Stob Coir' an Albannaich

Meall nan Eun

June? 1988

Meall Dearg

Sgorr nam Fiannaidh

June? 1988

In the summer I went to Scotland with Hector again. 

After our previous experience with the sleeper we opted to sit up in the one ordinary carriage and rough it.  Waiting for the train to leave, four squaddies marched up the platform armed with a great many cans of lager and a ghetto-blaster.

"For God's sake don't let them come into our carriage", Hector said.

The train got under way and raced northwards in the summer twilight.  Just as we were making a first attempt at sleep the door opened, and the squaddies, having presumably drunk the buffet dry, walked in, found seats and proceeded to make a nuisance of themselves.

"Do you fancy telling them to turn it down, Hec?"

"Not much.  Do you?"

"Not much."

Sometime after midnight I took my sleeping bag out and went in search of the guards van.  It was cluttered up with bicycles, bits of luggage and three glum looking dogs, one of them an alsatian.  They all appeared to be tied up.  Eyeing the alsatian carefully I picked my way across to an unoccupied corner, and lay down.  Shortly I saw why the dogs looked so miserable: the floor was freezing.  Even fully clothed in my sleeping bag I was cold. 

At 3 a.m. the guard shook me awake.  Mail bags had to be loaded, or unloaded.  Back in the carriage the squaddies were snoring.  Leigh had his head in his hands.  I lay down in the aisle, but sleep was evasive; soon it began to get light.  Looking out of the window I saw that we'd stopped at Gleneagles Station.  Why, I wondered dimly, are we on the wrong side of the country altogether?  We were supposed to be going up the west coast line.  But amidst all the miseries of that night, the possibility that we might be on the wrong train was a minor concern.  I lay down again, indifferent to what might happen.

Eventually Glasgow Queen St lurched into view.  At half five the Burger King branch opened, and we were its first customers.  Hot coffee makes almost any situation seem better; even hot coffee from Burger King.  After half an hour the train jolted off again through the suburbs; past a gasworks, the back of a row of houses, a playing field where a man was walking his dog.  The grey dawn became a grey morning.  Hector and I dozed intermittently until Arrochar, where the mountains began.  The weather was showing signs of clearing, and we resigned ourselves to the day.

Shortly before Bridge of Orchy, I discovered I'd forgotten to bring any bread for sandwiches.  This was a bit of a blow.  However when we got off the train there was a hot-dog van at the station.  What it was doing there at that hour of the morning God knows, but the woman sold us some rolls and morale was restored.  We walked down the lane by the Hotel, past an incongruous sign which read Laundrette, and over the Orchy.  The river was painfully low.

The plan, which was mine, was to stay two nights at the Kingshouse Hotel, where there was a bunkhouse.  I liked the idea of getting off the train and doing a long walk to get to where we were staying.  We were going to climb Stob Coir' an' Albannaich and Meall nan Eun on the way, mountains which lay in the empty highlands between the A83 and Glen Etive.

We left the road and took the short cut to Inveroran over a modest hill to the west.  It was only three or four hundred feet up, but our rucksacks were heavy and at the top I felt exhausted already.  And this after only twenty minutes or so.  Fortunately I'd had the sense to leave the primus behind this time.  We looked across Loch Tulla to the hunched shoulders of what must be Stob Ghabhair, and along a receding line of big hills on the far side of a shallow tree-dotted valley.  The only sound was a shepherd's dog barking somewhere in the flatlands at the head of the loch.

"That's where we're going, over there", I said pointing into the distance. 

Stob Coir' an Albannaich was one of the furthest hills.  It looked an awfully long way away.  Hector said nothing.

Once on the road again we walked past the Inveroran Hotel and round to the head of Loch Tulla.  I began to realise that I'd badly underestimated the time it was going to take us to do this walk.  We'd already been going an hour, and it was going to take us at least a further two hours to reach the foot of the first mountain at the head of Glen Kinglass.  Starting up the hill after that, still carrying the pack, was going to be quite an undertaking.  Sure enough it was nearly 11.30 by the time we got to the lochan at the foot of Sron na h-Iolaire, and Hector was looking knackered.  We ate a Mars bar each and sat perspiring in the heather.

"How are you feeling?"

"Shagged", he said.

"So am I."

There was nothing to do but go on, however, and so on we went, up into a shallow coire, and then more steeply up a band of slabs which were an enjoyable scramble; you didn't notice that going uphill was an effort.  At the top of an outlying hill, Meall Dubh, the main ridge of Stob Coir' an Albannaich came into sight ahead.  We could look back down the valley now, over Loch Dochard to the Bridge of Orchy hills, visible every so often under the cloud ceiling.  Higher up still, Loch Tulla rose into view above a southern spur of Stob Gabhar, the whole landscape tilting towards us as if pulled at the horizon by an invisible string. 

A few hundred feet short of the the top we abandoned our rucksacks, taking only waterproofs and a can of Fosters someone had left on the train.  The summit was in cloud.  We drank the beer leaning against the cairn, breathing hard. 

"This is unusual", I said.

"How d'you mean?"

"Well, normally it's either horrible on top, so you can't wait to go down, or else it's fantastic, in which case going down's a real wrench.  But this is neither."

"Oh", Hector said, not sounding as if this was an earth-shattering insight.

The mist showed no sign of clearing so we went back to our bags, and then down a slanting pocket of old snow to the bealach on the northern side of the hill.

We were now at a watershed.  It'd be simple to walk down the far side to Glen Etive, but this would bring us out a long way down the glen, miles from the Kingshouse.  Instead I thought we could head across the top of Glen Ceitlein to another side valley which came down to Glen Etive much further north.  This way had the added advantage, for me at any rate, that we could do a short detour to Meall nan Eun, another Munro.

We set off along the connecting ridge, over a small intervening top, Meall Tarsuinn.  It had looked nothing on the map, and the effort made me realise how tired I was.  On the far side we stopped by some flat slabs for something to eat.

"You can go up this other one on your own", Hector said.  "I'm feeling a bit under the weather."

He had taken the news of my Munroing aspirations in his stride, without showing the slightest interest in climbing them himself.  I left him sitting out of the wind, and set off into the mist, which had crept down the hillsides above us. 

The way lay up an easy grass slope, and I was buoyed up by the absence of a rucksack.  The top of the hill was featureless and flat, but the cairn was easy enough to find.  I got out the compass, the new compass, to take a bearing for the descent.  Now the ground looked utterly different, more rounded and rocky.  For a few moments it was plausible that I might be walking on a small mossy planet, drifting silent in misty space.  A relief to come out beneath the cloud ten minutes later and find the place I'd left Hector straight ahead.

"I'm freezing", he said.  "Let's get going again."

Picking up our bags, we made off in a northerly direction across a narrow coire.     Presently the day stopped being enjoyable and started being a bit of a trial.  The going was rough and sometimes very steep.  Hector's ankle was playing up, and he could only go slowly.  Beyond this coire was another wider coire.  On the far side we crossed a shoulder, only to find that the bealach at the head of Allt a'Chaoruinn was still a long way below us: we had much more height to lose.  Descending this last bit of steep ground was particularly trying.  A light drizzle had begun to fall, and it took us nearly an hour to reach the bealach, where a peaty and dank stream meandered away northwards in the direction of Glen Etive.  I was feeling pretty shattered.

We walked slowly down the valley on the left bank of the stream, which after a while ran in a ravine.  The drizzle stopped, and the weather began to brighten a little as the afternoon wore on.  After several miles a path appeared on the other bank, but the sleepless night was catching up with us and we didn't have the energy to try and find a way across.

Hector said, "What's to stop us just stopping here and sleeping out?  We've got food and sleeping bags.  The weather's OK."

We debated this as we walked along, without reaching a conclusion: it seemed less effort to carry on than make up our minds.

In the last mile down to the Glen Etive road we came upon a faint path, and walked along by the stream, now transformed, cascading between clear pools a dazzling ultramarine blue. 

"Beautiful isn't it?"

"Wonderful", I said.  "I think I once camped in Glen Etive when I was about four or five, with my Mum and Dad.  There's the road by the way.  Nearly there now."

"What if we can't get a lift?"

"Have to walk I suppose.  But there must be loads of cars going up and down the Glen."

I kept an eye on the road as we trudged on, but not a single car went by.

Hector said, "How much further to the Kingshouse?"

"About five miles."

Five miles now sounded a long way.  Longer than when the plan had been conceived.  We passed Altchaoruinn, a house in a very beautiful tree-shaded situation by the stream, and went a short way along the side of the Etive to a bridge plainly intended to repel visitors.  A high barricade had been put up above the gate. 

"Now make a short but exposed traverse to the left", Hector said in guidebook-speak, clambering out round the side. 

Once across we sank down by the roadside, thoroughly worn out and footsore.

"Where are these cars then?"

There was no traffic on the road whatsoever.           

We hadn't been sitting surveying our blisters long when an elderly couple appeared on the far bank, heading for the bridge.  Obviously they'd need help getting round the barrier, so I put on my boots and hobbled over.  Afterwards we struck up a conversation, in which it emerged that their car was parked a couple of miles up the road.  Did we want a lift?  We thanked them and said we certainly did; as soon as our rucksacs were packed up again we'd walk along after them.  A couple of miles was better than five.

Just after we'd set off however a van came up behind us.  I stuck out a thumb automatically and it stopped.  The driver was a joiner who'd been working on some Estate buildings down the valley.  Hector got in the front, and I sat in the back amongst pots of paint, drills, rolls of wire and so on.  When we passed the elderly couple I waved, feeling faintly guilty.  Had we breached some hitch-hiking etiquette?  Would they feel snubbed?

Whatever, we were at the Kingshouse in ten minutes.  The sun was shining, and our fortunes seemed to have been transformed.  The bar was empty, and looked the same as empty climbers' bars always do.  We drank our pints, then went to the bunkhouse to cook.

"What's this then?", Hector said, chewing his first mouthful of veggie nosh.

"It's called a Beanfeast", I said.

"An abuse of language, I'd say."

"In every respect. Except it really is made out of beans."

We didn't make it back to the bar.  We went to bed at nine, and slept and slept and slept.

The great objective of our trip was the Aonach Eagach ridge.  I'd read somewhere that this was meant to be one of the finest mainland ridge walks in the country, Grade III in winter and not for the fainthearted in summer.  However as soon as we set off the following morning towards Altnafeadh along the old military road, traffic speeding by along the A82 to the left, it was impossible to look anywhere except the Buchaille.

I'd seen it before, but not for years and years, not since I was a kid.

"It's fantastic isn't it?", Hector said.

"Very, very impressive.  There's a lot of climbing on it, I think."

I can only guess how he must have felt, seeing the morning sun lighting this huge cone of ruddy rock, graced with dozens of wonderful climbs, but passing it by to go hillwalking with me.  Frustrated, at the very least.

At Altnafeadh we went up the Devil's Staircase, a rather mundane trudge, to the watershed between Glen Coe and Kinlochleven.  There were a lot of walkers here, presumably doing the West Highland way, adjusting their loads and taking pictures of the view.  North, beyond the long line of the Mamores, the Ben stood up hunched and snow-patched.  As we climbed away from the bealach onto Stob Mhic Mhartuin, the Easains above Loch Treig rose up behind the intervening hills, and in the middle ground the long line of the Blackwater reservoir wandered away to the east.  On the horizon the outline of Ben Alder might or might not have been discernible.

After Stob Mhic Martuin we went across a slight depression where we were passed by another climber. 

"We must be going really slowly."

"Perhaps yesterday was a bit ambitious", Hector said pointedly.

I'm ashamed to say that I wasn't particularly impressed by Aonach Eagach.  In the middle section there were some bits of scrambling I enjoyed, but it was nothing like as sensational as I expected.  Apart from a very few places, Striding Edge is more exposed, though of course nothing like as long.  If I'd known what it would be like, I'd have saved it for a time when I had more experience of winter climbing.  It must be a magnificent winter route.

The views across Glen Coe were glorious though.  As we went along the ridge, one coire after another opened up on the far side, so that you could see directly up first Lairig Eilde, then Coire Gabhail, then Coire nan Lochan.  Stob Coire nan Lochan looked a wonderful mountain, a craggy cone streaked with snow gullies above a snow filled coire.  And after Meall Dearg there was a truly spectacular drop into Glen Coe, with the cars crawling along the road like so many coloured beetles. 

Maybe I was just too exhausted to enjoy it properly.  Both of us were walking like lead-booted deep sea divers, and even the most gentle gradient was a struggle.  Our rucksacks didn't seem much lighter than the previous day, despite being minus sleeping bags and several pounds of food.  Also we'd brought no water with us.  Although not a hot day, we were walking in shorts, and it was warm enough to work up a thirst.  Now and again there'd be a pocket of old snow which we fell upon, cramming handfuls of the bitter tasting stuff into our mouths.

For once affliction struck us both equally, and somewhere between Meall Dearg and Stob Coire Leith I said, "Do you think we could stop and have a rest?  I've had it."

"If I stop now I'll never get going again", Hector said.  "My legs will just seize up."

I was too tired to argue with him, but in the end we did stop, out of an inarticulated mutual exhaustion.  Afterwards his legs were still functioning, and eventually in the late afternoon we plodded up to the stony top of Sgorr nam Fiannaidh, the last high point on the ridge.  If anything there was an even better view here, along Loch Leven to the Ballachulish narrows and out to Ardgour, where there was a big hill I thought must be Garbh Bheinn.  Nearer to hand across the valley stood Bidein nam Bian, and Beinn a'Bheithir beyond.  A great reward for the effort we'd put in, and we sat down by the cairn and massaged our aching legs, saying how wonderful it was to see all the mountains and the sea.  Hector was gratifyingly impressed.  There were some other people at the summit, and we sat chatting to them and looking about for twenty minutes, until the wind began to find a way inside our shirts and it got cold.

We walked on beyond the summit, right to the end of the ridge, where you felt you could throw a stone straight down into the glen, and then turned away north towards the Pap.  South we went, down steep unfrequented grassy slopes, carpeted at the foot by bluebells visible from a distance as an azure haze washing over the hillside, and studded by what seemed to me to be tiny primroses.  I knew nothing about plants.

At the old road we laboured up to the Clachaig, where, after a thirst-crazed afternoon, beer reached deep into parched corners like some heavenly irrigation.  Hector sat on the grass outside the back bar listening to some climbing bores boasting about what hard routes they'd done.  Inside, a TV set was showing England beating the West Indies in a one day game.  Another false cricketing dawn.

Later we walked up to the main road, and stood hitching at the junction.  A dozen cars went by without stopping.

I said, "I suppose our success rate had nowhere to go but down, after yesterday."

Shortly enough though two old hippies driving a dilapidated lorry pulled up.  We climbed in and sat on the back boards, with the wind in our faces as the mountains and glen passed by.

"This is the way to travel", Hector said. 

"And the place to go travelling."

At home it had seemed quite plausible that we'd have enough energy to on the Sunday walk across the Black Mount to Bridge of Orchy and catch the evening train south.  Now we didn't even bother to discuss it.  Not that it couldn't be done, but not by us, not in that state.  Instead we'd walk across the Moor to Rannoch Station.  It looked quite a long way on the map, but there was hardly any up and down.

Before we left I got Leigh to take a picture of me standing on the bridge by the hotel.

"We stopped here once on the way up", I said.  "When I was a kid.  We were going to Mallaig or somewhere.  I remember asking my Dad if there were any fish in the stream."

Dad had said there probably were, but although we stood for a while, looking down into the water and up at the Buchaille, I didn't see any.

Peering over the parapet now though, the river downstream of the kitchen outflow, luxuriant with weed growth, was alive with small trout.  I found this distantly fulfilled promise peculiarly touching.

For the first hour or so we walked east along a newly laid Land Rover track towards Black Corries Lodge.  When we set off it was an invigorating bright spring morning, but  presently the heat became irritating.  Beyond the Lodge, a group of buildings standing in trees where dogs ran out to bark, the track deteriorated and we passed into the wilderness.  All around lay heather, and rocks and peat hags, and the track went on and on.  Behind us the outlying spurs of the Black Mount and the great cone of the Buchaille stood out quite clear.  To the south the Bridge of Orchy hills were hazily outlined.  Being a long way off these landmarks changed position slowly, so that we walked for a long time without feeling that we were getting anywhere.  The Moor seemed to be a place where conventional effort counted for less. 

We were on a faint path now, and imperceptibly the prospect changed.  The hills at the edge of the Moor sank down like cardboard cut outs in some primitive stage production.  Here and there in the distance water gleamed in the sun.  Once a lochan appeared on the right, quite close.  There were some birds on it, but we were too far off to make out exactly what they were; divers perhaps.  There'd obviously been no rain to speak of for days, weeks even, and the ground was bone dry.  The path came and went, and then went altogether.  We looked at the compass, and looked around, and then went on across the heather and coarse grass.

After a couple of hours, an arm of water appeared ahead which could only be Loch Laidon.  We only had to keep this on our right, and should surely get to Rannoch.  A film of cloud passed over the sun, and the air began to feel cooler.  Higher up the hillside a line of telegraph poles stalked into view, and we altered course to walk between them, drawn by the only human things in the empty landscape.  It was getting towards mid-day.

A group of ruined buildings came into sight a quarter of a mile away down towards the loch. 

Hector said, "I bet that was a lonely place to live."

We'd thought we could eat our lunch down there, but didn't in the end.  Although still tired after Aonach Eagach, it was more than just unwillingness to go out of the way, at least for me.  There was something about the Moor that made you feel small, and the prospect of sitting by a deserted house to eat our sandwiches just struck me as too overwhelmingly bleak.  Even walking with someone else on a fine day like this, I had a strong feeling of wanting to get across as soon as possible, wanting to get back to somewhere there were more human things, and human things that were occupied and working rather than abandoned and dead.  So instead we sat in a sheltered hollow, looking out over Loch Laidon, and over the brown expanse beyond. 

I thought the Moor would go on for ever, and yet we seemed to reach the end almost abruptly.  At the edge of the plantation which occupies the last stretch to Rannoch station we met an elderly couple apparently out for their afternoon constitutional, the first people we'd seen since the Kingshouse.  I felt vaguely cheated by this, as if the Moor wasn't a suitable place for mere strolling.  The forest was heavily-rutted with vehicle tracks, so we went down to the lochside, where you could walk along sandy beaches and scramble over rocky headlands.

At one beach we stopped and sat down to rest.

"A bit like the place we made soup", I said.  "D'you remember?  Coming back along Loch Ossian when we were early for the train?"

We were ridiculously early this time.  It was only 3 o'clock. 

Along the final mile we passed some youths, fishing with bubble-floats.  They didn't seem to be catching anything.  The railway line came into view curving round from our right, beyond the reedy fringes of the end of the loch.  A Land Rover track again, and then we were walking up a final incline to the station.

The map showed that there was a Hotel on the other side of the railway.  Leaving our bags on the platform, we went to investigate.  The front door was open, but the lobby was empty and there was no sign of a bar.  I rang the bell at the desk, but no-one came.  There were armchairs to sit down on, so we sat down on them and looked at the leaflets put out for the visitors.  In the road a small child played on a minature push-bike, riding precariously up and down.     

After a while we went back to the station.  There were several hours to wait.  We sprawled out on various horizontal surfaces and chatted desultorily.  At the end of the platform there was an old fashioned cart with large wheels on which I lay more or less listening to Hector explaining the subject of pension fund management.  He'd recently been named Young Investor of the Year in some financial magazine.

"They had a rather cheesy picture of me, and a quote, which I don't remember saying at all, something about managing my funds in a patient yet flexible manner."

"You know what journalists are like.  They'll write anything."

Aware of the Pooter-ish dullness of the award, Hector was nevertheless entitled to a certain pride in having achieved it at all.

Later he said, "What's happening with you and Ellen then?"

This was a question I heard about once a week from various people.  I didn't mind being asked, but I didn't really know the answer.

"She's got this shipping lawyer, Marcus, living with her.  But she claims she's not going out with him."

He laughed uproariously. 

"Typical."

Ever since the time he invited us round for dinner and she hadn't turned up until the rest of us were on the pudding, Hector had taken a dim view of Ellen.

"She was getting quite keen again, going to kick him out", I said.  "But then she found out I was still seeing Alison."

"The violinist?"

"Yes.  Whereas I'd told her I wasn't.  I'm not sure whether it'd be a good idea anyway.  To start seeing her again."

I was finding that the cart could be rocked to and fro with a pleasing somnolent motion.

"Alison's definitely off.  Has been for a while."

I'd arranged for Al to go and work in the summer for my brother, Rory, on one of the campsites he ran in the South of France.  Getting her a job seemed to be the least I could do.

"The only thing is", I said, "I've met this other girl.  Ruth."

"Simmo!"

"She's singing in something I'm doing at College.  Il Matrimonio Segreto by Cimarosa."

"You dirty dog."

"It's not like that.  At least, not yet anyway."

"But it might be?"

"What d'you mean?  She's a vicar's daughter."

Pleased with this piece of innuendo I then rocked the cart too vigorously, and it sent me flying head over heels backwards onto the gravel.  No bones were broken; which may have been less than I deserved.

When I'd found somewhere else to sit Hector said, "You must be leaving soon."

"It's my last term."

"What's going to happen afterwards?"

This was the big question.  I had no idea.  It had begun to dawn on me that there was a big difference between persuading the College to let me study composition and conducting, and persuading anybody else to pay me for actually doing either of them.

"Well I'm not going to make a living out of writing, that's for sure.  Hardly anyone does."

More people are writing classical music now than in all previous centuries put together.  They - we - are producing something hardly anyone wants to listen to.  Most composers make a living from something else.  I'd been through the alternatives, and none of them were appealing. 

Teaching.

Dull.  And teach what?  I could entertain my relatives on various instruments, but played none of them well enough to teach.  This ruled out playing professionally for obvious reasons.

Conducting.

How lovely that would be.  But the competition was enormous, and most people started off by organising their own concerts, which was time consuming and expensive.  I couldn't do this and earn a living and carry on writing. 

Film Music and Adverts.

I'd done a few adverts, but again, hugely competitive, and how demoralising to spend your time trying to persuade people to let you write rubbish.

The Law.

Over my dead body.

It was after 7 p.m. when the Hotel bar finally opened.  We squeezed into the tiny room behind a group of fishermen, and had to wait while they were served, a maddening delay because we were thirsty and because the train was now imminent.

With five minutes to spare we gathered ourselves up and went stiffly outside.  There was a funny chugging noise from the direction of the station.

"What's that smoke coming from?"

My head cleared at once. 

"It's the train, that's what.  It's early, or we're late.  Or something.  We'd better run."

But we were already running.

 Along Loch Lomond side, just beyond Ardlui, Hector and I were talking about snobbery.  He and Wendy had been invited to a drinks party by some woman who was married to a stockbroker. 

"That's what happens now", I said.  "You get invited to drinks parties.  Not parties, but drinks parties.  People don't want it going on too late, or things spilt on the carpet."

Said with the easy freedom of someone who'd never owned a carpet.

Hector said this woman's Dad owned an airline, and they lived off Clapham Common, with a nanny for the children. 

"I'd brought along a bottle of wine we used to drink a lot at university.  We used to call it Roy's because it had three crowns around the top.  You know, Roi's; Roy's?  Cheap and cheerful.  Anyway, I gave her the bottle, and she said Thank You in a glacial sort of way and stuck it in the kitchen where no-one could see it.  I thought, That's bloody rude, so later on I retrieved it and opened it as ostentatiously as I could in front of everybody."   

I said that if someone had done that to me that would have been it: I'd never have had anything more to do with them. 

"Ah well she wasn't my friend.  She's Wendy's friend; and I'm married to Wendy."

"Is that what marriage is like?"

"Pretty much so", he said.