Overnight in Glen Banchor

Scotland is such a good place for wild camping, the autumn colours are so lovely just now, and I was owed a night in a tent after last weekend’s adventure. So, at 1530 yesterday I downed one final cup of tea, picked up my pack and my poles and headed off up the Old Glen Road in Newtonmore.

The relatively late start was because I wasn’t going very far. Dalnashallag bothy is an 8km walk away from Newtonmore, at the top of Glen Banchor, and my intention was to camp somewhere in its vicinity.

I walked the length of Glen Banchor in August 2023 and followed a trod the whole way, with just one patch of bog to negotiate. This time I was walking in the other direction and I soon concluded that either the path (using the term loosely) is harder to follow when heading west, or I just wasn’t paying enough attention. I found myself wading pathlessly through more bog than felt reasonable.

In the end I didn’t go quite as far as the bothy. As I approached I thought I could see something outside of it and it looked like a quad bike (there’s every possibility it was nothing of the sort, in the same way that sometimes you see a bit of plastic at the side of a track and are convinced it’s a rabbit until you get up close). I wasn’t after company, so I crossed the river where I was, then backtracked a bit to where the best-looking pitches seemed to be. Handily, that was also out of sight of the bothy.

The ground wasn’t as flat as it looked from a distance, and there were a lot of sheep droppings around, but I selected a flattish spot that looked about the right size for Connie Competition.

Both tent and bothy are in this snap.

Kettle’s on

My main objective for this trip was to sleep well, and I did. The tent didn’t flap (sheltered pitch), and over 6 hours sleep was had! I was, however, wide awake at 0400, but on this occasion I wasn’t going to employ the ‘well, I’m awake, I may as well make a move’ theory. I was aiming to leave just as daylight arrived.

I finally emerged from my sleeping bag at 0600 and had a leisurely cup of tea and hot porridge before slowly packing away. Not slowly enough, as I was ready to walk at 0710, sunrise wasn’t until 0750, and whereas two weeks ago I was able to turn off my headtorch 40 minutes before sunrise, today it stayed on until 0743. As I wasn’t going far, and thus had no need to conserve power, I put it on a ‘useful light’ setting, which helped me keep track of the line of the trod, and to repeatedly ford water (I’m sure the line I took yesterday, a distance away from the river, only involved wading one significant burn and the river; today I forded five times).

My goodness Glen Banchor is a bogfest! I thought, having strayed away from the trodden line, I’d just taken a bad route yesterday, but it turns out that the trodden line is every bit as wet, and maybe wetter. It was nice to make it onto solid ground just before the abandoned buildings at Glenballoch. (Incidentally, the woodland just W of Glenballoch would give a good sheltered pitch amongst the trees. I considered it yesterday, but it seemed too early to stop, given my stated objective of the bothy.)

I was back in Newtonmore just before 9am. Quite probably not the shortest overnight trip I’ve ever taken, but it’s right up there. (Definitely not the shortest: see this blog post from 2007)

Giack Corbetts Backpack: A Sudden and Unexpected End

Brace yourself for a long tale of adventure, as I return to the point at which I was sitting in the tent, with my tea made, and things were going well.

Sometime in between making my evening meal and eating it, the wind picked up, and the tent began moving a bit. Out I went to check the pegs (one of which turned out not to be well-sited), to re-tension the pegging points and I even got a big rock to put on the peg that was facing the wind. Goodness, it was cold out there; my poor hands and feet felt it within moments! But I soon warmed up when back inside, and I had a nice hot meal waiting for me.

I was half way through that meal when the tent first collapsed on me. The wind had shifted and was now catching the big panel on the long side of the tent, which (acting as a sail) had ripped a peg out. I was unable to find that peg, but I had a couple of spares. With that reset and all the others checked again, back inside I went to warm up.

By now the big panel was really bowing inwards, but I knew I had everything well pegged, so I figured I was just going to have to put up with it. My night might be disturbed and uncomfortable, but I wasn’t in any danger.

Then the wind shifted again, and suddenly the tent collapsed on me from a different corner. This was rather alarming, because I was pitched on the grown-over compacted pebble bed of a river, and I knew that I had driven an X stake fully in to the compacted ground in that corner, which to my mind is about as firm a pegging point as you can get. That it had been torn free set alarm bells ringing. Back out I went, this time into lashing rain, and managed to wrestle the tent back into a standing position, before checking again all of the pegs and guys.

The problem now was that my outer layers were wet, and I didn’t dare take them off for fear of needing to rush back outside again at any moment. Added to that, the temperature was forecast to go down to -3 overnight, and I didn’t want to find myself in a position when I needed to bail out when it was that cold, and I was tired.

It didn’t take much contemplation to decide that the best course of action was to decamp and walk out immediately.

(In case you’re thinking ‘A bit dramatic! Surely the best course of action was to just move to a more sheltered spot?’, that’s exactly what I would have done had I been in a tent with which I’m more familiar, but the Xmid needs to be set up just right and it was now pitch dark, such that I wasn’t confident that I could find a good enough pitch and pitch the tent sufficiently well upon it. And I was only 21km from Tromie Bridge, and it was only 1920 (the time, not the year; I hadn't borrowed a time machine!).)

The other item I had borrowed for this trip was a Garmin Inreach (tracker and 2-way satellite communication device), which was a blessing, as it meant I could send Mick a message begging for an antisocially-timed lift from Tromie Bridge. The only spanner in the works was that the associated App on my phone had logged me out and I couldn’t log back in without a data signal. That meant the only way I could send a message was by painstakingly selecting one letter at a time using the up/down/enter buttons on the tracker. The message Mick got was ‘bailing canj have liftm middle of night’.

At 1945 I did a quick sweep of the now-empty pitch to make sure I’d not left anything and made my way back to the track, whereupon it belatedly occurred to me that maybe I would be better heading S to the A9. The question would have been best considered when still in the tent, but after quick glance at the map I opted for ‘better the devil you know’ and stuck with Plan A, using tracks the whole way.

The downside of heading out to Glen Tromie was that I was heading straight into the wind and it was still raining/sleeting heavily – and I had two fords to negotiate.

The second was the only point in my escape plan that had concerned me, as it didn’t look insignificant…

Circled in this snap, taken earlier in the day

…and it wasn’t the weather to be taking off my two pairs of gloves to change into my fording shoes and back again.

It turned out to not be too fast moving, but was deeper than my waterproof socks are high.

About an hour in, I thought I’d best check the battery level on my headtorch, as I’d only taken a dinky ‘in case of emergency’ by way of a backup, so really didn’t want the first one to fail (I could have charged it, but that would have taken time). Good job I checked, as I’d had it on a higher setting than I’d realised and was already down one dot of the four on the charge display. Fortunately, by then I was past the roughest track, so the pathetic light of the minimum setting was adequate (must do some experiements to see how long it lasts on a ‘useful light’ setting).

I would have walked straight past Bhran Cottage without noticing it, if I hadn’t got my phone out at the exact right moment and saw on the map where I was. I sheltered in the lee of the building to check whether I’d had a response from Mick via the tracker. I hadn’t. This was a minor concern, as it suggested he’d not seen my message, and I knew he’d gone to the pub for tea with Adrian, which in turn gave the possibility that he’d had a few pints and wouldn’t be able to come out and pick me up. Not the end of the world; I could either try pitching the tent for a few hours rest somewhere sheltered in the woods near Tromie Bridge, or I could walk the extra 10km back to Newtonmore. That would have given a 54km day by my reckoning, but it felt doable. Knowing that I would soon get a phone signal, I unairplaned my phone and continued walking. Not long later two things happened: the rain eased and my phone pinged with Mick saying he’d been unable to reply via the tracker (operator error, not a tracker problem, as it later transpired) but he and Adrian were on standby to come out to meet me.

I didn’t have to walk all the way to Tromie Bridge. Mick & Adrian decided a rescue mission (even though I’d been quite firm that I was absolutely fine to walk out to the road) justified driving the private track up the glen, so they saved me 4km. Whilst it felt like I’d been walking through the night, I was in a nice warm car by 2250 (having covered 16.5km in 3 hours – not too shoddy with a heavy pack, battling the wind and in the pissing rain!)

I’ve since done a bit of reading about the Xmid tent, and apparently it should easily withstand the weather I encountered, if pegged using 8” groundhog stakes, pitched low to the ground, and using the optional pegging points on the side panels (which I wasn’t, because the tent doesn’t come with loops for those points and whilst I did fit one during the evening, having already lost one peg, I didn’t have enough pegs to add loops to them all). Incidentally, had I opted for the slightly sloping pitch further upstream, I reckon I would have been sheltered enough. There’s probably a lesson to be learnt there (although I had no reason to expect such sudden and violent winds based on the day I’d had and the forecasts I’d seen).

I’d be prepared to give the Xmid another chance (although I am still alarmed at how it ripped out such a firmly planted peg), but perhaps at a more hospitable time of year, when there are more hours of daylight to play around with it and get properly to grips with its fussy pitching requirements. For now, though, I think I’ll go back to the flappy (but more foolproof) Competition…

(Also incidentally: on my final sweep of the pitch, I found a peg. I assumed I’d just missed the peg bag with one as I’d put them away, but a count up when I unpacked told me I’d returned with the same number as I’d left with, so I did, in fact, find the one that had pinged out earlier in the evening.)

Backpack: Dalwhinnie to Loch Bhrodainn

Saturday 12 October

Distance and ascent: 23km, 600m

Red = plotted route for Saturday. Pink = actual route taken. Blue = Day 2 intended route.

After three one-night backpacking trips this summer/autumn (plus one aborted due to a disgruntled back), it was time for a two-night trip. It was supposed to start on Thursday, but with 40mph winds in the forecast for Newtonmore for Friday (and, obviously, it’d be worse on the hills), I delayed by a couple of days. There was nearly another delay when, on Friday, the forecast for Saturday changed from mainly fine to 95% chance of heavy rain all day, but Sunday’s forecast was so good that I decided to put up with the rain, so as to get a perfect hill day for my Corbetts on Sunday.

The forecast hadn’t improved by Saturday morning, but there was no wind to speak of, so it was just wet, thus I set out at 0930, as planned, with my first stage being to Newtonmore station to jump on a train down to Dalwhinnie.

I’d never been to Newtonmore station before (unless you count passing through on a train), and it has an excellent view over the Cairngorms:

Without expanding this photo and zooming in, the snow on them there hills may well blend into the sky – but to the naked eye, there was quite a bit of white at altitude.

A good chat was had with the Train Manager (he knew what a Marilyn was!), even though I was only on the train for 10 minutes, and I arrived in Dalwhinnie to find that the sky was looking decidedly brighter to the south.

It may not look brighter on this snap, but compared to the other direction, this was bright! Look at those fine autumn colours too.

I still got rained on, including for about half an hour on the aqueduct track, but I would class it as light rain, not heavy. Then this happened:

I’d already paused at the hut by Loch Cuaich to take off my jumper and waterproof socks and to change from a beanie to my peaked cap, but fifteeen minutes later, half way to Coire Chuaich, I could bear the heat no longer. Off came the Paramo jacket in favour of my windshirt, and my Paramo trousers were unzipped right down to the ankles. It was turning into a start/stop faffy sort of a day.

Beyond the end of the track, a trodden line soon petered out, so it was a yomp to pick up the line of the old stalkers’ track that was much more obvious from a distance than when on it. By the time I reached it, the sky to the south had turned ominous, and I could see I was in danger of getting wet feet on this path, so I called yet another halt, this time for lunch and to put back on the waterproof socks I’d only taken off half an hour earlier.

By the time I’d finished eating (during which time my backpack, which had been sitting nicely next to me, decided to perform three somersaults down the hillside and had to be retrieved), I was back in my heavy jacket, with my warm mitts back on, and only a few minutes after I set back off, snow started gently to fall.

The real snowstorm timed itself nicely to last for almost the entire pathless section from the top of that stalkers’ path to the equally disused stalkers’ path that runs down to Gaick Lodge. Let’s compare and contrast:

Definitely very Scottish weather, and rather a shame I didn’t get the snow when on the track and the sunshine up high!

Looking off the side of Sgor Dearg, before reaching my descent path, I nearly made the decision to drop off the side of the hill and lop a sizeable corner off my route, until I remembered that one of the purposes of this trip was to check out the state of the Gaick stalkers’ path. It’s obviously little used these days, but with care is still followable (which is to say that every now and then I had to look around carefully to work out whether it went onwards or had switched back on itself). I didn’t follow it all the way down to the glen, as my plotted route forded the river at Gaick Lodge, only to ford it again 2km later, which seemed more faff than heading pathlessly to the bridge just N of Loch Bhrodainn (which I had been able to see from up high; I wasn’t relying on its depiction on the map). The going wasn’t too bad for most of the way, but within 30m of my objective I realised two things: 1) there was another burn between me and the bridge; and 2) the bridge no longer has a walkway:

Deceptive! From a distance it looks like a serviceable bridge

I changed into fording shoes and waded to a bank in the middle of the river, but a couple of steps beyond that bank told me the channel that side was too deep. So I retreated and contemplated other fording options. I could see none. Thus my Foul Weather Alternative came into play, another faff was had to put my shoes back on, and I stayed on the W side of Loch Bhrodainn and hope that the next bridge along was useable.

An ATV track and a series of trods helped me along my way (and I confirmed that had I not attempted to use the first bridge, but had maintained a higher line from where I left the Stalkers’ path, I could have crossed the burn without wading and avoided the section of trogging through long grass). This was a fine sight to see:

I ended up pitching not far from this bridge, but not before I continued along my route to see if there was a pitch by one of the next two burns. There wasn’t so I backtracked and first investigated the land next to a side burn, but rejected the one plausible pitch I found there for being a little slopey. I settled for a spot further downstream, out in the open:

That is not one of our tents! As I’ve been struggling to sleep in the flappy Laser Competition, I borrowed a Durston Xmid for this trip. As I got inside and made my tea, I was impressed at how solid it felt and was looking forward to a getting a good night’s sleep ready for my hills on the morrow (although I had realised that my plan to leave the tent pitched whilst I did my hill circuit was flawed, in that the tent uses walking poles as its support, so I had the option of taking the tent, or leaving my poles – but I decided to defer the decision as to which option to take until the morning).

Only a few minutes later, my trip was to take an unexpected turn…

Loch Bhrodainn

 

Baileguish to Newtonmore

Friday 4 October

Distance and ascent: 11km, 100m

Weather: overcast with one shower and a few other passing spots of rain.

My day started with a burst tea bag. This is not a good way to start a day! However, I managed to drink my brew without swallowing many of the tea leaves, and it wasn’t raining (contrary to the forecast), so there were positive things I could focus on. If looking for positives, I should perhaps gloss over how bad a night’s sleep I had, although I reckon it was better than the last trip, and that was better than the trip before.

Thanks to my overactive imagination, I was wide awake at 0330, so at 0430 I got up. At 0530 I picked up my pack and was off.

With hindsight, I should have made some mental notes yesterday afternoon in daylight, as the tiny trod that leads from Baileguish to the footbridge was difficult to locate by torchlight. Or maybe I should have just followed the track, which takes a longer route to the same place.

Once over the footbridge, I was into the forest and for the first five or ten minutes my imagination stayed on a tight rein. I was even brave enough to take a little path that cuts a corner off between two tracks. Then I got to a section where the trees were creaking and cracking in the wind, whereupon my mind wanted me to believe that every noise was a mad axe murderer about to jump out (because, clearly, the most expedient place for a mad axe murderer to hang out is in a forest in a sparsely populated area, where lone females probably only pass by before sunrise about once a year). I gave myself a good talking to … and checked how much longer I had to wait until sunrise.

Sunrise was at 0721, but I was able to turn my light off at 0640, by which time I was about 3km past where I had arranged to be picked up at 0800. Thanks to the wonders of modern communication methods, this wasn’t a problem – my watch has a live tracking function and the first time Ali checked my location, she correctly spotted that I was in the Co-op in Kingussie. (Apparently there was a discussion over dinner last night as to where I would be picked up this morning. Agreement was unanimous that I wouldn’t be at the agreed spot in Drumguish. Everyone reckoned I would be either at Ruthven Barracks or in Kingussie at 8am.)

I would have made it all the way to Newtonmore, had Ali picked me up on the return leg of her trip to Kingussie, as intended, but as I happened to be right next to a convenient pull-in on her outward leg, I was picked up a little short of the village. I didn’t object, given I’d only originally intended to walk just over 4km this morning.

Hopefully there will be another window of good weather whilst we’re here, as I’ve another couple of routes in my mind.

The only photo I took today. (There were two campervans in the sloping Ruthven Barracks car park (the roof of one snuck into this snap, as you see) undoubtedly both unaware that there's a lovely, more secluded, level spot a few hundred metres up the road.)

Drumguish to Baileguish (via Carn Dearg Mor - NN 82326 91178; 857m)

Thursday 3 October

Distance and ascent: 22.9km, 697m

Weather: Mainly sunny with good air clarity

As I crept downstairs at 0630 yesterday morning, I couldn’t help but notice the frost glistening away on the cars outside and the car thermometer said -0.5 when I cadged a lift with Ali, as she took her daughter to work.

Ali kindly went a few miles out of her way, dropping me at Drumguish at just gone 8am. That starting point was 4.3km from where I was to spend the night, but as you’ll see from the stats above, I took a somewhat longer route.

Glen Tromie and Glen Feshie are reasonable well-known, but in between them sits the lesser-visited Gleann Chomraig. The fact that there is no habitation in the glen, and that until a year or two ago it didn’t have a track, and thus involved a rough walk (and a bridgeless river crossing) probably contributes to its obscurity, compared with its two neighbours. So, to reach my summit for the day (which sits overlooking Glen Feshie), I opted to go along Gleann Chomraig, using the new track for as far as it went, then either picking up the path as marked on the map, or just heading across country.

Gleann Chomraig has been subject to a programme of planting native trees over the last few years. It’s still a bit of an empty bleakness at the moment, dotted with tiny trees, but in fifteen years I imagine it will be quite lovely.

Planting the glen is, it seems, a residential job.

At the point where the new track ended, there were two ATV tracks in front of me: one going S, following the line of the path marked on the map; the other heading east. S was the more direct line for my purposes, so I followed that one, which was fine, if boggy, until it petered out.

There then ensued a kilometre and a half of yomping through vegetation up to my knees, during which I contemplated my lack of ability to make the best decisions when faced with various route choices. This does, of course, suppose that my assumption as to the line taken by the other ATV track is correct, and also assumes that track didn’t also suddenly stop. Plus, it would certainly have been less direct, so I would have had to ponder ‘when is a longer route on easier terrain preferable to a shorter route on harder terrain’. I’ll never know which was the best route, but I was mightily glad when I stumbled upon another ATV track, which I did follow, even though it was far less direct than just continuing to yomp up the hillside.

My photos taken from Carn Dearg Mor don’t even start to do justice to the vista as seen by the naked eye, looking down on Glen Feshie and across to the Munros beyond:

The day was almost perfect for that ridge walk (about 4km long), with my only complaint being the cold wind. It wasn’t quite bad enough for me to dig my Buffalo mitts back out, making do instead with my fingerless gloves.

With no shelter to be had up on the ridge (no rocks, no dips in the landscape, no trees), I didn’t stop for lunch until I gained the forest track that was going to take me the final 4km to my night-stop.

I saw these signs as I looked back on exiting the area of forestry works. There hadn’t been a single sign on my way in. I also hadn’t been warned not to climb on timber stacks.

It was five past two when I reached the end of my day. That was rather earlier than I would have liked, and I did give contemplation to continuing on to walk the final 15km back to Newtonmore, arriving there in time for tea. However, that would have defeated the primary purpose of the trip, which was to spend the night out. So, I brewed a pint of tea and sat on a convenient log for a couple of hours in the sunshine, before putting the tent up:

There was a whole expanse of lawn, but being so close to a track and a building, my overactive imagination pictured a vehicle pulling in during the night and not spotting my tent in their parking spot, so I crammed myself between the logs and some tussocks.

I was joined part way through that time by a cyclist who had ridden in from Braemar and was on his way to Kingussie, but he only stayed for fifteen minutes or so before continuing on.

With sunset at quarter to seven, I was tucked up in the tent nice and early, hoping for a good night’s sleep.

Taking the long way around to get 4km away!