Petestack Blog

First blog post for months, but why not when I’ve got a good, big run to report?

Knew I wanted something in the 40–50 mile region about now, but not what till I drew up and measured this ‘big Blackwater loop’ on the map last weekend at c.45 miles. At which point, having run everything west of the railway before (most of it many times) but never really considered a pedestrian route between Rannoch and Corrour Stations to link it all up, I was suddenly positively tingling with the anticipation that sent me out to try it yesterday.

So what to say about it here? It’s big, wild and bleak, it’s not quick overall (46.86 miles recorded in just under 10 hours 21 minutes) with much awkwardly arrhythmic terrain on the ‘telegraph pole’ section of Rannoch Moor, degenerating track north-westwards past the ruins of Corrour Old Lodge on the flank of Carn Dearg and ditch-leaping path from Loch Treig to Luibeilt, but it’s very, very satisfying and possibly still the easiest route right round the Blackwater (unless that’s taking Gleann Iolairean and the Ciaran Water from Loch Treig to the reservoir, which just doesn’t make such a nicely balanced ‘loop’ shape on the map)!

Note that the red track is what I actually ran and the largely-obscured blue track behind what I drew last weekend, with the three obvious differences being 1. a slightly different line to the track through the forest north of Loch Laidon (where online satellite imagery suggests there may still be a second track following the drawn ‘map’ line?), 2. an extra wee bit run at the west end of Loch Ossian (strange if I should miss the ‘normal’ way when we do this bit regularly on school D of E expeditions unless it was just chock-a-block with all the heavy vehicles etc. working on the Corrour Estate road improvements!), and 3. the crossing of the Abhainn Rath just east of Luibeilt (where, as usual, I followed my nose to find the best way on the day).

Having previously questioned here ‘how much I want to go on banging my head off a brick wall’ and ‘whether it’s time to call it a day when […] I’m realistically never going to break two hours’, I’m probably encouraged enough by Saturday’s new Ben Race PB of 2:07:27 at age 49 to keep banging my head off that wall for a while longer. So I was hill-fit, lighter than usual for September (maintaining training/shape better into the school term) and had a great ascent, but clearly still need to get down quicker to threaten the magic time. Lose the five minutes or so I’m handing back to many (most?) of those summiting around me, however, and I’m left with a more realistic two-and-a-half to squeeze from the ascent, which may well depend on the formation, dissolution and negotiation of those infernal walking ‘snakes’ low on the hill when I’m still wanting to run. So let’s just say that sub-2:05’s clearly achievable and 1:59:59 could yet be on with some luck on the way up and a bolder descent?

(With thanks to Thomas Loehndorf for the great photos!)

A belated mention here too for the previous weekend’s filmed Canadian attempt at Ramsay’s Round, which saw me assigned (by local coordinators Charlie Ramsay and Jon Gay) to join Mark Leggett, John Hepburn and Wendy Dodds in supporting the runners Simon Donato and Paul ‘Turbo’ Trebilcock on the middle leg from Loch Eilde Lodge to Fersit, and finally ended (after a wild night and even wilder morning) with Turbo stopped at Fersit and Simon bravely battling on westwards to finish out of time in just under 27 hours. So not an official (sub-24) Ramsay’s Round, but a sterling effort in ultimately almost untenable conditions which also saw another strong attempt in the opposite (clockwise) direction abandoned on the Mamores some hours after we met on Chno Dearg, and a 23:53 for round #74 by Joe Mann off a start some half-day earlier impressing us all when we heard about it!

The Coll Half’s never easy. While the island might be low, it’s far from flat and, with one section on sandy track and the virtual certainty of battling the wind somewhere as you run round what can seem like a continuously uphill loop, it’s the hardest/slowest half-marathon course I know. Which might explain why it had been the scene of my three slowest times (1:41:29, 1:42:14 and 1:42:43) anywhere, with 2013’s result now making that four! Except that this one’s different, with 1:39:29 in possibly the hardest conditions yet being not only two minutes less bad than my least bad previous on Coll but my first actual improvement there. Which, being hill-fit but far from road-fast (oops!) after a big summer of hill running and walking but negligible road running or speed work, I could almost convince myself is respectable as ‘equating’ to a good five minutes (or maybe even half-a-minute-per-mile) faster on any ‘normal’ course. So, yep, let’s just pretend it’s respectable and hope for something more respectable again next year!

With thanks for the usual great company from regulars including the Dumfries crowd and Eileen, who took the photo with Keith’s camera.

https://collhalfmarathon.org.uk/half-marathon-2013/

Strange how the Cairngorms have become better known over the past 200 years as ‘blue mountains’ than their older generic name of Am Monadh Ruadh (the red mountain-land) when they’re so clearly coloured by pink granite rather than hazy blue close-up, but (while something’s clearly been lost through the change) who knows… perhaps ‘Cairngorms’ was just easier for visitors? Though, despite being more likely to call them the Cairngorms myself with ‘I’m off to the Monadh Ruadh’ sadly sounding wilfully obscure today, I point-blank refuse to call Sgor an Lochain Uaine ‘The Angel’s Peak’ and now (mindful of the Victorian sanitisation that inspired that particular abomination) find myself increasingly favouring the restoration of Bod an Deamhain over The Devil’s P****!

To get to the point (not P****!), however, I found myself back in the Cairngorms/Monadh Ruadh just three days after getting home from my last visit, but this time with running rather than backpacking on the agenda for a hefty couple of days. And what a joy it was after that (still very satisfying) walking tour to get really moving with minimal gear, covering 27 miles over the hills on Tuesday and 18 yesterday morning…

So Tuesday’s circuit southwards from Braeriach and back over Carn a’ Mhaim and Ben Macdui was devised as a mopping-up exercise to get things previously missed, with Ben Macdui included specifically for my one missing Top of Sron Riach. And yesterday’s morning run up the Bynacks likewise just struck me as a tidy idea, leaving just the western end of the range from Geal-charn to Carn Cloich-mhuilinn to collect another time, with the strange ‘tick’ of Carn Ban Mor there resulting from the 2008 ML Assessment that had also brought me Sgor an Lochain Uaine, Cairn Toul and Bod an Deamhain but awkwardly left me wanting Stob Coire an t-Saighdeir (the Top south of Cairn Toul). And I’m afraid that’s about all I’ve got to say right now when just uploading the map and some photos is going to save me much further agonising over words!

Some fantastically runnable hills yesterday, with the Strathfarrar ridge proving a fast-moving delight despite bringing the rare indignity (outside of race situations!) of being caught by someone who was moving faster than I was…

So I’d come over the Tops of Sgurr Fhuar-thuill and was approaching Sgurr a’ Choire Ghlais at a decent, but not full-on, pace when I became aware of someone coming flying off Creag Ghorm a’ Bhealaich behind me and clearly catching me quite quickly. So (despite logically being outwith a race situation!) I thought waiting on top preferable to getting burned off between peaks, and soon discovered my nemesis to be Graham Dawson, a cheery young doctor from Inverness, who promptly invited me to continue running with him. So off we scurried over the remaining two Munros (my second 992m Carn nan Gobhar of the week + Sgurr na Ruaidhe), with Graham chugging uphill at an impressive rate and showing me up for the lumbering elephant that I am! But, despite perhaps holding him up just a little on this occasion, it seems that we both (as two habitual soloists) welcomed the company, with much enjoyable chat about our common interests in climbing, ultra races and big hill rounds.

To sum up, a good day out with the Strathfarrar ridge (at four Munros and two Tops completed road-to-road in about three-and-a-half hours) not only ticking all the boxes for ‘runnable but not dull’ but proving very much less arduous than its otherwise not dissimilar Mullardoch counterpart! :-)

Not so far from where I’d got to on Saturday, but approached from the opposite direction (Glen Cannich rather than Glen Elchaig), yesterday’s trip along the ridge north of Loch Mullardoch produced the very tidy haul of four Munros, four Tops and four deleted Tops with much very runnable ground before the long, not quite so runnable, return back along the lochside. While the intermittent drizzle and rather more persistent cloud (from which the photos represent rare moments of escape) perhaps weren’t quite as promised by the forecast ‘best day of the week’, the cooler weather at least made for quick, comfortable progress free of the now customary torture by sun, thirst and a thousand clegs!

So what can I say briefly about the day’s four principal summits? While Carn nan Gobhar seems notable mainly for sharing both name and height (992m) with another Munro just eight miles or so to the north-east on the Strathfarrar ridge, Sgurr na Lapaich is a fine, big peak with satellite ridges to north and south and some kind of ruined howff/bothy (see ‘fireplace’ photo) just to the south of its trig point. The crest of An Riabhachan (where I saw the goats that should perhaps have been on Carn nan Gobhar and met a steady stream of walkers who’d mostly taken the boat up Loch Mullardoch) is a hill runner’s dream, but An Socach is quite simply a long way from home with six or seven miles of shore the quickest way back (hence the popularity of the boat). And here, with the low water levels exposing some almost level ‘beach’ below the bigger stones and boulders, I took to the shore and followed that most of the way in preference to the notorious, bracken-compromised path, finding footsteps in the sandier patches to show that I wasn’t the first to think of it!

Looking for a ‘quick’ local objective today with the (as yet unfulfilled) threat of thundery showers later, I chose a run over the Aonachs with three main aims in mind:

1. Do Aonach Mor’s subsidiary eastern ridge for its Tops that have been irking me for years as my only unticked Munro Tops for many miles around.
2. Revisit Sgurr a’ Bhuic as ‘insurance’ against having it ticked for umpteen years with no recollection of when I actually did it.
3. Visit the supposed new Top of Aonach Beag recorded by Andy Nisbet and Dave McGimpsey on their route Munro’s Last Ridge in February 2003.

So here’s how it panned out:

1. That eastern ridge is probably the ‘best’ way up Aonach Mor, opening up fine prospects of the East Face cliffs before narrowing for Stob an Cul Choire and finally landing you close to the summit cairn.
2. Think I probably have done Sgurr a’ Bhuic before, but 100% sure now and it’s a good wee Top!
3. Afraid that new Top’s the sort of thing that’s getting deleted rather than listed these days. While it’s reasonably, if somewhat wishfully, described in SMCJ 2003 (see quote below), I’d say it’s just too close to the parent peak for the minimal (max. 10m?) reascent and, if that’s a Top, so (to give some appropriate local comparisons) are the Great Tower on the Ben and final pinnacle of Carn Dearg Meadhonach’s eastern ridge. For the interested, however, I descended pretty well direct to it (described as ‘walking’ in the FA description, but chossy/slippery enough in summer conditions to require considerable care in trail shoes!) before crossing a snowfield (yes, on 24 July!) to access a nice grassy rake leading back up to the easy top part of the North-East Ridge, which would retrospectively also have been an easier way down. Might add that, with the ‘large rounded summit’ (at c.1,035m) also being visible from the top of Aonach Beag and over by Stob Coire Bhealaich (which I’d also have to rate a dubious Top!), it’s surely obvious enough to have been considered and rejected before?

So that’s all for now, having enjoyed a good ‘wee’ expedition (longer than you might think at over 11 miles!) with an exploratory edge, but IMHO no lost Munro Top. To quote Simon Richardson in SMCJ 2003, however:

The vast east face of Aonach Beag saw one of the most interesting ascents of the season when Andy Nisbet and Dave McGimpsey climbed a long Grade II ridge-line to the left of the classic North-East Ridge. Remarkably, this led to an unrecorded Munro Top. Andy Nisbet explained later that the “face is so huge that the easier upper section of the ridge contained a large rounded summit with as much of a drop as some of the smaller Tops. Now named Munro’s Last Ridge, it might see lots of ascents from folk updating their Tops. We’ll have to get it in the next edition of Munro’s Tables!”

Who said exploratory mountaineering in Scotland is dead?

Might also admit (‘exploratory mountaineering’?) to starting my run from the top of the gondola, but offer the simple defence that I’ve done the Aonachs often enough without that helping hand to need no defending there! ;-)