Scotland, Day 3: The Highlands – Kinlochleven, Fort William

January 22, 2019January 22, 2019Leave a comment

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We woke later than usual, around 7.30am. I was surprised by how much later the sun rose and how much earlier it set compared to home – about 8-8.30am and 3.30-4pm. Morning admin was a repeat of yesterday; porridge, coffee, tidying and jam sandwich making.

Ice climbing

After a 10-minute drive from our overnight spot, we arrived at Ice Factor in Kinlochleven – the largest indoor ice climbing centre in the world. It’s an impressive building which houses an indoor rock climbing wall, shop, cosy café and ice climbing area, which is pretty much a giant freezer. We’d booked in for the earliest taster session of the day, keen to have as much exploring time left over as possible. I started to write about ice climbing in this post but I got carried away, so for the fine detail read my separate post – Ice Climbing for Idiots. Basically, it was really fun and I want more.

Hiking

We left the centre with big smiles, grabbed our hiking kit from the van and set off on a route we’d planned the previous evening. We had hoped to climb some munros (Scottish mountains over 3,000ft high) in the Mamores range, which lies between Kinlochleven and Ben Nevis. We actually ended up doing a different route which took us up and west, rather than north, due to a disappearing footpath and some dodgy-looking weather over the mountain tops, so unfortunately we didn’t reach any summits.

Nevertheless, we didn’t mind deviating from the plan because we’d set off late, got some breathtakingly-awesomely-stunningly beautiful views down the length of Loch Leven and had a lovely couple of hours anyway, despite some questionable “footpath” terrain and glute-burningly steep bits. The hike also took us past Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall, which is well worth the short walk from Kinlochleven.

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Fort William

Our alternative route meant that we got back to Björn with enough time spare to get to Fort William for a wander round. It’s an attractive town with plenty of shops and pubs, and seems to be a kind of outdoorsey “hub” with a nice buzz. We managed to do a bit of Christmas shopping before treating ourselves to a meal in a café – I don’t think a jacket potato has ever tasted so good. Fed, warmed and out of daylight, we got in the van and headed east.

The Cairngorms

We’d arranged to meet a friend to climb a munro in the Cairngorms the following day. I chose Lochnagar after reading about it in a “Britain’s greatest mountains” feature of The Great Outdoors magazine (don’t tell my cool friends), so we drove the three hours there from Fort William. It was a shame to drive across so much of the National Park in the dark, but we’d seen it before and were keen to make the most of the daylight hours outside. We arrived at the Spittal of Glenmuick quite late and quite tired, so we parked along the dead-end road, admired the blackness of the sky and the utter, pindrop silence, packed bags ready for an early start and slept.

Ice Climbing for Idiots

January 16, 2019August 30, 20201 Comment

What I learned from a session at Ice Factor, the world’s largest indoor ice climbing centre. Kinlochleven, Highlands, Scotland. To set the scene, just picture being inside a 40ft freezer.

Basics

Ice climbing is climbing up a wall covered in or made of ice. At its most basic, the kit consists of a helmet, two handheld ice axes, a harness, ropes, a belay device and aggressive-looking crampons attached to winter boots. As we stumbled across the floor of “the freezer” all kitted up, our instructor advised us to walk as if there was a football between our feet, which was a great tip that stopped me nearly treading on my own cumbersomely-cramponned feet and faceplanting the ice.

Feet – Using Crampons

We started by practising front pointing, the basic foot technique used to climb ice walls. It involves deciding on a good foot placement – a divot or strong bit of ice – and firmly jamming the toe spike(s) into it, square on. Having got used to rock climbing, which involves the feet usually being turned outwards or inwards, this felt weird – I had to consciously stop myself searching for purchase with the inside edge of my foot.

Regarding body position, you’re supposed to keep your feet level (harder than it sounds) and wide-but-not-too-wide (helpful I know), knees close to the wall and slightly bent. Imagine your feet form two points of a triangle and your body the other point – you’re supposedly more stable this way. It’s quite an unnatural stance and it was hard to trust that the crampons would hold my weight, although I quite enjoyed ramming the front spike into the ice as you can kick it quite hard.

Hands – Using Ice Axes

Then we practised using ice axes. The trick is to either find a solid indentation made by previous climbers and “hook” the tip in there, or to find a good spot to swing the axe at and make your own “hold”. You want to aim for a spot as far up as is within comfortable reach, so you can make progress without overstretching.

The hardest part is hitting the exact spot you aim for squarely, so any regular wood-chopping axe-wielders will be at an advantage; it’s really satisfying when you hit the spot, and you can swing the axe quite hard. Top tip: improve accuracy and relieve stress by imagining the face of someone you really, really dislike on the spot you want to hit (Trump did it for me – never a sentence I thought I’d say).

Putting it Together

Full of unwarranted confidence, we tied in and put what we’d learned together. I probably resembled a climbing version of Bambi on ice, all limbs and little co-ordination. It took concentration to move the right arm/leg at the right time, as the process of moving up seemed more methodical and less “artistic” than rock climbing; I kept wanting to stick a leg out to the side, or move one arm when I should be moving the other. It seems painstakingly slow to begin with, as you move your feet up just inches at a time.

Fortunately I got my limbs working with each other before long and settled into a [messy] rhythm of foot-foot-hand-hand, repeat. Like rock climbing, the majority of the effort comes from the legs, so foot placement in particular should be solid; the axes are really just to stop your body falling away from the wall. The lack of obvious holds (usually present in rock climbing) was odd, but in a way it was easier to find placements on ice as the sharp axe/crampons can be jammed pretty much anywhere.

The sketchiest bit was topping out, ie. going over the lip at the top of the climb. When the wall is in front of your face it’s quite easy to see placements, but where it angles away from you it feels like you’re blindly swinging the axes or jamming your feet and hoping for the best. But if you’re okay with heights, don’t mind the possibility of falling (why climb otherwise?) and trust your belayer (why climb otherwise?) you’ll be fine.

My Conclusion

Ice climbing is great fun. It seems to lack the creativity of rock climbing as you can “mould” a path in the ice yourself; by way of comparison, there’s no such thing as making new holds in solid rock using brute force and pointy things, so you have to contort your body to whatever shape the rock dictates. However, I’m probably silly to keep comparing it to rock climbing as it’s so entirely different. Ice climbing is a formidable activity in its own right that could take you places otherwise inaccessible, which is surely more than good enough to warrant giving it a go.

Scotland, Day 2: The Highlands – Glencoe

January 3, 2019January 3, 2019Leave a comment

Monday 10th December

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I woke up in heaven. We were nestled at the base of Buachaille Etive Mor, a towering, perfectly triangular snow-topped mountain, with just a small coppice between the van and a wild, open plain surrounded by rugged peaks. The horizon glowed orange, which turned from pink through lilac into the cool blue sky above, and the air was dry and crisp.

Sunrise

Buachaille Etive Mor

Björn at home

Once I’d stopped staring, morning admin commenced. This consists of changing the bedroom into the kitchen/living room (ie. turning the bed into the rear-facing seats and putting the table up), eating porridge, drinking coffee, tidying things away, making packed lunches (jam sandwiches on every trip, without exception – quick, cheap and highly transportable), brushing teeth, attempting to tame hair, packing daysacks and coming up with some kind of plan.

From the moment I decided to go to Scotland, I knew I wouldn’t leave without immersing myself in Glencoe – an area I’d fallen hopelessly in love with the previous year. Our Ben Nevis map doesn’t quite cover this area, so we went to the Glencoe visitor centre (usually well worth a visit, but this time the majority of it was being renovated) to pick up an OS map. We also did a bit of Christmas shopping in the small National Trust for Scotland shop, most notably buying a “wild haggis” toy (now called Hamish) for Nellie, my naughty black lab. Apparently tourists swear by haggis sightings.

Is this the perfect house?

The River Coe

Two of the three sisters

Glencoe hike

From there we headed back to a roadside car park at the base of the three sisters of Glencoe, part of the Bidean nam Bian mountain range of complex peaks, ridges and crags. It’s clearly a popular spot; I was bemused by a coach-full of handbag-clutching, vans-wearing tourists that stopped to admire the view through their iPhone cameras before deciding it was too cold to hang about and scuttling off.

We followed a path between the left and middle “sister” ridges, Beinn Fhada and Gearr Aonach, which saw us scrambling over rocks, squeezing through gaps, peering down at waterfalls over sheer edges and generally being awestruck by the dramatic, serene beauty of the place. The sisters towered over us on both sides, cold, hard rocks stood in front waiting to be scrambled over, and behind was the valley of Glencoe in all its wild, rugged, sandy-yellow winter glory. Oh Scotland.

Halfway up and so happy

He’s happy too

Looking back towards the main valley

Eventually we reached the end of the path, which overlooked a long, bathtub-shaped plateau surrounded on three sides by curving, steep-sided ridges. We sat on a rock enjoying our jam sandwiches, then clambered down. It looked as though there was once a river (or glacier?) running through from the narrow end with the snow-topped ridge, which had carved out the valley and left thousands of loose rocks that were awkward to walk on, and there were huge, house-sized boulders scattered as if giants had thrown and left them there.

I couldn’t resist the lure of nature’s playground, so I had a quick climb on a too-tempting boulder plonked in the middle of the plateau. As the path didn’t seem to go anywhere we headed back along the same route, stumbling down the uneven paths and grinning as we bashed knees and scuffed elbows on sticky-out bits of rock. Fortunately there was barely anyone else on the path, so our ungainliness went unnoticed.

Snug as a bug

Playtime

“The bathtub”… what a hiding spot for a herd of catle

Back at the car park we found a tourist information board, which informed us that we’d walked along the Lost Valley (Coire Gabhail). The “plateau” was where the MacDonald clan hid stolen cattle in the 1600s – I have no idea how they mooved (not even sorry) cows up there – and fled to after some escaped the famous Glen Coe massacre of 1692 (fascinating and heartbreaking bit of history, google it).

Breathtaking

I wish we’d found this before the walk!

Red deer at Glen Etive

We left the car park and drove back to the 12-mile dead-end Glen Etive road where we’d stayed the previous night. Glen Etive is where the Skyfall (James Bond) house was set/CGI’d onto, and I’d read that it’s worth a visit because of its remote beauty. It’s a stunning valley, less well-known than Glencoe, flanked by imposing ridges darkened in places by deep green pine forests.

I was desperate to see red deer on this trip and I’d been looking out carefully since we’d got to the Highlands. So a few miles along the road, I could barely contain myself when we came across a couple of people hand-feeding carrots to a young stag. We stopped, and when they left I slipped out the van to try and get some photos.

The rest of the herd were down a bank by a wide, shallow river, guarded watchfully by a majestic stag. I snuck down the bank and moved diagonally through the trees to get a better shot without approaching the deer directly; the stag kept an eye on me as his herd grazed and drank from the river. It was so surreal – I’d have been thrilled to see one red deer at a distance, let alone a whole herd at close range. The light was fading so I had to hold the camera super still; I would have got better photos in better light, but I don’t care – I’m delighted. The deer are even more wildly, gracefully beautiful in person.

My mind was blown

…and my heart stopped

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Eventually I tore myself away and we drove back to Glencoe between towering, silhouetted ridges against a navy blue sky. I loved that drive; I found the mountains bearing over us in the dark simultaneously humbling, ominous and comforting, as if we were both at their mercy and under their protection. We stopped for supplies (notably wine) at the Co-op in Ballachulish, near Glen Coe village, then went to Kinlochleven to book an ice climbing session at the indoor centre for the next day.

That done, we stopped for the night in a layby on the south side of Loch Leven. The blackness of the water merged with the dark silhouette of the huge ridge that lay on its north side, which was interspersed at loch level with the twinkling lights of occasional buildings. We appreciated the twinkly lights while eating sausage casserole and planning for tomorrow.

Another good day.