Content to let the mysteries be

A couple of years ago, during Christmas week, I took myself off for a short afternoon stroll into the Northern Corries of the Cairngorms. It’s a place I know well, a familiar haunt, and every time I take the narrow path that climbs gently into the rocky clench of Coire an t-Sneachda my mind fills with memory and a vivid sense of wistfulness, especially in winter.

During 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 introducing the area to my own sons on occasional camping trips.

It doesn’t take long to reach the rocky basin of the corrie, immediately below the gleaming crescent of buttresses, gullies and ridges that form the headwall. I snuggled down behind a pink granite boulder, opened and poured hot tea from my flask and visually 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. I had been with John just two nights previously when he and mountaineer Sandy Allan came round for a beer and a blether. Sandy, a Newtonmore neighbour, was justifiably excited. He had just completed the writing of his book about his bold traverse of the Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, a phenomenal feat by a Scots climber and described by many climbers as one of mountaineering’s greatest ever achievements. I first met Sandy here in Coire an t-Sneachda many, many years ago.

As the gloaming began to make its presence felt, the pale dimness temporarily brightened by snow flurries, 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. They were struggling to tie it down in the increasingly blustery wind and despite the prospect of a very cold night I felt a genuine pang of envy. What a beautiful place to spend a winter night, such a magnificent setting to wake up in and begin a fresh, new day.

But the old day was dying as I made my way downhill, crunching across snow slopes, searching for the path through the boulders. Away below me Loch Morlich was still visible, lying like a pool of molten lead, and pinpricks of light were beginning to appear in Glen More. In idle speculation I wondered how many times I’d walked down this hillside at the end of a good hill-day – was it dozens, was it scores or could it be hundreds? Most likely the latter.

Just before I took the familiar bend that would bring the Cairn Gorm car park into view I stopped, sat on a boulder and spotted the first evening stars. No Christmas star to guide me home, but the comfort and familiarity of a winter evening sky shining on a place I feel passionate about.

All day I had been troubled by thoughts of a dreadful accident that had taken place earlier in the week. An out-of-control bin lorry had killed a number of people in George Square in Glasgow, six innocent men and women who had been Christmas shopping or returning home from work after another busy day, folk going about their everyday lives. I know it’s a pretty pointless exercise asking why such things occur, we know accidents happen, it’s a fact of life, but that such a tragedy should occur at what is normally a festive time of year resounded in a sense of profound shock that reverberated throughout the nation.

At times like this we find ourselves asking “why”, a question that inevitably remains unanswered. I don’t claim any flash of insight as I wandered out of Coire an t-Sneachda but I do know that as I left that boulder and made my way back into my other world I did so with a more peaceful, less agitated 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 fleeting existence with the much more lasting reality of those crags, distant hills and those stars that pierced the darkness of the vast skies above. For the moment at least, I was content to let the great mysteries of life be. Why tease at enigmas you will never be able to understand? The spirit of place had weaved its magic once again.

A short extract from COME BY THE HILLS, to be published on 20th October 2020. Available to pre-order from www.sandstonepress.com or www.amazon.co.uk