure there would be enough volunteers to do the work. All that could go wrong was the weather.

And it did.

A storm was due to blow in on Monday, just when we were expecting a helicopter to fly in and remove a year’s worth of hikers’ poo. And I only heard the helicopter was cancelled on Friday morning, literally minutes before leaving the house to drive up to Linn o Dee and a three-day work party at Corrour Bothy in the middle of the Cairngorms.

I chatted briefly about the possibilities with Mar Lodge Estate ranger Ben and by the time I reached the Linn o Dee plan B had crystalised.

The original idea was that all eight volunteers would take tools and materials in to Bob Scott’s Bothy, which, with the estate’s kind permission, we could reach by vehicle. Then on Saturday the loads would be shared out and carried on foot for two-and-a-half hours to Corrour Bothy where we could get a few jobs done and prepare the years’ worth of stored bags for uplift by helicopter on Monday.

The problem we faced was that we didn’t have control over when the helicopter could fly. The annual toilet clear-outs would cost the MBA several thousand pounds a time if we arranged it ourselves, and we’ve always been grateful of Mar Lodge Estate’s offer to tag us on as an extra lift on one of their hires (helicopters are used for various transport and survey jobs on the estate). So when Monday was deemed unflyable the estate had moved the job to Saturday morning, and if we couldn’t fit in with that we would have an indeterminate wait until another lift could be on offer.

We had to get in there straight away to get the bags ready for lifting first thing in the morning.

We couldn’t ask everyone to beast in all the way on Friday afternoon and evening, especially with the extra loads they would be carrying, but Ben the ranger came to the rescue with one of the estate vehicles: he could take myself, Nic and Juls in as far as the Robbers’ Copse – almost at the Luibeg Ford – which would give us a shorter walk-in and allow us in to get the bags sorted out that evening. And as a bonus he took some of the heavier and bulkier materials too and stashed them, halving the distance they would have to be carried on volunteers’ backs.

So the three of us arrived at Corrour about 6-ish on Friday evening. Nic – my joint maintenance organiser at Corrour – and I cooked up some much-needed grub once we got to the bothy, then suited up (disposable boiler suits and gloves) and opened up the service area to the toilet. There were ten bags of waste hanging in the store (waste being a mixture of human faeces and toilet paper – nothing else please!) and another two ‘live’ bags hanging from the toilet seats, weights varying from about 10kg to 27kg, and all had to be lifted into a helibag (like a builder’s bulk bag but with longer lifting straps). The helibag, set about 20 metres from the bothy, was full to the brim by the time all the bags were hoisted in. Then we had a clean out of the toilet area, scrubbing the stainless steel tubes and disinfecting the seats before calling it a night and getting the boiler suits and gloves on the fire. It seems wasteful – the suits cost several pounds apiece – but they invariably become soiled with faeces and, with no facilities to clean them on site, there’s no real choice.

Nic and I taking a bow, with a helibag full of shit below the Devil’s Point. Photo by Juls Stodel

It was an early rise on Saturday to make sure there were no tents left up anywhere near the bothy. Nic, Juls and I had all slept in tents or bivvy bags, and a few other walkers had pitched tents too, but luckily everyone turned out to be early risers and we soon had a clear area for the helicopter arriving. The timing was perfect: we just had time for some breakfast and then the helicopter came, landed, connected the long-line to the helibag and was away, all in the space of a few minutes, and before the main group of the work party even arrived, carrying their own kit and all we’d need for the work party.

One of the main jobs was to get in under the floor of the toilet and tackle an area of rotten panelling in the inner wall. Chronically wet because of leaks from the door at the public entrance, it had been chewed through by mice. I’d covered a couple of mouse holes previously, and then spent the best part of a day tackling more holes, patching them with fine wire mesh. The trouble was the softened stirling board panelling wouldn’t hold a nail, and all the patches kept coming out. So today the plan was to remove all the patches and rotten stirling board and do one sheet of mesh across the whole wall. Awkward work, but Ian ‘Piper’ Shand went to work with a will. We started off working together, but there really wasn’t room for us both under there, so Ian ended up spending a couple of hours in the claustrophobic and somewhat smelly ‘bowels’ of the toilet ensuring mesh was securely fixed across the whole area. After that it was panelled with wet-wall offcuts from my recent bathroom conversion, to give a cleanable surface. In the afternoon we both (but mainly Piper) used the rest of the wet-wall offcuts to line the bag storage area, making it both lighter to work in and easier to keep clean.

Ian Shand hard at work under the floor of the toilet – smelly and claustrophobic.
New more hygienic lining in the waste storage area.

That was a great job on its own, but after we were both finished in there Nic went through front and back service areas and gave them as close to a deep clean as was possible.

Nic had already been busy, with Mike Elrick and Stuart Keddie, applying a new coat of wood stain to the exterior of the toilet, perched on top of a home-made (but sturdy) ladder with a paint brush attached to a stick to reach the apex of the gable end.

At full stretch. The ladder is home made, but strong and securely in place.

Everything went so smoothly that all the planned jobs were completed by late afternoon. And – just as the icing on the cake – we’d managed everything without having to turn anyone away from visiting the bothy or the toilet. (Albeit some may have been put off in advance by social media posts warning that access may be restricted.)

A cosmopolitan collection of passers by, bothy visitors, resting volunteers and Stuart Keddie still working away staining the bothy window frame.

Saturday night was time for blethers and a modest libation for those who libate, before a relatively early night, with most of us again in tents while a group of teenagers (who arrived without tents) managed to fill most of the bothy.

Sadly the glorious weather of Saturday – sunshine with enough breeze to keep the midges off through the day – didn’t last. Cloud and midges came in through the evening and rain by morning. Sunday was a wet start and the return to civilisation was less of a triumphal parade and more a tired straggle, volunteers variously laden with tools, work party rubbish, tins and bottles left by selfish bothy users, and two sleeping bags and a cheap tent left by really selfish bothy users. A bit sad, but it certainly didn’t spoil what was a great weekend, or the feeling of satisfaction that buoyed us up on the walk out, which even managed to turn sunny by the time we got to the vehicles waiting at Derry Lodge.

Last out. Neil, Nic and Juls, delighted that the rain has just stopped and the sun is appearing.

I post about this on social media and sometimes through this blog, but this post hopefully demonstrates that bothies are looked after by teams, not individuals. Not everyone who contributed to this weekend has been named in the text, but the whole team – all volunteers – were: myself, Nic Cheyne, Neil Findlay, Dave Knowles, Ian Shand, Stuart Keddie, Mike Elrick and Juls Stodel. In addition there was admin support from the MBA area organiser Allan ‘Sinbad’ Moore. On top of that we work with the support of the management of Mar Lodge Estate and in particular estate ranger Ben Dolphin. It’s a big team and a big involvement from all both in terms of time and effort and, from the MBA and Mar Lodge Estate, hard cash.

So next time you put your head down for a free night’s accommodation in Corrour – or any other bothy – or that you go to ‘spend a penny’, do remember how many people have worked to make it possible for you and remember too that the very best way to say thank-you is by treating the bothy, fellow visitors and the surrounding environment with respect. Don’t leave any rubbish, food or unwanted kit and – for extra brownie points – take away any rubbish that someone else might have left. Looking after each other is how we look after ourselves.

Posted in Bothies, People | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Blooms, views and an angry falcon

Posted on July 7, 2025 by cairngormwanderer
Looking up Glen Derry to my goal: Sgurr an Lochan Uaine, with Beinn Mheadhoinn beyond.

It was one of those weekends I might not have bothered if I hadn’t already said to pals I’d be there. The weather forecast was pretty gloomy: low cloud, rain and strong winds.

But there I was: Saturday night and I was sitting in Bob Scott’s with a fine crowd of folk including the pals I’d planned to meet and two I’d not seen in years, as well as others who turned out to be great company. And most were sleeping in tents, too, so the bothy wasn’t too crowded by bedtime. What more could I have asked?

Oh yes. An absolutely superb day on the hill, with the cloud staying high and the rain hardly there at all. And a magic wander around parts of the hill I’d not visited in decades.

You know as you walk up Glen Derry how the view ahead is dominated by two hills: the rocky cone of Beinn Mheadhoinn and, just in front, the cliffs of Sgurr an Lochan Uaine. Yes, I said that right. Not Sgor an Lochain Uaine (1258m), which is a companion to Cairn Toul, but Sgurr an Lochan Uaine (983m), which is a top of Derry Cairngorm.

Anyway, I’d been there before, a couple of decades or so ago, but I figured it might stay below the forecast cloud and, well, it was a wee wander off-path and would be a change.

It was a day that gave full value. From the start I’d lacked confidence in getting many landscape views, so I concentrated on the ground around my feet: it’s a great time for flowers and there was no shortage to see, even if many required Googling or the advice of more knowledgeable pals to identify later. Lady’s Bedstraw, Starry Saxifrage, Butterwort, Wild Thyme, Eyebright, Fragrant and Heath Orchids, Bog Asphodel… The flowers of the mountains are mostly small and lack the in-your-face impact of garden flowers, but their intricate forms and delicate elegance are a quiet delight and the day would have been a treat for those alone.

The tiny, delicate flowers and leaves of eyebright, high in Coire Etchachan.

The wider views weren’t in hiding either though and there was that familiar lift of spirit as I came round the corner from Glen Derry into Coire Etchachan and into view of the dramatic cliffs of Creagan a Choire Etchachan, full of it’s classic rock climbs from the pear-shaped Bastion on the left across gullies and ribs to the Red Slabs on the right. A place of drama and memories for climbers and inspiring scenic splendour even for those who would never think of straying from the path.

That classic view of the cliffs above the Hutchison Hut – rendered a trifle atmospheric by a hazy shower.

There was a wee bit of disappointment when I arrived at the Hutchison Memorial Hut when I saw how much rubbish and unwanted kit had been left there. It wasn’t all from one person either – the haul included a cheap tent, sets of poles from two other tents and sundry dirty mess tins and cups as well as empty food tins and gas cannisters. I suppose what disappointed me as much as the original culprits was that no-one else visiting the bothy had thought to do anything about it. It was an easy matter just to burn all the flammables (including two T-shirts and some socks) in the stove and, even with my advancing years and plans to head steeply uphill, it wasn’t too much of a hardship to take all the kit and tins out in my rucksack. Maybe others could take a thought and do the same. (At least where they’re sure it IS rubbish or abandoned and there’s no doubt that anyone might be coming back for it!)

Anyway, a half hour or so at the bothy and a sweep out before I left, let my legs recover a bit before heading up the faint path that leads to the cliffs and then breaking away to climb the southern sidewall of Coire Etchachan.

Keeping to the right of the burn gives a relatively easy route between the outcrops.

At first glance it looks almost impregnable, but look longer and you can see there are ways up through the outcrops and scree chutes, most easily by following the ridge beside the largest stream coming down midway along the south wall. It is steep, but manageable with care – and at my level of fitness (or lack thereof!) a slow and steady rate of ascent was the only option anyway. It was nice to have the excuse of the saxifrage and eyebright to pause now and then, and an absolute treat to find a butterwort still in flower. Most of the butterwort I saw in the glen was past and was identified by those distinctive waxy leaves, but this one, at almost 3000 feet, still had that lovely mauvey-blue flower.

The angle at the top of the slope eases somewhat into an open corrie, but I’d been there before and wasn’t tempted to keep going upwards: the slope there may be easier angled, but it’s all deep heather hiding boulders and holes, with a fair bit of bog to enliven matters. Instead I traversed the top of the steep slope, mostly on dryish, stoney ground, before heading up with good footing to the bouldery, slabby granite top of Sgurr an Lochan Uaine.

And what views!

From the top of the corrie wall and up to and beyond the summit the views were a joy: the Cairngorms are familiar ground, but the unfamiliar viewpoint makes all the difference, with surprising juxtapositions of landscape features, such as seeing – all in line – the outlines of Creagan a Choire Etchachan, Carn Etchachan and – in the distance – the top of the Fiacaill Butress in the Northern Corries. Out to the east was a view which perfectly illustrated the origins of Beinn a Bhuird’s name – the table mountain – and the view to the south offered up the sinuous course of the Derry Burn leading through the lake-like flat mid-section of the glen to the Derry Woods at the bottom.

A conjunction of cliffs: from front to back are Creagan a Coire Etchachan, Carn Etchachan and, almost obscured by cloud, Fiacaill Buttress in the Northern Corries.
The Dubh Lochan can be seen between Beinn Mheadhoinn on the left and Beinn a Chaorainn on the right, with Bynack Mor beyond.
Table Mountain – Beinn a Bhuird on the skyline.
From just below the summit of Sgurr an Lochan Uaine, the winding Derry Burn heading south to the Derry Woods.
And looking back across Coire an Lochan Uaine to the summit of Derry Cairngorm.

I’d swithered about heading from there to the top of Derry Cairngorm but was tempted more by the steep descent into Coire an Lochan Uaine. There is a steep and loose ramp near the burn which feeds the lochan, but I had in mind a route down the slight ridge between the two sets of cliffs, where the hill turns the corner from the east face to the south. From the glen a route looks unlikely, but I’d been down this way many years before, so I knew it was a case of getting it right at the start and picking my route carefully. It’s not a way down you’d pick in poor visibility.

It’s entertaining picking a way down such steep ground, and it distracts your attention from the toll it’s taking on your knees, but I had another distraction. While concentrating on where my feet were headed I became aware of a screeching noise. Repeated screeches one after the other – and getting louder. It seemed I’d upset a peregrine falcon, for it came into sight flying towards me and then hovering above my head, screeching the whole time.

An angry peregrine, deliberately staying just out of range for a good photo.

Stupidly, it hadn’t occurred to me there might still be birds with young on nests, and although I knew I was trying to avoid the cliffs the peregrine very obviously didn’t. By that time though I was about midway down the level of the cliffs, so up or down would make little difference, and I knew that my route, down heather and boulders, wouldn’t take me any nearer a cliff nest, so I kept going and sure enough the peregrine eventually lost interest. A note for the future though – it’s probably a route best avoided when there’s any chance of raptors having eggs or young.

Once down the steeper section it was fairly easy going through the heather down to the Derry Burn, which was low enough to allow for an easy boulder hop to get across and rejoin the main path down the glen to Scottie’s and home.

However there was one more airborne encounter to liven the day. A low drone rose in volume until a rescue helicopter came into sight and flew up the glen. Presumably on exercise rather than a rescue, as, after disappearing in and out of Coire Etchachan several times it carried on north through the Lairig an Laoigh and disappeared.

The helicopter above Craig Derry
And a closer view.

The walk down Glen Derry can be a weary trudge sometimes, but on such a great day even by the time my legs were protesting I was so enjoying the wander through the peaceful beauty of the Derry Woods that I didn’t mind the ache or the growing grumbles of hunger.

A grand day out.

Late sunshine in the Derry Woods.
Posted in Nature, Stravaiging, Topography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

A weekend saved on Sgor Dubh

Posted on June 9, 2025 by cairngormwanderer
The slope up Sgor Dubh behind Luibeg Cottage. Thigh-burningly steep but with great views.

I’ve written about the Sgor Mor-Sgor Dubh massif before but it’s such a braw and extensive area that it’ll do no harm to mention it again.

I was up at Bob Scott’s for the weekend, with no bothy work planned and only vague plans for a walk since the forecast was pretty discouraging, predicting low cloud and rain on Saturday. My idea was to follow the south-west bank of the Lui Burn as far as the Black Bridge and return by the north-east bank. I’d done it some years ago in the other direction and it made for an entertaining wander – if a little wet underfoot in places – giving a totally different perspective to a very familiar glen. For most of the journey the landrover track is invisible, and following the pathless banks of the river provides a longer trip and very different and often fascinating scenery from the view from the track. And no crowds either.

Of course it didn’t work out that way this Saturday. It started well – I made my way upstream until I met and forded the Derry Burn, then followed the Luibeg as far as the vehicle ford at Luibeg Cottage, managing to cross dryshod. Great! And I started back downstream, taking some photos of Bob Scott’s Bothy from the other side. Nice.

Nice bothy – pity it’s on the wrong side of the river
Scottie’s from the top of the glacial moraine opposite.

Then the rain started. Not so good. Then it got heavier and the camera went away into a plastic bag. Me too: waterproof jacket and trousers and hood up, closing me in and restricting my view. And it stayed that way all the way down until just before the Black Bridge, where I arrived somewhat moist and overheating. I’d enjoyed the journey in one sense (the test being: would you rather be here or at work?) but it was hardly a vintage experience. I was sufficiently soggy and dispirited to make the return journey by the track rather than the north-east river bank, even though the rain had by now stopped.

The day wasn’t wasted though. Back at a now empty Bob Scott’s (a couple of pals and some young lads had stayed on Friday night) I read my book and enjoyed blethering with various passers-by. The last visitors left about six-ish and after that – in what to many gossip-listeners is still one of Scotland’s most notorious party bothies – it was just me and my book. On a Saturday night.

So Sunday I would normally have had a leisurely morning, packed up and headed off down the road, but too little action on Saturday and an improved forecast for Sunday meant I was tempted. Instead of heading off down the well-worn track I would pack up and head home over Sgor Dubh. It meant carrying a big pack over the hill, but I had recent form: a few weeks back I’d been working all Saturday at Corrour, jealous of all those climbing the hills in glorious sunshine, so on the Sunday, fully laden with weekend pack augmented by various tools, a battery gun and spare batteries, and a burnt-out fire grate, I went home via Carn a Mhaim. My legs were worn away to stumps by the time I reached the Linn o’ Dee that day, but it had been worth it.

So I wasn’t too worried about managing the much smaller Sgor Dubh this weekend. It’s still a brutal start from that side though. Once more I forded the burn at Luibeg Cottage, then headed up through the woods and the steep, regenerating hillside above. With deep moss and heather in the woods and heather on the open hillside, the mostly pathless ascent is hard work but curiously satisfying at the same time, picking the best lines and enjoying the widening vistas of the main Cairngorms massif behind me.

Looking back down on the woods and Luibeg Cottage, with the beautiful Derry Woods beyond
A panorama of the giants. The dark top far left is the Devil’s Point, then a shoulder of Cairn Toul, with Carn a Mhaim hiding the summit. Beyond that is Braeriach and then Ben McDui behind Carn Crom. Then the cone of Derry Cairngorm and, on the right, Beinn Mheadhoinn.

When the slope angle suddenly fell back my direct route up from Luibeg Cottage was confirmed by some modern day archaeology: the remains of Bob Scott’s television aerial. All that remains now is a galvanised metal box and two lengths of metal tubing, with some anchor points and mooring wire, but back in the ‘60s and ‘70s this was the only way head keeper Bob Scott could get television reception in Luibeg Cottage. His aerial had to be way up the hillside, almost 300 metres above the house, to pick up any signal. Hilltop aerials were a common sight in upper Glen Dee, but Bob Scott’s must have been the remotest to feature this. The aerial cable alone must have cost a fortune, and the wind and weather in that exposed location must have meant quite a few trips up to reset the antennae.

The remnants of Bob Scott’s television aerial, a thousand feet above his house.

The short, wind-scoured heather and the more gradual gradient made for easy walking from there to the summit, and the well-built horseshoe-shaped cairn made good shelter from the breeze for a bite to eat and a drink. Just after setting off roughly south-east along the broad descent ridge I paused to look up and across Glen Dee, confirming that the top seen in this direction from The Redhouse Bothy was indeed Sgor Dubh – way off in the distance I could just pick out the White Bridge and, beyond a forestry plantation, the bothy.

Is that a bothy I see?
Zoom in and… yes. The Redhouse and toilet can be seen in the centre of the photo, with the White Bridge across the Dee in the lower right quadrant.

In the other direction, as I went along the slightly spongy ground, I was delighted to discover I could see right through the cleft of Clais Fearnaig. I’ve been here before but had never consciously registered the excellent view through the pass connecting Glen Lui to Glen Quoich. You can even see a glimpse of the lochan itself.

Looking right through Clais Fearnaig, with a wee glimpse of the lochan. Beyond is Glen Quoich, with Beinn a Bhuird and Ben Avon on the skyline.

The shape of the terrain was by now forcing me ever closer to the long deer fence erected a few years ago to separate the regeneration and moorland zones of Mar Lodge Estate, and I ended up following the fence, which was less aesthetically pleasing, but made for easier travelling along a slight path – increasingly important when you’re carrying a big sack. Ironically, I came across some deer scat and hoof prints on the path – on the ‘wrong’ side of the fence; instead of keeping the deer out this fence was keeping at least one in.

There had been little to see in the way of wildlife on the open hill, but I did get a wee moment or two of delight as a skylark twittered away giving me its elevator pitch for a minute or two while I passed its territory.

After a good bit of fairly painless descent (a more direct route would have taken me down a purgatorial slope of deep heather and hole) once I hit the trees I louped the fence and dropped more directly down to the Glen Dee track just before the Linn o’ Dee. It was nice to meet a young American couple from yesterday who confirmed that the campsite I’d recommended for them had been “wonderful”, and then I had a chat with one of the rangers before getting into the car and heading off home, having snatched an enjoyable day on what might just have been a disconsolate retreat.

Posted in Bothies, Stravaiging, Topography | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Ultimate Guide to the Cairngorms

Posted on June 3, 2025 by cairngormwanderer

The arrival of the second print run of the new edition of the Scottish Mountaineering Club’s Hillwalkers’ Guide to The Cairngorms & North-East Scotland is as good a time as any to write about such an important book which first appeared while this blog was in abeyance.

Full disclosure here though: Two of the three authors are good friends of mine, and I contributed sections on the human history of the range and on the bothies. So what you’ll read here is not an unbiased review. With that caveat, though, I still say this is the best guidebook I have seen to the Cairngorms and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the area. It’s a benchmark too for any future SMC guides to other hill areas.

So what do we have?

At heart a guidebook should do what it says on the tin, and it does that admirably. Authors Iain Young, Anne Butler and Heather Morning all live in the area and are all intimately familiar with both the main massif of the Cairngorms and the wider range from Angus to Moray and the A9 to the Mounth. Splitting the map into logical sections they give good descriptions of the character and attractions of the different hills and the main routes of ascent, along with other recommended routes and possible link-ups with other hills. All the routes are illustrated with excellent mapping and crucially for many, car parking is also described where appropriate.

Dotted throughout the core of the book – the hill and route descriptions – are added information panels about places or aspects of the hills, written by experts in their field, and descriptions and potted histories of the various bothies (my own contribution).

Each hill section is introduced by an overall description of the area and its natural history, along with any historical tales of interest, and after all the hill chapters are chapters on passes and through routes and on long distance paths and hill rounds.

Kicking off the whole book is an introduction which should be regarded as essential reading, containing information on the character of the Cairngorms and issues such as transport, accommodation and safety and skills, as well as advice on responsible access. This is followed by a fascinating chapter on the natural history of the Cairngorms and, though I say so myself, a not too shabby overview of the human history of the range. And then there’s the bibliography at the end. Where most bibliographies are just a list of books, this has been put together under themes and with a brief paragraph about each book and why it should be of interest. Much more useful.

I’m tempted to go on and on: this is a book full of information and surprises which is eminently readable and imparts not just a deeper knowledge of the area you will be wandering in, but also a huge dose of inspiration. I’ve wandered these hills all my life and still bookmarked so many pages to come back and make future plans from.

And the photographs. I’ve not mentioned the photographs but they are excellent: a delight and inspiration in themselves. With not a bad photo or a poor choice, you could honestly extract the photos from this book and turn them into a large format photo book on their own, or frame them for a gallery exhibition – they really are that good.

So that’s about it. A scarcely coherent rambling rave about a book that really took me by surprise, even though I knew the authors. The original edition of this guide, by Sir Henry Alexander back in 1928 was a classic, and the fifth edition, by Adam Watson in 1975, a much loved and cherished read that helped me find my way about these hills. Watson’s re-written sixth edition in 1992 was another big step forward in design and layout, and when I heard that a new edition was planned I wondered how it could stand up to the master. Well, standing on the shoulders of giants as it is, the authors and publisher SMP have not rested on their or anyone else’s laurels; they’ve taken up the baton and run with it. In terms of information, scope, accessibility, design, visual delight and, like I said, sheer inspiration, this really is the best.

…………

And in a free and unashamed ad, you can get it here: https://scottishmountaineeringpress.com/product/the-cairngorms-ne-scotland-smc/

Posted in News, Stravaiging, Topography | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Off piste in the Cairngorms

Posted on May 13, 2025 by cairngormwanderer
A mystery corrie? If you don’t recognise it all will be revealed.

A new way up an old favourite and a long walk through the Cairngorms’ ‘forgotten’ glen.

The plan was as simple as it was vague: up Cairn Toul by one of the summit ridges, then either down into the Garbh Choire or down into Glen Geusachan. So I did that… sort of.

I was staying for the weekend at Corrour Bothy, determined to make it a recreational visit rather than maintaining the toilet. (Almost made it, but the bags were full and on Friday evening after I arrived I ended up putting on fresh sacks. At least I didn’t have to carry the full ones round to the store.)

Coire an t-Saighdeir nearest the camera with Coire an t-Sabhail beyond. My eventual route would go up just to the right of the triangular snowpatch.

The forecast was good and Saturday dawned cloudless, so after breakfast I headed diagonally across the east face of Cairn Toul, headed initially for the mouth of the giant Coire an t-Saighdeir and across the mouth of that to enter Coire an t-Sabhail, the stony corrie below the twin tops of Cairn Toul. Some years ago I’d crossed the mouth of that corrie and spied a fox loping across the screes – at well over 3000 ft – and though I had no expectation to see it again I had a notion to wander around in the corrie before ascending to the summit by the north-bounding ridge, which is a fairly easy climb up stable boulders (as opposed to the south-bounding ridge which is more fun but narrower and involves some scrambling). But you know how it is: a corrie filled with boulders fallen from the back wall and encircling arms isn’t just a uniform bowl but is filled with ridges and runnels, some transverse, so that there’s always that wee bit you can’t see until you’re in there. To be fair, the hidden views contained nothing startling or that couldn’t have been seen from the ridge above, but, och, you like to walk the ground anyway and after the long trudge up through heather and grassy stream beds it was good to have some solid – if occasionally shoogly – rock under my feet.

So that’s how I came up to the steepening backwall of the corrie. There was a bouldery shelf back down to the mouth, where I could pick up the ridge, but, more tempting, there was a ramp going upwards too. A cone of debris from some rockfall of aeons past made an easing of the slope in the centre of the corrie, which looked like it would be possible all the way up. So why not!

The back wall of Coire an t-Sabhail. The slight ramp started at the greenish patch in the centre of the image and went up towards the snow patch, finishing on the more stable ground to its right.

The terrain was steep scree and gravel with a few turfs of course grass and moss, and there were a lot of loose rocks, but the angle laid back just enough that the slope was fairly stable and a careful choice of steps meant no slips. But of course nothing stays the same, and this slope followed the pattern of most hill slopes – gradual at first, steepening in the middle and then laying back again towards the top – so I soon found myself on steeper ground where the scree was a lot less stable. Rocks that seemed pretty well braced against each other would start to move en masse as soon as my weight was added to the equation. It made for an interesting few minutes until I could move sideways onto an area of larger boulders which seemed more stable. Making steadier progress there it wasn’t too long before the angle started to ease towards the top lip of the corrie and an easier last few paces to the summit cairn. All that was missing, really – if I’m being honest – was someone sitting there looking astonished and asking where the hell I’d come from! But an enjoyable outing all the same, and if I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, and am not likely ever to do it again, it was all perfectly feasible and it enabled me to see a favourite hill from new angles.

The upper reaches of the corrie back wall, above the loose section.

Soon after I reached the top I was joined by a retired GP from Yorkshire and two young guys from Edinburgh, all of whom I’d shared the previous evening with at Corrour Bothy, so we blethered a while and then I walked over to Angel’s Peak with the young guys, blethering about this and that and pointing out to them the site of the Garbh Choire snow patches, still all one spidery snowfield, although smaller than it should be in May. Between the two peaks was the only stretch of the whole day’s walk where I was on a proper footpath.

As the others headed off towards Braeriach I settled down for a seat in a niche just below the summit of Angel’s Peak and after a bite to eat got out the binoculars and gazed around the stupendous panorama of cliff and plateau, spotting a herd of grazing reindeer around the infant Dee above the Garbh Choire Daidh and then – just – making out a splash of foreign colour on the cliffs east of the Dee Waterfall. Two climbers were inching their way up what looked like St Andrew’s Climb. They were too far away to pick out more than just the blue of the leader and white top of the second, but it was nice to see that in these days of easy access indoor climbing walls there are still at least some people not just keeping trad climbing alive but doing so in the remoter cliffs of the Cairngorms where the walk-in will take longer than the route. Proper rock climbing.

Looking across the great gulf of the Garbh Choire to Braeriach and the giant bowl of Coire Bhrochain.
The Dee Waterfall and the cliffs of Garbh Choire Daidh. Too small to see in this photo, there were two climbers at the centre of the highest section of cliff.
Looking into the inner recesses of Garbh Choire Mor, with the once ‘eternal’ snows sadly depleted for the time of year.

Having enjoyed a leisurely scan of one of the finest wilderness views in Scotland I laid back with my rucksack as a pillow to enjoy a clifftop nap before reluctantly gathering my wandering thoughts for what I knew would be a long return journey to Corrour.

Heading home – the long way. Monadh Mor and Beinn Bhrotain are ahead, with the entrance to the upper reaches of Glen Geusachan.

I headed more or less due south from the cairn, down towards the Allt Clais an t-Sabhail, the burn that winds southwards for about three kilometres before turning east and becoming the Geusachan Burn. The going was easy, over alternating bands of boulderfield and grass, and the prolonged dry spell meant that I kept my feet dry, enjoying the crisp crunch of dry grass and heath under my boots, and staying on reasonably firm footing even when I joined the burn with its multitude of tributaries, a collecting ground that would normally be wall-to-wall bog.

The ‘back’ of Cairn Toul. Rather lacks the drama of the usual view from Glen Dee and the east.

With views of the ‘back’ of Cairn Toul and ahead to the great Coire Cath nam Fionn of Beinn Bhrotain, it’s an area of the hill that sees little footfall, and the last people I saw for the next six or seven kilometres was a group skylined at the col between Cairn Toul and Angel’s Peak. In fact, considering the weather and the popularity of Cairn Toul as a mountain – while scanning the long corrie edge with the binoculars I’d seen a regular train of folk on the Braeriach-Cairn Toul route – I had a remarkably solitary day: I’d encountered no-one as I climbed the eastern face and corrie and after a flurry of humanity between Cairn Toul and Angel’s Peak I was to see no-one else until I came within sight of Corrour Bothy again.

Heading down into Glen Geusachan, with the imposing Coire Cath nam Fionn of Beinn Bhrotain ahead.

So is the back of Cairn Toul and the emptiness of Glen Geusachan the hidden treasure of the Cairngorms? Not really. There’s nothing wrong with it (unless you really don’t like long boggy glens that always turn out to be much longer than they look) but there’s nothing really there that you can’t find in many hills and glens of the Cairngorms once you get off the main trade routes. For all that, and despite the bodily weariness caused by my lack of fitness I enjoyed my whole journey that day, from the slight adrenaline buzz climbing out of the corrie, to the longer than remembered trail down Glen Geusachan and round the bottom of the Devil’s Point back to Corrour. It was good to see different angles on the Devil’s Point – a very different hill from the back – and right into the normally obscured Coire Cath nam Fionn, and to remember just how long the glen is: the normal view is from the Lairig Ghru path as it turns the corner of Carn a Mhaim, from which the glen is grossly foreshortened.

The Devil’s Point isn’t quite so instantly recognisable from the western end of Glen Geusachan.

It was interesting, too to study the ‘path’ down the glen. Geusachan isn’t a totally neglected glen; people use it as a descent from Monadh Mor, or as part of a through route between Dee and Feshie, but it does see very few travellers, and not enough to have formed what you’d call a proper path, more a vague expression of a desire line, a trail that often disappears higher up the glen and even in the lower reaches is a faint line in the vegetation – a line through heather, a mere trod on grass, seldom ever having worn through to bare ground. It’s how centuries past, or even over millennia, the now familiar path through the Lairig Ghru must have formed, with one or two people each following what looked like the easiest line on the ground – possibly even an animal track in places – and a consensus developing and the route becoming more and more defined over the course of who knows how many years. Like I said, it’s a long glen and the weather was balmy, so there was plenty time to ponder such answerless questions, and when the corner was turned under the Devil’s Point and Corrour came into sight, with a flotilla of tents around it, I was none the wiser on how long it takes to make a path but all the happier for having walked it. Another great day out.

And home again. Back at Corrour after full circle of Cairn Toul and Devil’s Point.
The whole route, accurate to the nearest half mile or so.
Posted in Bothies, Stravaiging | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The disappearing stories

Posted on April 29, 2025 by cairngormwanderer
Wrong gully, and a climb I might have tried in my youth, but not today.

I went whisky hunting at the weekend there. Not with any hope of finding the actual stuff, but to find the site where it was once made – and with faint enough hope even of that. I was looking for the site of an old whisky still in one of the stream gullies falling through the hillside on the north bank of the Dee just above the end of the tarred road at the Linn o’ Dee. I knew from one source that there was little left, and from another that it was hard to find. Add to that, that I couldn’t actually remember which of several possible gullies it was in, and you can see why my hope was faint.

But I found it. After contemplating dicing with death by climbing an unsuspectedly large waterfall in the wrong gully (the caution of old age overcoming the impetuosity of youth), I tried the next most likely gully and found my goal.

The remains of the back wall of the still howff, with the flat floor in front. Easily missed.

Little enough to see for all my hazard and peching up and down trackless gullies – just a few stones, unmistakably put together by humans, remnant of a wall build into the side of the gully next to the stream. A flat piece of ground in front of the ‘wall’ had been floor of the tiny howff, which would have been hidden from below by twists in the flanking banks and from above by a natural outcrop. Virtually nothing really but, as with a pilgrimage to see up close the snow patches of the Garbh Choire, it was its existence that mattered more than its substance.

Some unknown time in the past, probably between the later 1600s and the 1700s, people from the nearby farm settlements would have made their way, discretely, to this hidden den, carrying the valuable copper pot filled with a mash made of barley which had been malted by soaking in water. Inside the tiny stillhouse this would have been boiled up, producing alcohol as a vapour which was cooled and condensed by passing it through the ‘worm’, a thin copper tube fed through the cold waters of the burn which splashed down beside the howff.

This would have been one of several stills in the area, with the produce mainly going south to a ready market in the towns and cities. Whisky had first been taxed in 1644, with increasing levies making illicit distilling a lucrative option for almost 200 years until excise was slashed in 1823. Remote subsistence farms like those in the glens of the Cairngorms were ideal for the secretive business of distilling, with stills sited close to small tight-knit communities in hidden locations which were hard or even impossible for the excisemen (or gaugers as they were called) to find. Once made, the whisky was convoyed south by well-organised gangs supplying inns and taverns in more peopled areas. It was a vital source of income to subsistence farmers who had to find rent money as well as feed themselves and their families. However the trade died out quickly once the 1823 Excise Act was passed, legalising the distilling of whisky in return for a licence fee and much reduced duty. Big money took over the whisky business and the small, hidden stills like the one I visited this weekend were abandoned to return to the hillside they were built from.

The hardship caused by the loss of income isn’t separately recorded, but it was around this time that – in this section of Deeside at least – the farming community faltered and died out. There were certainly other factors – natural disaster such as the Muckle Spate of 1829, and the priority given to deer over crops as the shooting estate reached its heyday – but the loss of the whisky trade must have been a psychological blow as well as financial. The old world was changing.

It’s a reminder of how temporary are the stories mankind leaves in the landscape.

Just a couple of hundred yards from the 17th or 18th century distillers, along at the other end of the broken rocks of Creag Phadruig, used to be a far more modern howff. Built in the 1970s, it was a tiny but perfect shelter under a massive boulder. There wasn’t a lot of headroom once you’d entered through the Lilliputian door – a sitting only sort of place – but there was room for two or three to sleep on a wooden floor and, with side walls concreted, it was weathertight and a good doss if you arrived at the Linn o’ Dee too late or in too bad weather to face the walk in to Bob Scott’s.

The ruins of the hillwalker’s howff, side wall cast down and floor burned. The doorway was a crawling job at the right of the picture but there was room to sit up inside.

Built by a friend before I knew him, it was revealed to me by another friend who had his own history there. I too spent some memorable nights there, but one day in the 1990s I arrived there and found the hidden door had been insufficient protection against an unfriendly keeper who cast down the stone side wall and set a fire on the wooden floor. Now the only physical testament to small chapter in the history of walking in the Cairngorms is some charred wood and some rocks still buttered with cement.

Once a perfectly fitted wooden floor, now just charred remains.

Perhaps that might be seen as inconsequential, but who knows what future generations might have made of it? Or archaeologists of centuries to come? Last weekend I was at yet another location, further up the Dee beyond the White Bridge, where at various times between six and ten thousand years ago people had made camp and stayed for as long as a summer season at a time.

The site was discovered just this century because of a stray piece of flint found during path building, and has been excavated by archaeologists before being covered back over, with fascinating hints of story being revealed, of groups of people living there for maybe months at a time over a period of several thousand years. However since that dig the adjacent river has carved into the bank and cut through what was once the solid ground of the Mesolithic campsite. When I first visited a couple of years ago I was beguiled by markings in the river bank which clearly showed where a shallow hole had been dug in the ground. Erosion by the river had washed away half of the hollow and what was left was a perfectly clear cross section of what had been a basin-like hole in fine, sandy silt. You could see where the surface of the ground had been those thousands of years ago, now overlaid with peat. But you could also see the more modern story, where archaeologists had excavated half of the bowl and left the other half which, now bisected, showed the layer of charcoal or organic material that had once lain inside it. Who in the mists of time had dug this and knelt over it tending a small fire, or filling it with some long decomposed matter? And what was going through the mind of the archaeologist whose trowel scraped away at the covering layer of peat to find a round hollow?

The hole as it was two years ago, under a foot of peat but clearly seen in cross-section with half excavated and half left as it was found.
And the hole today, slowly disappearing as the bank erodes.

Story within story… but both now losing their physical existence. When I went there to show a friend this 8000-year-old hole I almost didn’t find it. A spate had raised the river level and scoured out more of the soft sandy bank. The profile of the hole was still there but less distinct and it’s clear that only a few more floods – not necessarily that big either – will see it gone forever.

So is it a tragedy? Probably not really. The still, the howff, the stone age hole; they all have their stories to tell, and stories, and the remembering of them and the sharing of them, are part of what makes us human. The Cairngorms are rich in story – I know – I’ve recorded many of them in this blog over the years. But we can smother ourselves with the past, wallowing in nostalgia amidst the ruins of old artefacts and buildings, leaving no time or room for the new stories that are happening all the time. So on one level it’s sad to see these relics disappearing but from landscape regeneration to each individual visitor’s new adventures, there are new tales to be told every day.

Postscript:

Just after posting this I came across this excellent article by Derek Alexander and NTS Archaeologist Daniel Rhodes, which has much fascinating information about the remains of stills which can still be seen today and about the process of distilling in secret locations. https://the-past.com/feature/distilling-a-clandestine-craft-exploring-the-archaeology-and-history-of-illicit-whisky-making/

Posted in History, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

I’m back and it’s sh*t… and glorious

Posted on April 8, 2025 by cairngormwanderer

Looking along the ridge of Carn a Mhaim – a feast of false summits but a treat all the way.

Way back during the Covid lockdowns this blog was one of the many casualties. The motivation faded and the habit was broken.

But hey, there I was this morning writing a Facebook post and it was going on and on – far too long for Facebook – so I thought why not. Just back from a real weekend of two halves, I’ll try out this blogging business again.

…

Having crawled through a hatch not quite tall enough to negotiate on hands and knees, I’m lying on my side under the floor of the bothy toilet, holding jaggy wire mesh against the wall and fiddling with leather work gloves to pick out one nail from a box of them, craning my neck to see where I have to use short swings of the hammer to drive the clout nail into the particle board where the mice have chewed an access hole. My neck hurts, but at least when I tip it back like that I’m not looking at the stinking pile of human faeces which has spilled from the mice-chewed bags under the toilet. And this close – my nose is literally less than a foot from the mess – it really does stink. Doesn’t look very nice either.

The crawl space under the toilet floor, once I’d removed the full waste bags and the pile of sh*t in the metal drip tray. The wire mesh looks a mess – and is – but in that cramped space it was all I could do. Neat-minded folks are welcome to come along next time and help sort it, but if it keeps the mice out it’ll do me.

I often feel a bit of a fraud when people praise me for the work I do at Corrour Bothy, helping to look after both the bothy and the toilet there. I choose to do it, after all, and get a huge sense of fulfilment from what I do. But this day I’d have lapped up every compliment I could get, and it still wouldn’t have been enough. The physical effort of working in such a constrained space, and the overpowering stench, meant I took lots of breaks, where, along with fresh air, I could feel intense jealousy of all the walkers as I looked across the glen to the sun-drenched length of the Carn a Mhaim ridge, and over my shoulder to Devil’s Point and Cairn Toul, that most graceful of Cairngorm peaks, whose beauty was only enhanced by the blue sky and crystal clear light.

The whole thing had been a classic case of mission creep. Original plan was simply to go out there and swap the toilet seats being used, leaving the full waste sacks until next visit when there would be two of us to share the load. But plans changed midweek so I’d have more time, and I had one of those sleepless midnight epiphanies about the worsening problem of mice we’ve been having there. With all the visible avenues of access already blocked, they were still getting into the toilet bags and chewing holes in them, so the contents spilled out. It occurred to me they could be coming in through the water drain under the drip tray which sits under the sacks which collect the waste from the four toilet seats above. It seemed simple: we had a roll of fine mesh and my sleepless but sleepy cogitations even worked out how I could fix it in place to foil the beasts.

Ready for work

But now I was there the space I had to work in was tighter than I remembered and the access tighter still. And trying to manoeuvre and work, with all that raw shit just inches from my face was just ridiculous. So I back crawled out again and gritted my teeth. My days of solo bag changes were, I had thought, long over. At my age I really shouldn’t be working alone, trying to lift heavy bags of faeces from the toilet tubes where they hang, round the outside of the bothy and then lifting them up onto a hook in the storage area. The weight alone isn’t outrageous, but a porous bag full of shit isn’t something you can just hug in close for an easier lift. It had to be done though, just so I could finish the job I came to do. (I’d also found a rather large mousehole which had previously been hidden, so that made for a bigger job again.)

The consolations were considerable. During a break from the sub-toilet toil I saw the pale moon rising over the rocks of Carn a Mhaim.

But, och, as nauseating and exhausting as the job was at times, it was a wonderful day to sit outside during the many breaks. After a winter whose weather was miserable rather than wintery, the sunshine and warmth were lovely, and the views to die for. Just that envy as group after group and solo walkers passed by heading for the heights. Most were headed for or coming down from the Cairn Toul – Braeriach traverse, one of the finest walks in Britain and – this day – being done in the finest weather and visibility possible. The only trouble was that by the time I had finished and got stuff cleared away, I was too knackered even to think about a quick nip up the Devil’s Point. Ah well, thems the breaks and in any case it ended up a great evening in good company in front of a roaring fire which tempted four folk to sleep in the bothy who had originally intended to camp. I do love a good bothy night.

Sunday dawned with thick mist which soon lifted to offer another blue-sky day. As everyone in the bothy and from tents outside breakfasted and packed for another day on the tops or a tired but satisfied walk out through the glens, I enjoyed a lazier start. Even with the fine weather, I had a bag of tools and an old burnt-out fire grate to carry out, as well as my weekend rucksack, so I just figured on giving the place a sweep out and then heading back via Luibeg to my car at the Linn o Dee.

Only it turned out that I couldn’t do that. All packed up, I closed the door on the bothy at 10am and started down the path to cross the Dee. And somewhere in that short distance between bothy and river my mind changed. I had to get up high on a day like this. I had to. To stride across glistening granite boulders and grit with nothing but sky above and the whole world spread out below and to the horizons. No question.

So once across the river I turned left instead of right, along the Lairig Ghru path until I passed the Tailors’ Stones and started up the bouldery path that cuts up diagonally to join the Tailors’ Burn and follow it more steeply until just below the col between Ben McDui and Carn a Mhaim. It’s a lovely spot in there, but my legs were feeling the strain of all that extra weight and I was glad to stop and chat with a guy who was coming down from McDui with his dog and two children. We blethered, shared some information about possible routes for his next two days, and then I resumed a slow and not too steady climb where the path had petered out, glad at last to reach the col and see the views opening out once more. A leisurely lunch revived me somewhat and I started the next stage in fine fettle, squelching across deep moss to join the good track which threads its way along the long and rocky (but never difficult) crest of Carn a Mhaim.

One of several skeins of geese I saw flying north over the Lairig Ghru

With views across Glen Dee to Braeriach, Cairn Toul and the Devil’s Point, down below to a tiny Corrour Bothy, south to the massive Beinn a Ghlo and just across the Allt Carn a Mhaim to the great rising ridge of Sron Riach and the bulk of Ben McDui… it was glorious. Blue skies with a cool breeze to keep the temperature comfortable… It was one of those days that live long in the memory, one of those days that make you forget all the discomfort and pain that’s often a part of hillwalking. For my legs and hips were, by now, feeling the strain and, long before the summit cairn, my aging body was rebelling. But the secret of hill fitness isn’t just in knowing you have the reserves to keep going, but in enjoying – really enjoying – being where you are. Not in reaching the summit, something which is as fleeting as it is – ultimately – inconsequential, but in being there, on the hill, among the hills, breathing the air, hearing the sounds of wind and water, the crunch of gravel, the glory of simply being there. It was a long trauchle down from the top of Carn a Mhaim and through Luibeg and Lui to the car park at Linn o Dee, and by the final stages it was an effort of will to keep going, but it was one of those days I never just wished it was over – it was absolutely glorious right to the last drop. It’s why we do it.

A novel view of Corrour Bothy, dwarfed by the lower slopes of the Devil’s Point and the great cliffs of Beinn Bhrotain.
The magnificence of Cairn Toul under a blue, blue sky
And Coire Bhrochain of Braeriach.
A zoom shot on Corrour Bothy from the ridge of Carn a Mhaim
The unmistakable Devil’s Point, with Glen Geusachan on the left.
The day is still glorious, but coming down Carn a Mhaim you can see just how far the walk home is.
Posted in Bothies, Stravaiging | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments