Cairngorms on eBothy Blog

The twa' cairns

Sun, 08 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A restful night at Glenmore Lodge on Tuesday after my day on Bynack Mòr saw me woken at 7 am on Wednesday morning by a chainsaw in the woods next door, so I popped down for a hearty breakfast consisting of an overflowing bowl of freshly made porridge, washed down with a mug of coffee and an orange juice and I was ready for the hill.

cairngorms high camping

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

At long last our mutual diaries were clear and I met up with my oldest and bestest friend Allan, aka The Penguin, at the wee car park on the ski road and headed off into the wilds for a high camp on Braeriach. So it was down to the river, swollen with the interminable summer rain this year and up past Lapland, the reindeer station and along the excellent path to the Chalamain Gap. It’s an interesting name is Chalamain. Calman is the Gaelic for dove but it’s pronounced with the svarahbakti vowel, which means it sounds like calaman and I suspect it’s just been named after the peak directly above it, Creag a’Chalamain or rock of the dove, as Chalamain isn’t a real word on its own, meaning “of the dove”. So there must have been a colony of rock doves here at some point and rocky it certainly is.

mlta winter navigation course cairngorms

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The MLTA had organised a few CPD events for members and had booked out Glenmore Lodge for the weekend, thinking that out of the 1800+ membership, they’d be able to fill the 60 odd places at the Lodge but in the end, only 12 turned up. 3 of us on the winter navigation course. There was also a winter skills and winter mountaineering course running. As the date approached I was getting a bit worried as the west coast was devoid of snow but the Lodge staff assured me there was a dump on the way, so I stopped off for a plod on the way and caught the early part of a weather shift as cold northerlies blew in with the promise of snow. Sure enough, right on cue, I woke up in the plush new wing to a very snowy Saturday morning.

another drawing rediscovered

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Following on from the discovery of one of my drawings hijacked by the MBA, I found another one while trawling old backups on CD from years ago. This one is of the Garbh Coire refuge below Braeriach in the Cairngorms, 1997. I took a picture the morning we walked out, over Ben Macdui and Carn a’Mhaim and drew it from that. I remember it was hard going through deep heather across the coire towards the Lairig Ghru path. The night we spent in the refuge was superbly wild. I remember gusts of wind developing high up in the coire behind us and roaring downhill to crash into the back of the doss. It didn’t budge an inch though, as it’s a metal A frame covered in hessian matting and large boulders. I seem to remember there was only enough space for 2 or 3 people to lie down, with their feet to the door. It’s a true emergency shelter. We reached it after a wild walk along the plateau, descending the big slabs below Angel’s Peak, which was really exciting! The abiding memory of that wild, remote night, was Penguin running around in the dark, trying to catch his loo roll, with his breeks round his ankles!

with penguin on macdui

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It was that time again, when Penguin and Stravaiger, old pals, hill wanderers and bothy grumps decided to meet up and go for a stravaig into the high Cairngorms. The occasion was the final munro party of one of Penguin’s friends, who was due to summit Sgurr Fhuar Thuill in Stratfarrar on the Saturday, so we decided to meet up early, on Thursday night and head for our wee bothy and have a day in the ‘gorms on the Friday, before heading across to Cannich to join the munro entourage. The forecast wasn’t too bad for Friday, getting worse on Saturday and truly horrendous on Sunday, so we settled down to the fire and some drams in the bothy and reminisced about old times and put the world to rights over a bottle of Aberlour 10 year old

pea soup with a wild camp ben avon and beinn abhuird

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

At long last, after too long away from big hills, I loaded the car with bike, panniers, tent and rucksack and headed for the southern ‘gorms. I’d attempted this same getaway about a month ago but the car failed to start as the starter motor finally packed in. So, with a new one fitted, a great forecast and bags of enthusiasm, I roared off into the sunset on the 4 hour trip from Skye to Braemar. The plan was to cycle up to Slugain lodge ruin, camp overnight on the Friday and then head round Ben Avon and Beinn a’Bhuird on the Saturday. New ground, new area, brimful of excitement. These were two of my last three munros and I was raring to get into the wilds again.

reindeer in the cairngorms

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We were over at Glenmore Lodge for the MCofS AGM at the weekend. Well we were there for the mountain birds seminar, hog roast and ceilidh but we popped along to the business end of the AGM and listened to the Alladale talk, which I’ll blog about later. The mountain bird seminar began with a slide show and talk about what to see in the mountains followed by a wild and wet walk up past Coire an Lochain and up to Lurcher’s Crag. We only managed to spot a couple of Meadow Pipits being whisked along in the gale and the clag was down to tree top level, so that was that! But we learned about the Bird Atlas, which is an interesting winter bird survey run by the BTO and hillwalkers are especially useful for recording species in less frequented areas. On the Sunday it was another washout so we spent an hour or two with the reindeer at the feeding station on the Lairig Ghru path.