Sewing up the Coe

(photographs are on different days, with different people)

map information says the route has 8,635 feet of ascent and takes 7h 43min 

Early December, a big snowfall followed by a good freeze, tempting: Twisting Gully maybe? And so Allen and I headed for Glencoe, the Playground of the Scot in that era, and maybe it still is, how would I know?

But a sudden massive thaw had put a stopper on any proper winter climb and so we spent Saturday idling on the Buachaille. Half way down Curved Ridge, we paused to replenish our energy levels; sitting there we watched the Black Rock hard men “balance walking”, as they termed it: this meant descending, facing outwards, a fairly hard route on the Rannoch Wall, while simultaneously singing a capella, a performance keenly appreciated by this audience of two who had not long ago done that same route.

idling on the Buachaille

Meanwhile we considered our options for the morrow. Joe, our Eminence Grise, was currently knocking off the cluster of Munros at the summit of the A9, derided by some as ‘Orizontal Slagheaps, but forming part of Joe’s Programme; we ourselves, while never deriding any hill, felt these ones could safely be left until we were old – sad to say, we never got round to them, perhaps because Allen never got old. In retrospect maybe Joe was wise, since he didn’t get old either.

However, back to our deliberations as we munched chocolate biscuits half-way down Curved Ridge on the Buachaille. Perhaps this was a weekend for knocking off the entire valley, north and south of the road in a mighty circular putsch, such as even Joe had not considered, at any rate not openly.

And so as daylight faded we drifted down to the west end of the glen, put the tent near Loch Achtriochtan, and through the roar of the primus as it attacked a gigantic chunk of ulster fry we discussed the best strategy for the limited hours of daylight and unpredictable weather on the morrow.

Recently we had both been reading Geoffrey Winthrop Young’s Mountain Craft, a detailed account of everything the Edwardian mountaineer should know. And though GWY was seriously out of date in some areas, such as clothing and gear (for he was of the pre-WWII era, when the only people that went into the mountains purely to entertain them­selves were well-off gentlefolk), his ideas on what makes a good or bad leader (or follower), and on how to achieve a day that everyone was satisfied with at the end of it, still seemed as relevant as ever. What wisdom might we derive from GWY? What nuggets might be useful for a long day, maybe 7 or 8 hours, all the available hours of December daylight, with possibility of worsening weather?

“Aha,” said I, “remember the bit about being benighted on the glacier, where he says the hills draw nearer in the dark? So why not hit them in the dark, while they’re still near?” “But it’s only an illusion “, said Allen. “Aye, but we might knock them off faster just because they appear closer?” This seemed vanishingly unlikely, but another nugget indicated that starting well before sunrise would be best, ascent being a lot safer than final steep descent in the dark, tired at the end of the day.

So before dawn on Sunday we’d finished the ulster fry, washed down with strong coffee laced with Famous Grouse (a seriously bad move, not a GWY recom­mendation), and were on our way up An ‘t-Sron, not yet fully awake but very conscious of the way the Grouse had unhinged our knees. Why had we decided on a Sunday of suffering? Must be idiots.

As the minutes passed, the ground gradually turned from near-black to shades of grey, as in a monochrome photograph, and then, as the sun heaved over the rim of the earth, suddenly colour was invented and our knees began to work properly, the clouds of sleep lifted, the panorama broadened and became steadily more spectacular, and we fell into the effortless rhythm of a well-oiled sewing-machine.

on Bidean nam Bian

Which rhythm took us in a blink (seemingly) over An ‘t-Sron and a couple of Stob Coires of the Bidean nam Bian massif (see map) and down into the magic of what the map calls Allt Coire Gabhail but everyone knows as the Lost Valley. There, in the maze of big boulders that you can go through to add interest, we passed by a place where in the summer we had tested GWY’s style of bivouac, employing two layers of stout brown paper instead of tent and airbed; we had concluded that Edwardian brown paper must have been superior to this thin post-war trash, and that a tent was well worth the extra weight.

bouldering in the Lost Valley

It seemed a good place for lunch, and we’d gone quite fast so far, and the weather for the rest of the day looked settled, so we took our time over a gourmet assortment of energizing chocolate biscuits, and discussed whether we might possibly unhinge Joe’s leadership by using GWY’s description of the Bad Follower; for Joe, we had found, was very near to being the Bad Leader: to get in front he’d use any device, like letting a gate clang back on you, or sprinting away just as you were tidying the tent and cleaning the mess-tins; he’d pour out a stream of information and commands to the front, never heeding that you couldn’t hear it from behind; he was quite capable of powering away into the sunset, leaving one to nurse a tired, slow novice down to safe ground. Two advantages were in his favour: he mostly had good and well-researched ideas where to go and what to do, and he had wheels (a thing we could not yet afford) to get us there and back. In the event, the next summer would afford a weekend sewing up the Five Sisters of Kintail, where we did Bad Follower with some success. And felt a little ashamed. Ah well.

And so, down to the road, and a moment of hesitation: should we just coast down to the Clachaig Inn, not far from our camp site? But no, there would come a reckoning when we described the achievements of the weekend to Joe, and while the plod up on to the Aonach Eagach would entail a bit of suffering, that was as nothing compared to enduring the joyous condescension with which Joe would toss our weekend into the Bin of Unworthwhileness – “a mere pub-crawl”.

Aonach Eagach

Up, then, onto the Aonach Eagach, a beautiful ridge with just the occasional wee narrow bit requiring care (for if you came unstuck you’d be unlikely to stop for 3,000 feet or so) and a marvellous view of the Mamores, Nevis, the islands to the west, the Stobs that we’d just sewn up to the south, and (if you turned and looked back eastwards) the Buachaille. Once on the first summit, the momentary tiredness on the road was a thing of the past, and we became well-oiled sewing-machines once more.

But not for long, because soon, in front of us, we beheld a monstrous ribbon of Ramblers, many wearing sensible skirts and lisle stockings (!), rambling nervously and terribly slowly, and not making any effort to get out of our way. They had, of course, every right to be nervous, but not (we felt) to block us; somehow we must get past without actually pushing them to their doom. But how?

Recently we had studied and become addicted to Brahms’ Requiem, a combination of typical Brahmsian gorgeous harmonies and (unsurprisingly) a powerful sense of doom (“relentless urgency” said the critics); could we perhaps lay a smidgen of relentless urgency, a tiny bit of doom, on the lisle stockings? We chose the bit where “All flesh is as the grass”, relentless baritone, urgent melody, doomy message. Ever nearer to the lisles we drew, relentless Allen and urgent me enunciating the message of doom, and eventually they found a place to let us pass; which we did, breaking off Brahms to exchange greetings and appropriate gratitude.

requiring care

Thereafter it was pure pleasure, and as the sun descended in the southwest and the colours did that thing they do towards sunset, we felt the timing had been good, it had been an excellent day, now for a pint.

To the Clachaig, where one had to sign the book, for this was a time when the Sunday traveller must have travelled three miles to be served alcohol. Where had we started? Achtriochtan (stupidly unwary). Where had we finished? Here, the Clachaig. “Not three miles, can’t serve you.” “But we’ve been over Stob …” “Not three miles start to finish.” Mm. A really powerful example of miserable buggerism, people had hinted as much, we hadn’t believed it. Later, we measured the distance on our map, and it was almost certainly just over three miles; but at the time, in the glow of a really quite fine day, we couldn’t be bothered to argue, and so, back to the tent.

Where we found that our cooking tin, left outside to clean itself in the rain, if any, had been peed into by a dog.