The Black Crow and Feeding the Rat

As we pass the summer solstice I get introspective and undoubtedly feel a change as I am sure we all do. West Highland life is essentially a bit bipolar and can make for a dark season of the soul unless we continue to seek light outside, or inwardly lift ourselves.

I can tell when it's changing for me as bad dreams occasionally come back with restless muggy nights.  A few are mountain related. The randomness of climbing near misses such as a piss poor belay ripping out with 16 stone hanging at the other end and someone holding us both on by the hood of my jacket. Working in the wood and  a one ton skyline carriage skiffs past my head as it falls from the sky, or my work mate killed next to me when 150ft of Sitka swings his way and not mine, these all seem random bad luck compared to actual choices in the mountains like the poor belay on offer as no choice, that still gives me the shivers as I visualize flying out over Aonach Dubh. 

Climbing mountains has soul and becomes your church and tribe and risk acceptance part of that compensates for adventures heavy price. We all have a Pandora's box and occasionally the lid lifts a bit and this reflective stuff gets out before we jump back on top of it again. The claustrophobia and fear of burial in winter is a recurring one for me when I have a chesty cough or cold that makes breathing hard at night. Hay fever the recent trigger. Youtube and other places where you see avalanche recoveries cannot convey the pressure on your chest and sheer terror of not being able to shift air. No one is unchanged after being buried. Hayfever is an unusual trigger I guess. 

Bracken ticks and midgies and soft evening light. Very Highland

Seasonal melancholia can be mistaken for mental illness. Which of course it can be. Having downers is pretty normal living here. Its all down to Latitude and dare I say by dropping the "L" how we approach it. We have to hunker down and see it through. 

We have just had an exceptional spell of dry sunny weather to top up morale and body batteries. Mood is high for a but. Surfing that positive wave with good friends and activities is the way through the troughs to come. Or as I am now considering, moving to where there is more sun. But the West when it delivers is so special and delivers big so it might be Appin not Spain! 

If not West maybe East or central like Aberfeldy or Callander. Who knows but the positivity of the sun and good company sure helps with moods. I would certainly miss my friend many of whom are new to the area but have been steadfast during a difficult year. 

Feeding the adventure rat gnawing away inside is also a good way to help. I started soloing about a bit recently and went a bit old school leaving the phone and not telling anyone to spice it up old school style. I have quickly realised that I don't have the mental resources for this anymore with too many people to live for and love and to miss if it all goes wrong. I'm no longer prepared to pay the heavier price for adventure and so I will stick to well protected trad and clipping. And hugging and beer.

Edinburgh midsummer from Gilmerton. Nice!

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Falling Back - Lurching Forward

"For what its worth: its never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change, or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing"  F.Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

I guess as we age we reminisce more and look back, as there is more back than forward. I do a bit of that these days. I also do look forward quite a bit as there is I hope quite a bit of it left! I am goal oriented needing a progression or something to aim forward at. Preferably without a ball, but certainly needing engagement. My teachers at school certainly thought I had a short attention span. But I didn't I was just bored with rote learning.  Primary education was fairly strict in our wee Highland village school St Mary's Episcopal. At St Mary's you got the three "R's" or the belt, often times both.  In fairness I could be a wee shite but aren't all boys now and again when bored. We had some Gaelic and minor Scottish history at school in among the revisionist clap trap of glorious English history, 1066 and all that. Its not so much that Scottish history was ignored, it just seemed a footnote to the Great British empire and revisionist myths. Little did we realise at the time that our history and culture, Neolithic, Celtic, Dalriadan, Celtic Warrior Priests, Vikings, Jacobite's and Scottish enlightenment was both our local and National history that had far reaching influence, European and World. Darien to the Heights of Abraham, Hanseatic League to the Somme and extirpation of the menfolk of the Cabrach. 

Secondary School up the road at Kinlochleven was just a travail among some burnt out bullies for teachers and de motivated kids. For me it was class room days of longing to be out with a fishing rod on a hill loch or wandering the river. I had not read "Highland River" by Neil Gunn then, but later on reading it I found Kenn the protagonist and I shared many childhood wonderings and wanderings. The source for me was always high in the mountains of the Glen. Filling me with terror and longing at the same time.  Highland River is a quest. The salmon symbolising knowledge from the Druid/Celtic mythology of An Bradán Feasa. Fishing was and still is a wander with a rod. Less about what you catch (these days I put them back if I can) and more about what you feel see and think along the way - perhaps an enlightenment. I can partly be defined as an angler, and I hope now also a conservationist. 

The source for Kenn on high moorland, for me up high among austere Dalriadan rock and Andesite. When exotic "climbers" such as Ian and Nicki Clough bought an old house to do up in the village I got my first exposure to folk who went up into the mountains as climbers. As a clueless teen along with another local lad we started exploring these high places and had adventures. I became a hillwalker and wannabe climber. Several adventures and misadventures later I was in the mountain rescue team. I was still very much a wannabe climber and in no way competent enough, but folk were patient and I got strong. Then, and for several years after, the team were working hill men and climbers who went on rescues. It was fairly informal and just expected that you or a competent visiting climbing friend would help out if someone was in trouble. Later as I became a better mountaineer and rescues became frequent it became less informal, and to meet the improvements in pre hospital care mountain rescue also changed. I also discovered I was a wee bit cleverer than my teachers had indicated and entered adult education with a gusto never felt in my younger days when I bailed out of school at 14 and didn't go back.  No regrets. Carpenter, Lumberjack, Mountaineering and Ski Instructor, Paramedic, Husband and Father. Success in life isn't money, property or status. Its only quantifiable in love. The more pain love causes in its loss the more depth it has. Learning to embrace that is a spiritual journey. Only loss of love, grief and pain awakens us to how fragile we all are, how little material goods matter and that money is a token.

I write. Probably not very well. Some are tales of rescue and of its great characters and legends. I still rescue day shift as a ski rescuer working ski patrol with a group of great folk up at Glencoe Mountain. Every time that damn helicopter fly's over I wonder what's happening with the MRT and think of the new young stalwarts of the team, remembering getting my head around the trauma and relating it to my own ambitions on some of the same climbing routes of the fallen. MR can stealthily grip and steal away the mountaineer, substituting a trauma junky. Pedalling the hit of helicopters, kudos and the excitement of the unknown. As potent as heroin to the adrenaline junky of which I was and maybe still am one.

I do feel very much a climber again even if it's clipping bolts or several grades down my old trad abilities.  I love wandering with a rod or exploring an old coffin route on a mountain bike. We are the sum of all past things, but it does not mean a future only looking back along some cursus of where we have come. Does it?

Be it a journey of the mind or a piece of rock there is plenty out ahead if you reach for it. That reaching  is a hard journey but I have light ahead up that magic mountain.

It is said that before entering the sea

a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has travelled,

from the peaks of the mountains,

the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,

she sees an ocean so vast,

that to enter

there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.

The river cannot go back.

Nobody can go back.

To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk

of entering the ocean

because only then will fear disappear,

because that’s where the river will know

it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,

but of becoming the ocean.

Kahil Gibran

Road Trip with the Lads

Road trips are a big part of climbing culture. I certainly did plenty with Fiona as I was lucky to have a climbing and life partner all in one. Lads trips fuelled by beer and bravado were also great fun. Most relatively straightforward. Drive, climb, beer, repeat. Some were mini epics even before the drive though. 

We were only about 3 years married. I had an old banger Ford Escort with no MOT or handbrake for taking firewood from the Forest above our house where I was clear felling. I had filled it with logs at the bottom of what we knew as "The Tarry Brae". Unusually it was a steep section of forest road that had tar laid on it. I filled the car up with logs, went over the top and the bugger just stopped and started slowly rolling back. I thought I had time to get the brick under a back wheel but it skewed out and I was left hanging off the open boot full of logs and slipped off the the side as the car went back stopping itself on a big butt at the side of the road. Pretty grazed up and shaken I got back in and after several try's got the car going again and gunned it over the top and back down a gentler but longer way back.  Arriving back I dumped the old car at the house and Fiona told me George Reid had been on the phone. Paul Rodgers and Paul Moores both Joint Services Mountain Training Instructors were going down to North Wales for three days did I want to come so we had two ropes of two. I ok'd it with Fiona, and they agreed to come down and collect me about 7 o'clock that night, but we needed to go down via an up to Fort George. 

Climbers Club Hut Llanberis

We arrived in Inverness about 9pm, found a bar and Paul went off to Fort George for something.  We got picked back up about 11pm and headed South at mach1 in Pauls RS Cosworth arriving late at a  railway bridge near Penrith where we could get under and sleep. I kept rolling off down into a fence where rail tracks were and every half an hour a goods train rumbled past. Not the best of sleeps. Early morning we head South with a visit to the  Great Orme Pen Trwyn and climbs left of Parisellas Cave where sport climbing had recently started. Short brutal hard climbs and a Jerry Moffat playground. Llandudno is a sort of Welsh Blackpool with not much to commend itself to climbers but plenty if your old. 

Wrecked fingers later and off to Llanberis and the Pass. It had been five years since my last visit to the pass, where darts with Mo, Joe and Whillans at the Padarn were the evening entertainment. Again we stayed at Ynys Ettws the climber Club hut where there was a meet on including some Fell & Rock folk we new such as Nick Escort. We manged to blag the last available bunks. I was on the top one of a three tier. Down to the "old Vic" for a beer with Mo and Joe which turned out to be several as folk we knew turned up like John Ellis Roberts whom I had met through mountain rescue a few years earlier. Many pints were had. I vaguely remember folk gathered around me in the middle of the night as I got up for a piss forgetting I was 15ft up and crashed onto the floor waking everyone up. I don't know how, but I didn't piss myself!  Anyway, breakfast at Pete's Eats then out to Gogarth for Quartz Icicles, Dreams of White Horses, abseils, drowning potential, sea and sunshine. "Dreams" was regarded as an exciting HVS 4c back then, which technically is about right. However, waves crash over the first pitch if you go low, and if you fall off the last pitch you better have prussiks or your not coming back up. The other option is down into the Zawn and drowning.

A good days climbing was had and we headed out to sunny Caernarfon for beer, fish and chips, and visit to a local climbers pub with rough men, pretty women and trouble brewing. I made the mistake of thinking I could just chat to a girl that came over to speak not realising green eyed monsters were watching. We escaped back to the Llanberis and the old Vic again. Next day was spent in the pass ticking of Brant Direct, Slape Direct and Ribs with Crackstones and Crackstones with Ribs, Eroded Grooves and me flying off a polished Unicorn Direct not knowing it was a sandbag. Many routes later and dehydration so George produces two cans of Macewans Export from his rucksack. We stash gear and put on our packs. He cracks a tinny and takes a good slurp puts the can down and I bend over to get it and a huge rock hits my back and knocks me over. A guy above the crag must have knocked the rock off. You kind of just shrug that shit off. I was more shaken from flying off the shiny polished second pitch of  Unicorn as my hand jams pulled.

Tremendous Book ***

Back down to the car and mach1 northwards through late Sunday night traffic, arriving back in Duror about 1am. A snuggle up to a warm cosy young wife, get up at 7am, collect the Husky chainsaw, fuel cans and stuff and up the wood to cut as many tons of trees as I could. Road trips were fun. Not sure where time has gone as back then we thought we had forever. Now only memories. 

Post Script. 

• John Ellis Roberts died in a climbing accident on Dinas Cromlech July 2014

• Paul Rodgers lost his life in the Cairngorms January 1984 

"Where the mountains touch the sky,

Where poets DREAM, where eagles fly,

A secret place above the crowd,

Just beneath a silver-lined cloud"

Spring, a notional concept

“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.”

Yoko Ono

The Scottish "Spring" has arrived early and as usual it is a very notional concept as we have some winter up high. Snow drops are popping up early, bulbs and daffys are growing and even Glencoe village has the sun threatening to appear after is long holiday below Am Meall.  Glencoe Massacre day on the 13th is when we at the lower end of the village get a blink. Ironic on a day of remembrance of a tragedy.

The best best time in the mountains is approaching with longer days, shorter nights, and you could say better weather (that's a very notional thing). Winter isn't over and has a few throws at us yet though. late Feb/March is a great time to get the touring ski's out, or the free ski's to get exploring. The spring snowpack is often a granular corn and much les avalanche prone too. But as we all know we can end up with big dumps, high winds and full winter conditions right up until May. Don't let you guard drop too early.

I am always banging on about avalanche risk as in a way it's my bread and butter as a Recco trainer and Ortovox retailer, also working with the great folk of Glencoe ski patrol on a mountain that has many interesting slopes. Being a three sided polygon the ski mountain always has an aspect that loads, and two of the aspects give great off piste itineries with the main one the best snow holding in Scotland. Spring snow days with good cover and folk are dropping off into the back and having fun or venturing over to Clachleathad and Creise.

Selling avalanche equipment and teaching avalanche rescue is very satisfying.  The courses I used to run were not really about rescue though, which is a misconception some seem to have. They are about awareness of the weather, causes of avalanches, how to avoid them through planning, thinking about group dynamics and communication, and terrain interpretation. In this context the rescue and recovery scenarios are very much about acknowledging that we get things wrong and bad things happen. If you have not succeeded in avoiding the risk then by practicing with the rescue tools (beacon, shovel, probe) in realistic scenarios you can reduce the consequences. No enough emphasis is given on risk exposure and risk acceptance. Basically off piste skiing you are tugging the tail of a dragon. The more often you tug the more likely that one day it will flame you out. You can dig pits, look at crystals and do all that stuff but keep dropping 32° slopes on new snow days and one day your burnt.

It's dead easy to slip a red ski patrol jacket on, or become an armchair expert and be risk averse. But, most of us have learned more about the subject by our own errors, and most often if you work or play hard in the mountains with risk exposure, sadly with time your number will come up. That's the mountains and specifically when off piste skiing where the line between the best day of your life and the last day can be ephemeral. Unless folk accept that as a basic premise they might as well take up knitting. Skiing the steeps and the deeps can never be made 100% safe by ski patrollers, bombs or fences. It's down to you the skier, ski patroller (or mountaineer) to get out, and get experience away from your familiar areas of recreation or work, so you that you are forced to learn to make plans, decisions and terrain choices in unfamiliar places.  That's where you learn quickest.  You have to do this to stay alive.

There are no shortcuts. Only time in the mountains (a lifetime), respect for them (humility) and learning to read them (terrain) will keep you alive.  Oh! and a defecit of hubris helps.

The Tribe from where the Mountains Weep

Its such a stoke to see all the great winter mountain and climbing pictures from the many folk who have made Lochaber and in particular North Argyll/South Lochaber their home. Summer and Winter weather is such a big part of our moods and positivity. Its undoubtedly a hard place to live, even as someone born and bred here I can attest to that suffering from the darkness of depression at times. But living here teaches patience and gratitude for when the good days come. And my goodness didn't they come in full over the last Month if your a winter mountaineer and ski tourer. So many folk out on the mountains having fun and enjoying the epic conditions. Fantastic hill walks, snowboard adventures, ski touring exploration and steep technical ice climbing.

The local mountain community has always had its dips and surges so its great to see it on the up and post Covid. In the past these good times were beset by tragedy which set back folks enthusiasm when key movers and shakers were lost from the climbing community.  As a young man the best climbers in the area were by default in the rescue team, it just came with living here. Or they worked for Hamish's Glencoe School of Winter mountaineering (GSWM), Ian Cloughs Glencoe climbing School or were doing some private guiding work. Qualifications back then were just being a good safe mountaineer as there were few formal qualifications and no NGB's with the exception of the BMC and SMC as guardians of the tradition and ethics of UK mountaineering

My own early days were touched by folk who had lost their best friends in the Italian Climb tragedy on Ben Nevis when 4 locally based climbers were avalanched and only one survived. That survival all alone above the avalanched party by Jon Greive was remarkable and required much fortitude. Events like that knock a climbing community back, as its heart is temporarily gone. 

Italian Climb Avalanche Aftermath

The turn of the 1960's to 70's were over shadowed by this, even before more loss occurred. Tom Patey although not a local was a frequent visitor and often in the village at "Tigh Dearg" Ian and Nicki Clough's house, or putting out tunes with my uncle Charlie Campbell up at Clachaig.  As a boy I saw  a slide show on the Old Man of Hoy by Patey in Tigh Dearg the Cloughs house. I was a pal of one of Nicki Cloughs nephews who came up in the summer holidays where we swam in the river most days or fished. Little did I know I was rubbing shoulders with mountaineering legends when in having tea and buns.  They certainly inspired me as that's what got me hooked into climbing. Patey's death through lack of attention to safety on the "Maiden" a sea stack took away a climbing legend and character.  Although a great mountaineer he could be reckless and perhaps a bit cavalier. The mountains don't forgive complacency especially in the form of an old carabiner used to hold your trousers up and no system back up such as is taught nowadays. 

Then Ian Clough was killed on Chris Bonington's 1970 Annapurna South Face expedition right at the end near camp one when it was all over bar the shouting after Dougal Haston and Don Whillans summited and were back down safe. More than any other sad loss this wiped out the heart of the local climbing community and was keenly felt in the village as he was liked by all. 

Local lad Ronnie Rodgers on the Slabs

Ian Clough

Mountaineers are nothing if not resilient and addicted to their passion and of course new blood came in. Notably active at that time were the various instructors both part and full time with the winter climbing school. Spence, Fyffe, Nicholson, Knowles and MacInnes himself, as well as Wull Thompson and John Hardy when not cutting tree's down for a living. Dave Knowles was killed on the Eiger, hit by a rock kicked off by a rigger on the film Eiger Sanction starring Clint Eastwood. Dougal Haston was the safety advisor on the film but after this incident left the film set and Hamish MacInnes took over. The most memorable scene had Clint Eastwood doing his own stunt work falling down the North Face on an assembly of ladders tied together by Hamish. Dave Knowles loss again affected the local climbing community. He and his partner lived at Invercoe.  So as you can see the 1970's when I started climbing the climbing community had a bit of a cloud over it. Haston died in an avalanche in Leysin where he lived and worked. A film was made of him "Haston - A life in the mountains"

Robin Campbells fine eulogy to Dougal Haston "Cumha Dughall"

I met Dave Knowles in the Clachaig bar one afternoon after climbing Clachaig Gully for the umpteenth time (it was handy and has a pub at its foot) and he gave me some very good advice after I mentioned how the psychological barrier for local hard routes was so high with folk either trying to psyche you out with route info on how hard things were, or implying only legends got up them. "youth", he said, don't climb in Scotland. Get yourself down South away from all that bullshit and climb there then come back. It was good advice as most (but not all!) the local routes I later climbed required no superhuman powers. However superhuman or not, some routes winter and summer stood out for sheer boldness. Like most things the bullshit barrier is the hardest bit and its pure psychology. When on the sharp end you just get on with it.

Northumberland Winter Soloing. 30 route days where VS was XS

Hamish MacInnes in Mary Poppins mode on a film set

The late 70's early 1980's were much better with another generation coming through, of which I suppose I was one, as was Fiona. Ed Grindley was very active on rock, and living in the village. Paul Moores  had his local guide business and a thriving shop "Glencoe Guides and Gear" which was run mostly by his wife Ros. A proper climbers shop. George Reid was living locally and going through the Guides scheme and hungry for routes, and some of the old hands such as John Hardy, Alan Thomson, Ian Nicholson and Wull Thompson as well as many others were back active.  Mid week evening climbing in high summer, including mountain routes, and at weekends a big gang would meet up in the Ferry Bar and hatch plans to be out and about, sometimes en masse at a mountain crag. Visiting climbers joined the fray with regulars like Joe Brown and Mo Antoine in among it. The end of the day would see a mass exodus to Kingshouse for a session and late night, sometimes all night if the next day was to be wet. The 80's for me were the best as I was pretty motivated and strong and the scene was good. Not only for local based climbers, but Cubby and others were thumping out the routes, Glen Nevis was getting its renaissance and folk were busy doing alpine seasons, expeditions or just out cragging.  And there was a lot of film work either on major films or local outside broadcasts.  Even the 80's had its setbacks as a local climber lost his life on central grooves and I sorted it out.

Ed Grindley in somewhat relaxed mode
belaying me on the F.A of "Sisyphus"

The 90's onwards were a bit doldrums to start as families were coming into the world, folk moved on and the scene around the main meeting point the pub was more serious as drink driving laws were enforced and folk just went home after climbing. But there was still an active local scene from rescue team members and joint services climbing instructors. The untimely death of local lad Allan Findlay in a car accident in the Glen put a cloud over things. Also another local climber Ray Darker from Ballachulish tragically fell to his death on Skye. Sadly I was involved in a couple of rescues for folk who I knew, finding them both dead. Dougie on the North Face Aonach Dubh and Bish Macarra under the Lost valley bridge. Even recently the mountains have taken as well as given, with the loss of our cycling buddy Chris Bell on Bidean and a young local climber in Deep Cut Chimney. I am not sure you should ever get over these things but somehow mountaineering communities develop a resilience to them and a personal firewall and you get through it. The Tibetan proverb "It is better to have lived one day as a Tiger than a thousand years as a sheep" has something in it. 

Davy Gunn on "Line Up" 1983

I took a total scunner a few years ago, and hated the mountains. Too much tragedy and loss looking back, and a feeling I had wasted my life on mountains and rescues. The superficial thrills of skiing and day shift of ski patrol were more social and a lot more fun. I hated climbing for a time, but through my sons enthusiasm keenness and ability I got back into rock climbing and now really enjoy it again, especially sport climbing, and I especially enjoy the craic with folks at the two local walls 3 Wise Monkeys and the Ice Factor. The staff there are all motivated and upbeat and get out as much as they can, and happy to chat with old has been's like myself. 

I have made many new friends in the climbing community. some new to the sport like Tim and Charlotte Parkin who's sheer joy at living in the mountains is infectious and who have taken to the sport like ducks to water. The ex ice factor team and great community of young and old who are happy for a ferociously over ambitious old git to climb with them is great.  And its great surprising the youngsters that old gits can still crush harder routes. Yesterday at 3wm I asked a group of teens to move from under the campus boards and one cheeky git snidely commented to his mate "he won't be on it long". They had no idea but soon twigged. I envy their lack of need for Ibuprofen though.

Yvon Chouinard. Glencoe and Ben Nevis have
always attracted folk from all over the world 

I mention these early times to folk as a bit of background history so folks to see what it was like here in the past.  With an expanding network of active folks in North Lorn and South Lochaber things are looking up. Many new folk have made the area their home specifically for the easy access to the outdoors. I call them new Scots. They are invested in living here, contribute to the community and love the mountains. Their enthusiasm be they beginner or expert is great to see, and I love seeing the social media pictures of folk having fun outdoors. More than anything its great to see a vibrant strong mountain community in the area again.  A day out at Arisaig or down at Oban sport crags is always sociable meeting folk, and Polldubh classics are appearing out of the bracken. Even the dusty old classics on E Buttress are giving folk fun again and in winter folk are doing that peculiar thing of "dry tooling" which we did back in the day with our Dachstein clad hands. Some are even climbing steep ice. Scary!

Skerry Champion 35m 6c+  "The Money Pit" Gallanach Oban. Moy on steroids!

Click the hyper links for more interesting background info. Click the pictures to enlarge

The future is so bright we need doggles!