February is not necessarily Scotland’s best. So I planned a five-day journey for minimum misery. Loch Lomond to Fort William offers pubs, hostels and shops. There are plentiful escapes by cosy Citylink and Scotrail. There’s a path alongside Loch Etive that’s been on my Landranger for the last ten years without my doing anything about it. And at worst, there’s a heavy-rucksacked trudge up the West Highland Way with the sleet, quite possibly, coming from behind.
But the best-laid plans of mice and mountaineers… Something happened to throw the whole scheme into confusion. It was, as always, the weather. To our shock and surprise, the sun came out.
So it was that we found ourselves on a route that, by Day Three, was to be Not the West Highland Way by a span of about 20 miles sideways.
There’s a lot to be said for using Inverarnan, Inveroran, all the WH Way’s orthodox overnight stops; and looking upwards each day at the weather, downwards at the legs, and deciding between the well-built path and the mountain excitements alongside. And if that’s your idea at the moment, you’ll skip a few pages down to Part One, rather than reading of how my Czech mate and me hauled rather large rucksacks up the Cobbler on what will, later in this book, be Route 18. You won’t want to know how we almost needed our crampons up there, except that the people before us had left hippo-size footsteps in the snow. Cloud was wafting around the three rocky tops, and forming beautiful hoarfrost over them. We stood and admired the beautiful hoarfrost. We weren’t tempted to climb through the hoarfrosted hole, along the hoarfrosted ledge, and onto the exciting true top of the Cobbler.
‘What’s this thing on the back of the ice-axe?’ Alois asked. Ah, the adze! Nailed boots and the noble art of step-cutting, that’s the proper way. Step-cutting is slow but satisfying, but even more fun is to scamper in crampons across crisp Beinn Ime like a wasp on a wedding cake. Then we dropped off to the north, wandered along a boggy valley and down a damp birchwood. They let us camp at Beinglas campsite even though it was closed, and in the night my boots froze to two rigid lumps.
Alois rests above Kinlochleven
In the morning the sun was shining. Alois the Czech was astonished, as he knew it doesn’t do that in Scotland two days in a row. But since it was, we branched off again to the west – Route 19. We cramponed up Ben Lui, and watched the climbers pop one behind the other out of the top of Central Gully, quite like the computer game of Lemmings except that they didn’t walk off vertically down the other side but came and sat down at the cairn.
Wandering to west of the West Highland Way meant no bunkhouses or hostels: but with the shiny sun alternating with cloudless moon, we could tent it the three days to Kinlochleven. ‘Ah, but I have a slightly sore leg,’ said Alois. ‘A hot shower would be the thing.’
Well, there might conceivably be a B&B in Dalmally. And the B&B might even be open, supposing we ignored the fact that most places do close in February. And so, going down the forest track, we discussed the maximum we’d pay for the treat of trickling hot water on the leg. In the High Tatras, £9 buys a hotel room for two plus use of the swimming pool.
In Dalmally, a small sign nailed to a phone pole indicates a B&B that charges £3 less even than our stingy maximum, offers not just shower but bath, and extra towels to dry the tent with. Breakfast is full fry with haggis – happily, two days over Ime and Lui have created the appetite to cope. ‘Going to Glen Etive? A nice run that, but roundabout,’ says helpful Mr B&B. ‘You’ll have to go right back to Tyndrum, then across the Moor.’ Our big boots and damp tent are just a tease. Obviously we have a car parked round the corner…
Our way to Glen Etive is slower than the road, but straighter. An invisible stalkers’ path through a high pass, a riverside track down Glen Kinglass, and then that little dashed line along Loch Etive. The Etive path exists just enough to be followable. Bog, stones, and grassy foreshore: but the freeze is right down to the sea and the wet bits are slide-over-bump rather than in-squelch. Gradually we trekked past Beinn Trilleachan, with the famous Trilleachan slabs icy grey under low cloud. We found a sheltered corner at the head of the loch; it didn’t snow or even rain; and the covering cloud kept us nice and cosy. Above us on Ben Starav, a waterfall made soothing noises all night long.
In the morning the sun was shining yet again. (Who wants the Highlands in February, eh?) We zigzagged arduously up the end of Buachaille Beag. The smaller Buachaille is just one of many fine mountains apparent on the map but not mentioned in the body of this book because there are just so many of them.
Argyll Needle, the summit of the Cobbler
Buachaille Beag’s a logical extension for anyone with spare energy on this part of Route 18. We made scratchy crampon noises all along its lovely ridge, to find a way down northwest from just short of its final summit Stob nan Cabar. Luckily we were walking away from the sunshine; sunscreen was one burden I hadn’t thought to bring. Then up the Devil’s Staircase, and there was the Pap of Glencoe standing erect against the afternoon.
One more range stands between us and journey’s end. Except that, in Scotland’s winter, you do have to adapt your plans to the weather. And extreme weather is on the way: yet another day of winter chill and cloudless blue skies. When sun runs golden along this particular range, you can’t just ignore the Mamores. We booked at Blackwater Hostel for a second night, hung the tent in the drying room, and clicked and scratched our way up the steep end of Binnein Mor.
When I was in the Western Tatras, they rather reminded me of the Mamores. Narrow ridges with wide paths, steep drops alongside, down the ridge and up the ridge and here’s another pointy peak. (The High Tatras, which are granite, are something else again.) What do you think, Alois? Tatric a bit?
The Tatras may be twice as high but, Alois explained carefully, Scotland is still much bigger for him. ‘In Scotland if you look around you see only mountains and mountains, I really love this. Also the beautiful lochs.’ Indeed, with chill sub-zero air, a sharp snow edge, Loch Leven below and a view from Mull to Schiehallion, it’s no trouble at all to forget about Scotland’s bog, our grey rain, our miserable summer midges.
A sharp dip leads into the cleavage between the twin peaks of Na Gruagaichean, ‘The Maidens’. The col is steep in and steep out, with verticality on the right, but in this superb snow the crampons can cope. On the second top we looked at birds against the blue sky. No, not an eagle: a raven. Corvus something, sorry I don’t know the Latin.
On Stob Dubh of Buachaille Etive Beag
Mamores ridgeline, towards Na Gruagaichean
‘I know raven,’ said Alois: ‘Quoth the Raven, Nevermore.’ Edgar Allen Poe is big in Moravia.
On over the easy Munro of Stob Coire a’ Chairn; and now the white mountains against blue were being buzzed round by a little yellow helicopter. The ‘copter made figure eights, Scottish-dance style, round each of the summits. It seemed to be searching for someone whose route plan had been an unhelpful ‘Mamores’. We ignored it and looked at Am Bodach. Am Bodach is translated as ‘old man’. Actually it’s the particular sort of old man you scare your babies with, the old bloke that if they carry on like that will come down the chimney when they’re asleep and get them. The climb to Am Bodach is, in summer, steep and awkward scree. Now it was hard snow, still steep, among rocky outcrops. Even the confident crampons found it a little exposed on the way up.
Winter days are short and Stob Ban is far, so we headed down Bodach’s south ridge, and found streaks of snow right down to the path.
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