Pies Over Scotland. TGO Challenge Through the Cairngorms



Meikle Geal Charn



Where'd we leave our hero...? Ah yes - In his tent sucking on a bottle of scotch and croning Abba songs over to Andy in the next tent.

In the morning - whatever morning it was, I visited the little cafe by the Glenmore campsite. This has a squirrelarium where red squirrels - and lots of wild birds, come and eat nots and other goodies in full view of the customer who ought ot be tucking into a Full Scottish at this point - which is what I was doing. This place is a highlight of any TGO challenge routed through Bynack or Tomintoul or other such places at the Northern end of the Cairngorms.



Glen Avon



I walked with Andy for a while but lost him somewhere up the Bynack, and met him again covered in what appeared to be breadcrumbs but may have been the ossified remains of a small animal and, along with Wullie Clark fae Stonehaven we plodged through intermittent snow showers to the Fords of Avon where I left them and turned uphill for the bagging of Creag Mhor - an easily bagged Corbett just about 600 feet higher than the Fords of Avon.

Shortly, I came to the snow level and found it to be mainly thin and soggy but with the odd deep bit provided for variety and surprise. The first top came underfoot just as the world turned white. I worked out some detailed navigation for the second top which suddenly appeared, suprisingly in the right place about half a kilometre away  and marched over to it just as it disappeared again. the top is a small granite tor of slabs, but a fierce blizzard started up and I had to hide in the rocks for half an hour till it subsided before I could teeter up the slab to the highest but. During this wait, a mars bar, some squirty cheese and two oatcakes received fatal damage. When in doubt, stuff yer face.

A GPS waypoint for Faindouran bothy gave a remarkably gentle route in a straight line, the enjoyment of which was only dented by the fact that the GPS kept turning itself off.

I arived at the bothy and brewed up. Other Challengers arrived. there were dark rumours of a large party of Glaswegians carousing their way down Glen Avon to occupy the hovel. I left and found a bonny spot beside a small beck about another five kilometeres down the Dale.



More Glen Avon

 having actually bagged something, and with some resistance from the elements, I felt that a short period of celebration should be allowed. This consisted of Beatles rock and roll songs (from the anthology) and about 40 cls of scotch I'd carried from Aviemore. This had, apparently, no effect till at 2:30 a.m. Mr Bladder came to call and I had to stand up. That is to say, I attempted to stand up but found myself in deep heather. It was a nice night, though and I was still happy, so I did whatever it was to satisfy Mr Bladder and slithered back into the golite for another six hours snooze.
And then it was the next day.

I wandered down Glen Avon, being bombed by lapwings and in the occasional company of two challengers who's names I failed to bother to ask.

After a bit, I turned Right (uphill) and climbed a track and some soggy heather to the top of Little Geal Charn. This has a fine view of the snowy Cairngorms.



Brown Cow Hill



And then on to Meikle Geal Charn. Which had some thin snow and an even better view of the Cairngorms and Lochnagar, both of which looked alpine.

The it was deep snow and the wide top of Brown Cow Hill. I have no idea why this plateau should be called Brown Cow Hill, but it is. And it's another Corbett.
I navigated off in snowy squally and through riven peat hags and , finally, down to Corgarff Castle and the hotel at Cock Bridge, which was occupied by TGO Challengers. The accomodation arrangements were chaotic. I'd ben told I could camp round the back, but other Challengers had been refused. Those who had booked rooms had only their first names recorded and there were doubts as to who had a bed....



Corgarff Castle, Cock Bridge

 But the food was fab. I had a magnificent steak. (Shtum!) and the farmer from down the hill said that we could camp in his field with the four tups. There'd be no bother from the tups, he said, and, indeed they were nae bother although one did snore and another had a bad bout of flatus and I had to let him out of the tent eventually.



Military Road, Corgarff


As I crawled into the akto, full of steak and beer, I couldnt help noticing that the old thing was stiff with ice.
Would I survive the night?
How could I carry on when I'm enjoying myself so much?
Why doesn't somebody stop me?
More follows during which there is sunburn and an actual shower (yes folks, I had a wash!)
Stand by...

Pie Over Scotland Part 2 - Another Bit of the 2012 TGO Challenge

So, we left our hero (me) stuffing his face and getting rat-arsed in Drumnadrochit. This went well.

The next morning, a stroke of luck (prolly another omen) saw me have a lazy breakfast and a stroll down to Temple Pier where Mr Menzies boat was already heading out towards Inverfaigaig. The stroke of luck was that he spotted me sobbing on the pier and turned around. There was strident, happy music and the sun glinted on the egg yolk in my beard as I leapt aboard and hugged the man till it was time to chug off into the distance. It doesn't do to snog a sea captain, apparently.

Pieter was on the boat. Pieter is Dutch and walks very fast, specially uphill, which is strange for a Dutchman since contours are strictly banned in Holland and you don't really get any till well over the border.

But after assaulting the decrepit and heaving pier of loose boulders at Inverfarigaig, we walked together , on and off, for the next few days.

The weather was quite good at first. Then, on reaching the first proper hill, it started snowing. Then the sun came out for ten minutes, then it snowed again. We stopped at a little bothy where there were other challengers. The one who couldn't pronounce anything at all - not even Englissh place names, never mind gaelic ones, decided to camp. Me and Pieter launched over the high moor - up to about 740 metres then down the other side where a lad was digging out track ditches with a JCB. We chatted and a bit further on, his boss, apparently the ghillie, accused us, well, he looked at me at the time and said we'd be springing his bridge traps.  I shrug at the idea, but I hadn't sprung any traps. Not that day anyway...

We camped in a pretty spot amongst juniper and with a nice water supply at the top of Glen Mazeran.

I noticed that my spork was broken. This was an omen. Stirring dehydrated food, or, indeed, porridge, with half a spork is a hot business on the ends of the fingers. I improvised with other tools and sticks and things...

In the morning, I left before Pieter who was busy drawing contours on a map of Delft and Environs with a brown coloured felt-tipped pen and wandered down Mazerandale to find two tents and a sort of green flappy thing parked on the other side of the beck near a footbridge. I went to collect the campsite fees.

The tents and the little green thing were occupied by JJ, Louise and Denis Pigeon (Denis used to draw Desperate Dan cartoons and is, therefore, a childhood hero of mine). They seemed happy, if a bit knackered and cold and JJ lent me his spoon. This is trail angel stuff.  he lent me his spoon. His own spoon. I could stir. I could put accurate measurements of sugar in my tea. I could signal to aircraft (it was a metal spoon) I could balance a spoon on the end of my nose. Bless 'im (sniff...)  JJ also gave me all of the pics in this post except one.

Pieter turned up and we continued. At the very first big hill, it started snowing again. We brewed briefly in a bijoux bothy (thats enough stuff beginning with B ya bugger) and went to the top of Carn Dubh where there is a lovely electrified fence - and down towards the Red bothy where, as luck would have it, another bijoux bothy gave us shelter from yet another fierce squall. But what was this inside the bothy....? Boxes of cutlery....!?  One box in particular held plastic spoons. Five hundred plastic spoons. There are now 498 plastic spoons. I'm afraid I pinched two. However, if the owner of the spoons should contact me I will gladly return the spoons with interest (I could send back three spoons) - or I could make a suitable donation to a charity of their choice. It would have to be cutlery based, though.

Then we were at the Red Bothy where others were camped nearby, but didn't venture out of they're tents. This was a pity, really, because we lit a fire, which was, occasionally, huge and cheerful. JJ, Denis and Louise turned up and we had a convivial night of eating, drinking, rude jokes (Denis) and unlikely TGO tales. Outside it chucked it down. By bed time it was snowing.

In the morning, the familiar small-tent syndrome and a grey-muffled dawn told me that my akto was buried in white stuff. I variously kicked or punched off lots of avalanche from inside and peeked out. The world was white and swirling. A time/space continuum warp had taken us back to December. this was good because I really like Christmas.

I returned JJ's spoon, removed some of the snow from their tents and plodged off for the Burma Road. This was bleak. I arrived in Aviemore by mid May and went to Tescos for more scotch and to an outdoor shop for a spork (titanium now...) - and to the Bridge Inn where I met Andy and Pieter and ? some others..../ and scoffed very posh scoff which was just OK compared with better, much cheaper scoff I had later in the trip.

I walked to Glenmore with Andy by the Cairngorm Club footbridge. It was May again. Just a bit cold.

Was that the end of the spoon incidents? Find out in the next episode where it snows again and we visit the very lovely Cairngorm Mountains which are arctic, y'know.

Having a liddle trubble

There may well be a short hiatus whilst I sort out this computer. It seems to have lost it's links to my fave software again, including livewriter. I'm a bit surprised it's allowed me to do this, actually....
I could set it up again I suppose.


The inside of my computer looks a bit like this



I blame the spoons, actually

People waiting responses to emails may have to wait a bit longer.

fed up.....

Pies Over Scotland – TGO Challenge Cutlery..er.. Challenges…

Eventually, there comes a time when the blogger, refreshed and suntanned and with only slight liver damage has to write up his (or her) experiences on the TGO Challenge and, for me, the time has now come.

This, however, will be no day-to-day account. Oh no…  One of the reasons for this is that my home PC has been having wobblers whilst I have been away and has completely lost all it’s passwords, links, shortcuts, disc space, car keys and TV remote and (this may or may not be linked) when I downloaded the 122 photos and 1 video of Kylie arriving in Glen Avon on a white charger, it lost 48 pics and the video. This caused me to make several very rude exclamations at the time but, bearing in mind that the fat nurse will be checking my blood pressure in the next few days, I’ve decided to calm down and do some DCC reccies up Teesdale to cheer meself up and also sort out the dawg’s cabin fever.

So.. Day 1. ………

was followed, in numerical order by another 12 and then another two sitting around in the Montrose sunshine eating hot smoked salmon and getting a tan.In between it was, the proverbial Game Of Two Halves.

Half One started with the crowing of the Strathcarron Hotel’s magnificent cock, sometime before dawn. The hotel let me camp with a good view of the cock and the drizzle sizzling on the tent overnight was, perhaps, an omen. I left at the same time as Tony (Pennine Ranger) Bennett but walked with him only as far as the first path junction where I turned left and he went forward. I never saw him again. In fact I didn’t see anybody up close all day.

The weather was, frankly, duff. My route took me to Bearnais bothy where it should have gone up Sgurr na Feartaig but I was feart of Feartaig due to the low clod and driving drizzle and , instead plodged over a bealach designed by Tolkein and down to the River Splodge or some other gaelic name nobody has heard of.

Its an area called Pollan Buidhe and there, on a flat and slightly soggy bit of grass was the second omen – a desert spoon stuck in the grass. (Actually there’s been a desert spoon stuck in the grass at Strathcarron too, now I think about it and I’d presented this to Carl Mynott, or , at least somebody who claimed to be Carl Mynott – but the point is, the spoon-based omens had started to build up.)

Another TGO-type arrived and put his tent up but was unable or unwilling to chat. I discovered later that he was from That London, so that probably explains why, in all the vast space, he put his tent up next to mine, but still pretended I wasn’t there. Funny buggers are those from That London.

In the morning I joined up briefly with Andy Howell and his pal and we sauntered down the Dale in sunshine. A nice discovery was the garden shed at Glenuaig which is open to hillwalkers and has light and heat. Its very small, though – only big enough for two or three, so not ideal for a party.

I crossed the beck in the wrong place due to a small time/space continuum discrepancy and plundered over another bealach to the Loch Monar Reservoir where I found Andy again. The night settled in for wet and windy. And so it remained for the whole of the next day. This was the Notorious Sunday. I wandered along the fine path alongside the Loch and down the long road along Strahfarrar dale to Struy where I followed Les and Issy into the Cnoc Hotel to get drunk. This was successful.

During the evening we got a call from control asking if we’d got room for Roy and ? who where having difficulties somewhere close. The bar staff sent out relatives in landrovers to find them, which they did. Several  bedraggled Challengers arrived and were squeezed into the technically full hotel. There was a distinct smell of socks. I did notice, however, that at breakfast, may sausage was pointing East. I took this as a positive omen and ate it quickly before it could alter it’s orientation and then left for the notorious Eskadale Triangle where the shortest heather is up to yer nips and the bogs are full of horses and carts from olden days – indeed, I believe I did stand on the peat-stained hat of a coal merchant from Drumnadrochit who went missing in 1926 and was presumed to have run off with a bus driver’s daughter.

The trial starts at Maud, where a deer fence’s wire is interrupted for a few feet by a fence of wood. This is assaulted using a bold approach and leads the hiker into a jungle of wet birch and dripping sitka. A brief rush through a back garden, keeping an eye out for huge, slavering dogs, leads the now hypertensive potential stroke victim up a very steep track where, in summer, the black flies will  be an additional torment. This eventually leads to a small lochan where the real trouble begins.

A couple of miles of soggy bog and vicious tussocks follows to a second small lochan or tarn, where a good road leads off in entirely the wrong direction. The beck (burn) is crossed sans boots and the most jungly and tick-infested part of the crossing now ensues. I heard distant drums……  prolly from Drumnadrochit (arf) – and more lochans follow in short order. it wa shere that I met John Enoch who had been walking on a similar course and knew where there was a road. We headed for the grid reference containing the road and there it was. It lead to the road a few miles West of Drumnadrochit where we joined the popular route from Tomdoun and eventually staggered into Drum, scratched, wet, bruised, twisted and with a raging thirst for fine liquours of the type only served up in the very best public bars. I had a B&B and scoffed a huge steak pie and chips in a nearby hotel, along with one or two hearty libations which my cardiac nurse better not hear about if you know what’s good for you.

I’ve had enough of this excitement for now. I’ll continue later. But just to say that this was the first Monday – 58 miles and 8600 feet of up. The weather so far was fairly typical for  early TGO – cold and showery with new wet snow on the hills – but also some sunshine too.  More adventures up the Monadhliath and Cairngorms will follow inabit. Food-based omens were positive, but I was just a little worried about the cutlery. What was it trying to say, I wondered?

 

Interval

There will now be a short hiatus of a couple of weeks - maybe a bit less if I fall over or something.

I will shortly be enjoying the childish pleasure of being alone and small in a big landscape

Here's a video which seems to be looking forward to the future with a certain amount of abandon:

"I don't know my future
After this weekend
And I don"t want to."

TGO Optimism

Quite a few people are about to launch themselves on a journey,  and many of those are blogging (and probably tweeting, twittering and, possibly, wittering) about their forthcoming attempt to walk a couple of hundred miles or so across the middle, relatively wild bit of Scotland. Readers of blogs who aren’t about to set off on this particular trip may well be excused for the glazing of their eyes at the constant stream of lists of equipment and what it weighs and so on and so on.

TGO challengers, particularly those chosen few who’s privilege it is to make their first attempt can be empathised with if they have the odd qualm or even the occasional butterfly about it. (If they haven’t then they’re idiots, frankly and probably won’t be at Montrose at the end)

Those of us who are about to make yet another attempt – in my case, my eleven-and-a –halfth (sic) – may also be aware that the outcome is in doubt.

But we set off with nervous optimism. We are optimistic about the weather. We are optimistic that if the weather is dire, that we’ll cope well enough. We’re optimistic that when we meet other challengers on the way, somewhere, perhaps in a remote and unlikely spot, that the meeting will be friendly and positive and that new, cherishable memories will be formed.

And we’re optimistic that our puny, or otherwise fat and failing bodies will be cajoled into carrying us and our listed gear over all those tussocks and across those difficult streams.

It’s good to be optimistic.

It’s a bit late for Beltane, but here’s a short late-spring bit of optimism (maybe a bit too fast for traditionalists – but at least it’s cheerful) I’ve done my packing. The pack is resting now, waiting for the addition of a few forgotten items, suddenly remembered at random times.

Here’s my best wishes for everybody about to set off on the TGO Challenge, and also for those friends doing something else.