A mix of emotions in the Northern Corries

WITH Christmas holidays offering some time that hung a little limp I stopped working at lunchtime and took myself off for a wee afternoon stroll.

It’s a while since I wandered into the Northern Corries of the Cairngorms and with the sun eventually shining from a rather milky winter sky I left the camper in the Coire Cas car park and slipped and stumbled my way through the ice and the holiday crowds and into the relative peace of Coire an t-Sneachda.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly you can escape the sledgers, the snowboarders and the skiers, and all those who drive up to the Cas car park simply because it’s high up on a mountainside. It was great to see so many people enjoying what hard packed icy snow there was…

Having said that it was even better to leave them all behind and although it was still early afternoon the sun was already low in the sky. I knew it would very soon vanish completely over the upper edge of Coire an Lochain.

Every time I take this narrow path that gradually climbs its way into the clench of Coire an t-Sneachda I’m filled with nostalgia, especially under such conditions of partial snow cover.

For years in the late seventies and early eighties this was my workplace, teaching cross country ski-ing with Highland Guides and SYHA, running winter hillcraft courses during a spell when I ran the activities at Craigower Lodge Outdoor Centre in Newtonmore and bringing my own sons up here on sporadic wild camping trips.

I clearly recall the frustration of day after day trying to find suitable snow conditions to teach folk how to snowplough on skinny skis. It seems the snow was either very patchy, as it was today, or ice hard!

There is nothing more debilitating than trying to learn to snowplough on ice!

I didn’t go far today. Up into the bosom of the corrie, below the crags that are probably the Cairngorms’ equivalent of roadside crags. Where else can you find such superb quality of winter climbing an hour from a road?

I snuggled down behind a great pink granite boulder, opened and poured hot tea from my flask and traced the lines of various climbs I had enjoyed in the past with people like Jeff Faulkner, Brian Revill, Steve Spalding and my old friend John Lyall, now one of the finest mountain guides in the country.

I had been with John just two nights ago when he and mountaineer Sandy Allan came round for dinner. Sandy was justifiably excited because he had just completed the writing of his book about his traverse of the Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat. That was one of the boldest Himalayan successes of recent times and Sandy’s book is definitely one to look out for.

I think I first met Sandy here in Coire an t-Sneachda many years ago, and he’s certainly climbed and guided most of the classic routes here. It seemed a long way from the Northern Corries to Nanga Parbat…

As the gloaming began to make its presence felt and light snow flurries began to fall, I shifted myself and began the slippery slope back to the car park. Almost by chance I stumbled across a couple of lads pitching their tent in the middle of the big boulder field.

Despite the fact they were struggling to tie it down in the increasingly blustery wind I felt a genuine pang of envy. This is such a beautiful place to spend a winter night, such a magnificent setting to wake up in and begin a fresh, new day… I promised myself a wild camp or two here before the winter is out.

The light was really fading as I made my way downhill, although Loch Morlich was still visible, lying like a pool of pewter below in Glenmore. I wondering idly how many times I’d walked down this hillside at the end of a day – was it dozens, or could it be hundreds?

I remember asking Tim Walker, the ex-boss of Glenmore Lodge, what he would choose as his last ever walk in the hills. He admitted he wasn’t sure, but he was determined it would never be the walk into, or out from the Northern Corries. After working at Glenmore Lodge for the best part of 30 years he could well have taken this route many hundreds of times, in all conditions.

But I’m still fond of it. Just before I took the bend that would bring the car park into full view I stopped and sat on a boulder and saw the first stars appear. No Christmas star to guide me home, but the comfort and familiarity of a winter evening sky shining on a place I love deeply.

All day I had been troubled by Glasgow’s George Square tragedy. I realised it’s pointless asking why such things happen. Accidents happen, it’s a fact of life, and that such an accident occurred at what should be a joyous time of year is surely no more than coincidence. But we’re only human, and the faith that many of us were brought up in is so often not yet completely dead in us.

At times like this we find ourselves asking “why”, even though we realise we’ll never know the answer.

I don’t claim any flash of insight as I wandered into Coire an t-Sneachda but I do know that as I left that boulder and made my way back into the other world to which I also belong is that I did so with a somewhat more peaceful spirit than I had earlier. I was thankful for loved ones, for friends, and for all those precious moments in the hills that had made me the person I am, for better or worse.

But best of all, I felt the insignificance I always feel when I compare my existence with the much more lasting reality of those crags, the distant hills and those Christmas stars that broke the anonymity of the vast skies above. Certainly insignificant, but for the moment at least, I was content to let the mysteries be.

Have a great Christmas, wherever you are.