Archive for September, 2009
Cashell Burn
September 29th, 2009 • Gorge Walking
Chris and myself took the bank holiday by storm with an adventure fit for kings. Piling the car with wetsuites, ropes, helmets and swimming goggles amongst other things, we took off to explore a the Cashell Burn gorge on the North West side of Loch Lomond about 5km past Balmaha. What started out as a gentle walk through the lower section got gradually steeper and steeper. In a slightly insane move we took off to climb a waterfall running down the gorge wall. Loose rock and moss a plenty, you’d have to think this would go down as a first ascent, although only because no one else has been stupid enough to try it before. An abseil back down into the gorge got us back on the main drag where waterfall after waterfall kept us entertained for a good few hours. The final surprise came as a 10m waterfall (not very good at estimating heights) . By this time it was starting to get dark and it started to dawn on us that our lack of a map or headtorches was less than ideal. We tried, unsuccessfully to climb a line just to the right of the waterfall before taking a different approach through the trees, moss and mud on the side of the gorge. By this time, things were starting to look a little sketchy. Without a path we’d be fighting our way down through thick forest or trying to walk down alongside the gorge, all in the dark with no headtorch or map. We took our chances and headed directly away from the gorge across a heather slope, thinking we’d seen a path running parallel to the gorge when we checked the map back at the car before we left. Had our luck not be in we might have spent the night stumbling around in the forest wearing a wetsuites and an weird assortment of climbing/swimming gear – it was all starting to look like one of those lateral thinking jokes that go like ‘two men found dead in the middle of a forest wearing wetsuites and swimming , how did they die?’. But today the gorge gods were on our side, we spotted a path just before dark and it was straight down to the car and glasgow-ward for a fish supper.
Misha + Chris
Stob Ghabhar – ‘Goats Peak’
September 21st, 2009 • Camping, Hill walking
We might not have seen any goats, but this is a classic hill in a classic place. Up by Bridge of Orchy and about an hour out of Glasgow, an uninterrupted expanse of wilderness starts and runs all the way down Loch Awe and across to Glen Etive. I’d never really noticed it before, maybe just being distracted by nearby Glencoe, but it feels as wild as wild and fantastic as the any of the highlands to the north. We only stayed one night, although you could spend days walking through here. We did try fishing one of the hill lochs at dusk, but didn’t pull out anything more than a tidler – . Hopefully the pictures do it justice. Stob Ghabhar on Wiki
Misha/Greg/Ross/Carol-Anne/Chris
Cairngorm Cluster – pt. 3
September 14th, 2009 • 1 comment Bothying, Mountainbiking
After the terminal attrition that was our trip to Cairngorms I was left with flash backs of stumbling over boulders, sinking in bogs and looking mournfully at the trail below dreaming of the hard but smooth floor of the bothy. After 12 hours of slog and in the dark your mind plays tricks on you, every pointy boulder seemed like a pitched roof and every glimmer of light a window. Below, is a sketch which expresses my view of the trip, in particular the dark, trudge to corrour bothy, when my mind began to unravel.
Bothy X
September 11th, 2009 • Bothying, Uncategorized
There’s nothing like finding a secret bothy from time to time. I could tell you where it is but then I’d have to to then kill you!!
Cairngorm Cluster
September 11th, 2009 • Bothying, Mountainbiking
Tags: bynack stable, Cairngorms, derry lodge, glen derry, Mountainbiking, rain, ryvoan bothy, strath nethy, wet, white bridge
Sometimes things go to plan, and sometimes they don’t. After a couple of days of pushing bikes through the wind and rain in the Cairngorms I think it’s fair to say that this one didn’t go quite as planned! The remote tracks in at the back of the Cairngorms didn’t make for easy mountain biking after several weeks of rain, but these are the sort of weekends that you learn the most, and the team pulls together to finish what was started, in whatever style (hopefully we’ll be able to post a video of kathryn nose planting into a bog).
Tim/ Kathryn / Spad / Somhairle / Robin / Misha
ROUTE:-
Friday:
Glasgow > Aviemore by Train (with bikes)
Aviemore > Ryvoan Bothy for sleep (night cycle with a stop off at glenmore lodge for a pint).
Saturday:
Ryvoan > fords of Avon (carrying bikes through Strath Nethy on all but short sections)
Fords of Avon > Derry Lodge (pushing bikes before descent through Glen Derry).
Derry Lodge > Corrour bothy for sleep (pushing bikes through night and arriving at 11pm).
Sunday:
Corrour bothy > White bridge
White Bridge to Braemar (planned route through Glen Tilt to Blair Athole train station changed because of time limitation).
Braemar > Pitochry by taxi!!
Pitlochry > Glasgow train (back at 10 ish)
all looking like serious mo fo’s in those pics so if you’ve any to add (or video) give me a shout misha @ high-8.com
Torridon gorge walking
September 2nd, 2009 • Gorge Walking, Uncategorized
Tags: Shieldaig fete, torridon gorge walk
The river that flows down past the Torridon Inn might sometimes looks like a trickle from the road, but just round the corner it steepens up into a gorge section with a series of waterfalls. We got a chance to head up through the gorge when we made an escape from the Shieldaig Fete for a few hours, hoping that a good dunk might sort out our hangovers from the ‘Shieldaig Sheep Shed Shuffle’ from the night before, and it did. Hamish, who was dressed in usual walking gear, joined us for the first section hopping from rock to rock with no intention to follow us up through the gorge. When he slipped and fell in, it seemed that he may as well clamber up through the water with us. It wasn’t until he was neck deep in a pool and unable to haul himself up the waterfall out of it – due to the ‘drag’ of the clothes he was wearing – that it dawned on him what was going on, and that it had gone several nothches past the ‘walk’ he’d set out on. Tom accompanied him back down and a comunication mistake mean’t that we didn’t do the second part of the river. Can wait for next time.
Robin/Hamish/Tom/Cathy/Misha
Photos/video to follow from robin.
Equpiment:
wetsuites
shoes/wetboots
missing: helmets and lifejackets
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