White-out on Ben McDui

Complacency, eh?
Get off with something 99 times and on the hundredth it turns around and bites you on the bum.
When I checked the forecast at lunchtime on the first Friday in May it wasn’t promising very much for the weekend – and even less when I checked again in the late afternoon.
So when I woke in Bob Scott’s on Saturday morning I decided to take a bimble out to Corrour, clear up any rubbish that needed clearing, and see what the weather looked like from there.
Well the weather was great all the way out there and, even if there was heaps more snow on the hills than you’d expect for May, at least it was likely to be soft on the surface. So why not nip up McDui by the side of the Tailors’ Burn and go over to the Hutchie Hut and back down Glen Derry?
It was one of those good ideas at the time that, for some reason, survived the arrival of cloud on the tops while I burned the burnable rubbish and happed up the rest to go in my sack.
So about 11-ish I crossed the bridge and set off northwards, overtaking a bus-party of folk heading through the Lairig and slanting off up the Taylor Burn path, soon hitting wet snow and pushing on upward to where the snow was deeper and firmer, though still soft enough to take a boot-depth. (My forecast about the snow was good, at least: even at its hardest, I never came across anything I couldn’t kick a step in.)
An unusually large and long cornice was blocking the ascent from the stream up onto the ridge connecting Carn a Mhaim with McDui, so I moved over to the northern bounding ridge of Coire Clach nan Tailler, which has the advantage of being less steep and debouching onto the plateau almost at the summit. It also shows the Devil’s Point to good advantage.

The Devil’s Point across Glen Dee from the Tailors’ Burn

As I approached the summit I entered broken cloud and was struggling more with a fierce and bitingly cold wind, so I acted sensible and took the map and compass out. I wasn’t worried about reaching the top, but set the compass to a bearing towards the top at the cliffs above Lochan Uaine. I’d probably just have to follow the highway of footprints, but it doesn’t do any harm to turn the housing on the compass now and then – saves it from seizing up.
And then I was on the summit plateau. And snow. Considerably more snow than I’d ever imagined at this time of year. And thicker cloud too. All I had to do to reach the summit was keep walking forward but, after a bit, I was beginning to have my doubts, and when it finally ghosted out of the white it was a pale shadow just five metres away. The view indicator, which I came on first, was like a plaque set into the surface of the snow (normally it stands at over a metre high) and the massive summit cairn itself was almost completely buried, with only the trig point showing.

The view indicator at the summit of McDui – almost buried under the snow.

The summit cairn was almost completely buried and the trig point was a pale shadow, even from a few metres away.

Between the wind and the lack of views, I didn’t even pause but took the preset compass from my pocket and lined up a bearing… …on nothing.
Normally you can take a sighting on a rock, even close by, or, if there are no rocks showing through the snow, on a patch of older or different textured snow. But this snow was all freshly fallen and the same blank white as the sky. I could see my feet, I could see the disturbed snow around them; beyond that I could see nothing at all. Just blankness.
I suppose that’s really where I made the sort of rookie mistake you still make when you’re only in your fifth decade of hill climbing. Instead of reversing my steps then, before they were blown over, and descending by the route I’d come up, I strode forth on my bearing, confident that before long I’d come below the cloud or within sight of something to take a bearing on.
And I walked. And I walked. No rocks (though some, visible at maybe 10 metres or so off to one side), no clearing of the cloud, just more blankness. Or the same blankness. Absent of any visual clues I just had to keep going on the compass. I caught myself veering in towards the wind several times and corrected every time it happened, but I knew I was drifting to the right. I’d missed the old Sappers’ Bothy, though whether by a few feet or much more I had no way of knowing.
It was a curiously detached feeling, walking through this blankness – until suddenly I became very much attached. One foot broke through the crust of snow and went into a hole. And when I tried to lift myself out the foot wouldn’t budge.
I sat in the snow for several long moments, pulling at my foot one way and then another, before finally easing it out from the invisible jaws of rock deep in the snowpack. What an embarrassing way to go that would have been!
My walk through limbo continued: battered by wind, a casing of snow and ice building up on my gloves and grabbing onto any slight crease in my outer layer, just like it was still the middle of winter. I was waiting for the slight rise before the top of the cliffs, but peering intently into the white all the time, anxious to get some sight of anything which might give me a clue to where I was. In fact anything at all.
That’s how I saw the two ptarmigan, one behind the other, walking downwind across the front of me. I stopped to watch them, seeing the snow blowing past them as they walked. They’d walked a good bit before I twigged that I wasn’t having to turn my head to keep them in sight. Nor were they getting any further away from me. So I looked with a new head and saw I’d been staring at a patch of old, hard snow showing through the fresh: nothing like ptarmigan or any other bird, and just a few feet from me.
Nice that I was so fooled as to stop though. As I managed to focus on the no longer ptarmigan-shaped snow patch I also became aware of the faintest of shade changes slightly to the right: a pale diagonal streak in the white. It had to be the cornice.
I stared longer, trying to orientate myself to the line it formed, and checked the compass again. Best bet was that I’d drifted further to the right than I’d thought and was on the slope above Sron Riach, just where the cliffs start descending. That would explain the lack of any upward turn, although I’d reached the cliffs sooner than I’d have expected.
I checked what the bearing should be from the map and it married with the direction of the cliff I got with the compass on the ground, so started downhill, paralleling the cornice, keeping as far away as I could without losing sight of it, for visibility was desperately low and cornices there can be big.

Looking back in the crystal visibility of the following day. I walked a kilometre from the domed summit in the background, to just left of the sharper summit above the choire, unable to see anything beyond my feet until the very end.

And that was it. After a bit I started to see rocks through the snow and by the time I reached the slight re-ascent to the rocky outcrop, I spotted it from at least 20 or 30 yards. I did lose the crest of the ridge just below that outcrop but it was soon realised and easily remedied, and soon afterwards I came below the cloud level, much relieved.
Walking blind in a blizzard, with a cliff edge for a target – and knowing I’d gone off route – had to be my most adventurous day this whole winter. In May.
And I got off with it. Again.

Postscript:

Since posting this, it’s occurred to me that a little disclaimer is in order. This post is not saying that it’s okay to make all sorts of poor decisions and then expect to walk away from it.

The reason I got home safely was a combination of factors. I know that hill well, having climbed on and around McDui dozens of times over the last forty-something years. Even blinded by the snow I had a picture of the area in my mind and an awareness of the slope gradient and my likely (very rough) position. I also had the foresight to take a bearing in advance, the discipline to follow it, and an awareness of my direction of drift. And I had experience of spotting a cornice in similar conditions: I knew exactly what I was looking for. And in many unnoticed ways I was using almost 50 years of experience in the hills.

This isn’t a tale of survival against the odds, just a wee warning (to myself as much as anyone) of how easy it is to shave your safety margin a bit thinner than you’d like. I still had a considerable ‘armoury’ in the shape of my experience, and wouldn’t recommend a similar escapade to anyone who is less than 100 per cent confident in their navigation and hillcraft.

The year of the bridges

The old bridge at Derry Dam

After almost 60 years the photo isn’t the clearest, but it offers a fascinating glimpse into the past.

Like most, I suspect, who have used the metal bridge at Derry Dam in the Cairngorms, beyond being able to read off the plaque that it was built in 1959, I knew little about it.

And, until a recent exchange of emails with Malcolm Douglas, the first Nature Conservancy Council warden on the Mar side of the Cairngorms, I never imagined there was a bridge there before it.

Yet there it is in the photograph above: The old bridge at Derry Dam in lower Glen Derry, and the date added: 1956.

The Cairngorms National Nature Reserve was declared in 1954 and soon after two wardens were appointed: Archie MacDonald on the Invernesshire side and Malcolm Douglas on the Aberdeenshire side.

Malcolm was described by Adam Watson in his excellent memoir ‘A Fine Day for the Hills’ as an ex-stalker (and he quotes Bob Scott as saying he could go about the hills like a hare), but Malcolm says: “The only stalking I did on Mar was as voluntary help for Bob, when he had more than one guest to take out, the greater part being on Derry Cairngorm and Carn a’Mhaim – the latter hill holding an interesting stag community.”

But looking to his work as a warden, and the matter in hand here, Malcolm recalls: “Bridges on the Aberdeenshire side were getting well past their use-by date and it was decided that help was required.”

One of the main bridges was over the Luibeg, just below Carn a Mhaim, and I’ve written here of how it was erected by the Cairngorm Club much lower than its present site and washed away in a flood of 1956. The main beams were recovered and Malcolm adds that it was army engineers who resited it in its present location.

But there were other bridges needing attention – at Corrour and at Derry Dam – as well as the occasionally unfordable Glas Allt Mor further up Glen Derry.

The Glas Allt Mor in full spate. The 1959 bridge was upstream of this point.

Derry Dam was much as you see it in the photograph at the head of this post. There was a bridge of sorts at Corrour too. After a drowning accident in 1950, a wire bridge was built the following year. This was described by Syd Scroggie after a visit in 1955 as a telegraph pole driven into each side of the bank with two parallel wires slung between them.

The need for replacement seemed quite clear, and the ubiquitous Dr George Taylor, of Cairngorm Club and Aberdeen University designed aluminium bridges for both Corrour and Derry Dam. They were financed by the Nature Conservancy Council and all built in 1959, which must have been an eventful year.

Malcolm said: “The Corrour and Derry Dam bridges were built by students. Bob Scott and I helped with the Corrour Bridge.

The bridge at Corrour which Malcolm helped to build in 1959 – pictured here in March 2013 with the Dee almost frozen over.

The ‘new’ Derry Dam Bridge, est 1959. The photograph is taken looking in the opposite direction to that of the 1956 bridge, but examination of the boulders in the river bed show it to be in almost exactly the same spot.

“The Glas Allt and the Coire Etchachan bridges were built using Braemar locals.”

The Coire Etchachan footbridge. The rather timid approach to crossing is explained by the fact there was a full gale blowing, the planks were slippery and the burn was a torrent.

Materials were flown to the various locations by helicopter, an option that had been considered and rejected on cost grounds by the Cairngorm Club for the erection of the Luibeg Bridge just over 10 years previously.

About the cost, Malcolm said: “I chuckle a bit remembering that the use of a helicopter that in those early days was considered too expensive.

“In fact, using men and horses, the cost and time to transport bridging and fence plot material to sites in lower and higher Glen Derry, Corrour and Glen Geusachan [Another project I’ll refer to in a future blogpost.] was not that far short of the helicopter use cost.

“When the chopper first arrived in Braemar it caused great excitement. All materials had been trucked into the flat opposite Bob Scotts cottage and loading and some unloading labour at delivery sites was freely given by Bob and other Mar Lodge stalkers, plus some Braemar locals whose reward was a flight on the chopper to and from the delivery sites. A bit cheeky but it was a success and I still have a very amateurish 8mm cine film of it.”

Communicating by email from New Zealand, where he now lives, Malcolm, who is now 90, said: “The Glas Allt bridge was washed away some 40 years ago [Actually in 1970, victim, like so many bridges, to a flood.] but I understand that the Luibeg, Corrour, Derry Dam and Etchachan bridges are still serviceable.”

I actually have a notion that the Etchachan bridge was replaced about 20 years or so ago but, even so, that’s a considerable legacy from one busy year in 1959, with bridges which have become part of the landscape and seen countless thousands of feet cross rivers in safety.

Out in the wild – and extreme dog-walking

On front points of my crampons and daggering the rock-hard neve with my one ice axe there was no finer place on Saturday than on the north flank of the Devil’s Point, enjoying the sting in the tale – the last steepening before the open gully leant back towards the summit.
The wind, though quite strong in gusts and bitter cold, was nothing like I’d been expecting from a discouraging forecast and the cloud was staying well above the summits, giving extensive views even if the light was a bit flat.
But tip-toeing up the ice onto the summit ridge the flat light only added to the austere pleasure of the day: the bite and tug of the wind, the scoured snowfields the feeling of vast space, with no-one in sight on any of the hills in view.

Beinn Bhrotain from the summit of Devil’s Point

Through the week I’d been reading someone on the internet bemoaning the ‘dewilding’ of the Cairngorms but this, standing up straight as the slope eased and walking towards the snowed over summit cairn, felt pretty wild to me. Corrour Bothy may have been nestling in at the foot of this very mountain, but at just over 1000 metres and looking across to see the normal ascent route (and my planned descent) looked corniced, it felt a long way away from where I was.
It wasn’t all serious though. I was still amused at some of the extreme dog-walking photographs I’d snatched a few hundred feet lower just before I lost my hill companions.
Neil Findlay and I were out to do some tidying up at Corrour Bothy (not really so desperately needed as it turned out) and got there late morning, so decided to ‘nip up’ Devil’s Point to fill in the afternoon.
Neil had his border terrier Alfie with him and even as we climbed the first steep slope at the back of the bothy it became apparent that the icy conditions were causing the pup problems. Our steel crampons were biting into the neve quite easily, but Alfie’s were not quite up to the job and he was slipping about a good bit.
Despite this, some strange part of our minds seemed to think that it would be a good idea, instead of going right to the back of the corrie for the normal ascent route, to take a shortcut straight up one of the gullies on the north flank, just beyond the cliffs.
As the slope steepened Neil put Alfie’s lead on, and cut a fine figure, with crampons on and ice axe in one hand and dog lead in the other. Extreme dog-walking indeed!

Neil Findlay and Alfie – extreme dog-walking

It was all rather fun but as the angle of the slope continued to increase, Neil decided carrying on would be a tad foolish and turned around to pick his way back down with Alfie.
It was a shame to lose my climbing companion (temporarily at least) but I must confess I enjoyed the feeling of being alone on the hill – substantial enough on its own but dwarfed by Cairn Toul just across the way and looking particularly impressive in its winter monochrome.
I didn’t hang around at the top very long and headed back down by the conventional route. The descent from the col at the top of the corrie was awkward enough to make me move carefully. The normal route was corniced and I had to fight my way blindly through the spindrift channel of the white-choked streambed and then traverse in below the cornice where the stream steepened. Even then, the zig-zag path was buried and the slope steep enough to demand careful footing until I was almost down into the bowl of the corrie.
Then it was down to Corrour and a convivial night in front of a well-stoked stove. Sunday morning dawned gloriously sunny and I was tempted to sneak in another hill, but legs were tired and I was supposed to be home by afternoon, so we enjoyed a pleasant walk out, picking up our bikes at Bob Scott’s and cycling through increasingly heavy snow down to the car park, glad, by the time we got there, that we hadn’t delayed any longer. The road home was snowy enough.

Devil’s Point looming large over Corrour Bothy

Corrour Bothy in the morning sunshine

Heavy snow on the way back to the cars

Bill Ewen – a Cairngorm inspiration

With a tally of nine new routes to his name, Bill Ewen’s contribution to the climbing heritage of the Cairngorms was certainly not negligible but may not seem at first glance to be that notable.

But look harder and you find his contribution and influence greater than a simple list of first ascents indicates, even if that includes some classic Lochnagar routes.

My notice was drawn to Bill Ewen by expatriate Aberdeen climber George Adams, who cited him as an inspiration to his own climbing career, which involved a number of classic Cairngorm routes in the 1950s and involvement in the early development of rock climbing in South Australia, where he has remained active in climbing, skiing and trekking.

I still have hopes of persuading George to tell his own life story here, but in the meantime he has supplied a lot of information about Bill Ewen.

George was a pupil at Aberdeen’s Demonstration School – and not too promising a one either, suffering from dyslexia and a speech impediment. But of all his teachers, he recalled Mr Ewen, the technical classes master.

“Mr Ewen had a large glass case fixed to the wall which contained photographs of mountains with white lines running up the front of the cliffs. As a student sitting in a classroom I wondered what it could mean; it was a number of years later that I realised that the mountain was Lochnagar and the lines were probably the first ascents that he had done.”

George’s first taste of the countryside came through the school when he attended a summer camp, where Bill Ewen led a group to the top of Bennachie.

“I don’t really remember the walk up the hill, I have a vague recollection of scrambling up rocks to the summit. I felt I was standing on a round coffee table with huge drops all around, the valley below was a carpet of autumn colours brown green yellow and purple. In the distance a river sparkled in the morning light, a bird hovered nearby, and I could feel the sun’s rays streaming from a bright blue sky. My heart was pounding and adrenalin and endorphins bounced through my body.

“It was a wonderful experience which I still cherish today. Although I didn’t realise it then I had fallen in love with nature the environment and the mountains and over the last 60 years I have managed to travel and climb ski and trek in different parts of the world.

“I worked at different jobs including being a coppersmith’s plumber, mechanical service engineer, climbing and ski instructor and started a outdoor retail store and a travel agency.

“I was also involved in the early development of climbing in South Australia.

“But if I had not attended the Demonstration School and met such an inspiring teacher as Mr Ewen I would still be living in a grey world.”

So who was Bill Ewen?

A native of Ballater, he shone at school and studied English and Latin at Aberdeen University. After a first teaching job at Inverallochy, he became a teacher at the Demonstration School, where he stayed for his whole teaching career, ending up as the school’s last headmaster and glorying under the nickname of Tarzan.

He had started climbing as a youngster and fell in with Roy Symmers, with whom he made some significant new ascents on Lochnagar.

Ewen was once quoted as saying: “We found we suited each other – Symmers was tall with a long reach, but disliked operating in narrow chimneys etc, where long legs could be something of a handicap. They suited me. We did not set out to become expert rock climbers; our practice was to avoid difficulty where possible, our aim first to be able to tackle any Scottish mountain. I felt more confident with Symmers than with anyone else – why I don’t know.”

Symmers’ wife recalled in 1987 that: Bill was a small bunch of muscle and beautiful balance, Roy was long and strong. He (Roy) said they supplied each other’s deficiencies but there was more to it than that – you could trust Bill with your life on a rope.”

In August of 1930 the pair made their debut with a summer ascent of Giant’s Head Chimney, said by Greg Strange in his excellent ‘The Cairngorms: 100 Years of Mountaineering’ to be the most important new route on the mountain for more than 20 years.

They followed it up within the week by climbing Parallel A Gully, with Symmers sporting a pair of tennis shoes – the first recorded instance of such footwear on Cairngorm granite.

Over the next four years the team returned to Lochnagar on numerous occasions, making several new routes, including the much prized first winter ascent of Raeburn’s Gully in December 1932, with Ewen returning the next day to climb Pinnacle Gully 2 (which he had made the first ascent of in summer) with Sandy Clark.

Bill’s run of new routes – he was involved in nine first ascents, all on Lochnagar – came to an end in 1934 but he continued to climb – and walk and ski, for it was all part of ‘going to the hills’.

It was about this time he took over the editorship of the Cairngorm Club Journal.

He had been a committee member between 1931 and 1934 – and was to serve two other periods, as well as two years from 1947-49 as Vice President – but his longest stint of duty was as editor of the journal, which he steered from 1934 to 1953.

His journals were highly acclaimed, and retirement was said to mark the end of an era, but he had already left a significant mark in a wider sphere, for towards the end of the 1940s the Scottish Mountaineering Club had invited him to revise the third edition of Sir Henry Alexander’s classic ‘Guide to the Cairngorms’

This involved visiting areas where existing information seemed scanty, adding fresh photographs and checking a huge amount of material on new routes, for the new guide, published in 1950, contained details of all known climbs in the Cairngorms.

(Incidentally, according to Strange, it was Ewen who was responsible for dissuading the first ascensionists of the first route on Creagan a Choire Etchachan from naming their route Grandes Jorasses. He reckoned it a bit on the radical side and accepted the more fitting Pioneer Route instead, although it was later renamed Cambridge Route.)

Ewen’s influence was felt on the ground as well as in the literature of the Cairngorms. He took little credit at the time, but his Cairngorm Club obituary stated that he played a vital role in many of the club’s projects during its golden period.

George Taylor’s is the name usually credited to these civil engineering projects the club was so involved in, but his obituary credited Ewen as “a full partner in that particular construction firm”.

The renovation of Corrour Bothy, the construction of the Parker Memorial Bridge over the Luibeg, and the works to Derry Lodge and Muir Cottage as the club’s successive ‘gites’ in the hills all bore his stamp – literally – for as well as being involved in the planning stages he was a skilled craftsman and became foreman joiner on the various building projects.

That he was never Club President was down to his own choice, for he was asked several times. He did, though, agree to accept Honorary Membership in 1966.

Throughout his life he had an active interest in many sports.

He skied, in an era when there were no ski centres or chairlifts and skiing was regarded as an extension of mountaineering. He would take long walks into the hills around Glen Gairn, The Lecht,  Carn Tuirc, Morven and Carn Leuchan on the east side of Glen Muick in the search for suitable snow, always looking for another gully to ski.  In fact his then future wife Louie claimed her introduction to skiing in 1936 was to go with him, carrying her skis, to the summit of Lochnagar and ski down again.

From his youth he developed an abiding interest in shooting and fishing and played both hockey and cricket at school level and beyond. He also played badminton when he taught at the Demonstration School.

As a boy and as a young teacher he was also involved in Scouting, and introduced boxing to the boys.

Yet through all the climbing and sports, he was a man who enjoyed both academic and artistic pursuits. As a teacher he developed his drawing and calligraphy skills to create pictures and maps as teaching aids, and at about the age of fifty he started to paint as a hobby, becoming proficient in both water-colours and oils.

And, of course, as much as he was remembered as a climber and Cairngorm Club stalwart, Bill Ewen was a teacher and headmaster, inspiring generations of children (whether into education or the hills!) and also being highly regarded by his fellow teachers. And, if some of the children recalled him as being an occasionally fearsome figure in the classroom, others, such as George Adams remember him as the man who helped set the course of their lives.

 

Two gullies, two Munros, two white-outs = great weekend.

What a cracking weekend!

Just got back from the Cairngorms and two cracking climbing days.

Friday night was a slithery cycle into Bob Scott’s with panniers full of coal, only to find the place empty, but a good book passed the evening until bedtime and I was up early, to get away off up Glen Derry to the Hutchison Hut, enjoying the dawn light on the pines and the sunshine on the snows of the rocky faces of Beinn Mheadhoin and above Lochan Uaine of Derry.

Morning sun on the pines looking up Glen Derry

Hard packed snow on the ground meant easy going, especially crossing the completely buried Glas Allt Mor. The footbridge across the Etchachan burn was a bit superfluous too.

A footbridge without a burn in Coire Etchachan

It was good to see the Hutchison Hut again, still looking inviting after its renovation, and I dumped most of my gear (along with the 8kg of coal I’d carried in), laying out my sleeping bag in the best spot in case anyone else turned up.

Prime position for my sleeping bag.

Then set off up the track to Loch Etchachan, snow getting firmer all the way until I was moved to put on crampons just before the loch.

I walked over to the steep descent into Loch Avon, swapping walking poles for an ice axe before making the steep descent to the Shelter Stone, which was well filled in with snow, although someone had dug out enough space to kip. Cold night though, I imagine.

I’d expected to see more folk climbing in the area, given the ideal snow conditions and the fair weather, but saw only two people on Route Major on Carn Etchachan and another two on Garbh Uisge Crag.

Looking up Pinnacle Gully, between the Shelter Stone Crag and the Garbh Uisge Crag

A quick bite to eat, then I donned a helmet and took my other axe from my pack and set off up Pinnacle Gully, with the distinctive Forefinger Pinnacle at the top.

Zoom shot of the Forefinger Pinnacle at the top of Pinnacle Gully

Rock hard neve made progress pretty secure, but hard on the calves and there were many stops at quickly excavated steps large enough to hold one foot flat before I got to the final few metres where the gradient steepened to an entertaining angle and finished in a jumbled sea of half-formed cornices which never quite became the obstacle they might have been.

I emerged at the top to find that, during the climb, the cloud had descended considerably and visibility was much reduced.

All the same, I took a bearing for the McDui summit and walked through ever decreasing visibility until I reached the top. I was a bit puzzled that there was no sign at all of the summit cairn until I realised I was still on the North Top and had still a bit to go for the main top.

Look closely or you’ll miss it. The summit cairn was a welcome site when it finally appeared.

With no views, there was no reason to pause when I reached the real summit and I carried on down towards Loch Etchachan, making one false turn before coming below the cloud level and, before long, back at the Hutchie.

There, there were four people in residence: a guy who had come over from Corrour Bothy (after walking from Cairngorm Car Park through the Chalamain Gap and over Braeriach and Cairn Toul the previous day); and a group of three who had come over from Cairngorm. Two were on skis and the third on a snowboard, which apparently made for a few interesting moments on the journey across!

A good evening in the bothy followed and, if the stove was slow to get going, it made up for it later ensuring a toasty night.

In the morning everyone was away early doors and I couldn’t resist sneaking in another bit of axe action on the way home, heading up one of the unnamed gullies behind the hut and into my second white-out of the weekend. But Derry Cairngorm is a fairly east top to find and I was soon up and over and descending into clear air.

With legs getting sorer, I was glad to get down to Scottie’s (still empty) and get a bite of lunch (for I’d been up a gully and over a hill and it was still only 1p.m.) and then head back down the track on my bike.

Home in time for dinner too. Couldn’t be finer.

Serious damage to Faindouran Bothy

The east gable of Faindouran Bothy showing the damage. Picture copyright Gary Dickson

Shock news this week that Faindouran Bothy in Glen Avon (NJ 081 062) has suffered serious damage and is currently in a dangerous condition. IT SHOULD NOT BE USED.

The damage was discovered on February 7 by Gary Dickson and his companions, who arrived to find the chimney stack and top of the gable wall had collapsed, exposing the attic.

Close-up of the damaged gable. Picture copyright Gary Dickson

Reporting the damage to the MBA, Gary said: “Downstairs looked ok other than some water dripping down the chimney and through the loft hatch, and the front door not wanting to shut quite properly.

We slept downstairs (with hindsight, should have probably kipped over the road) and could occasionally hear what sounded like small bits of stone or something (possibly just ice) falling down the chimney.”

In fact that is the advice for anyone heading for Faindouran for the foreseeable future: use the pony shed a few yards from the bothy. Permission has been granted from the estate and, though it’s pretty basic shelter, it is a safer option than risking the bothy, which may yet suffer more damage in severe weather.

The MBA will be sending volunteers up as soon as possible but Faindouran is remote and carrying out a proper survey of the damage may not be possible until spring. Certainly there is no hope of a quick repair and, without sounding too alarmist a note, the whole future of the bothy may be in doubt because of this.

Faindouran is in a remote area with no nearby alternatives other than the nearby pony shed or, further up the glen, the basic shelter of the Fords of Avon Refuge, so anyone heading to that area should ensure their plans do not depend on the bothy being usable until further notice.

New bothy pages

I’ve now added information about another two bothies to the site – Ryvoan near Glen More and Ruighe Eataichean in Glen Feshie.

Both can be found under the Cairngorm Bothies tab on the navigation.

Information consists of basic facts, such as location, description of bothy and facilities – and, in the case of Ryvoan, a little of the history.

Hopefully I’ll be able to add more to these pages as time progresses and to add pages about all the other Cairngorm bothies.