More TGO 2011 threading

It’s fun picking out routelets for next year’s TGO Challenge. When you arrive at the western head of Loch Arkaig there is a choice to be made. You can nip northish over to Kinbreack and the Tomdoun Hotel, beetle due east along the minor road on the north shore of the loch, which is very tedious or find another more fun route. The fun route has it then! Besides, last year the Tomdoun was a huge disappointment and I have done the road walk with Bob Butler, back in 1997.

 

My fun routelet looks like this:
South of Loch Arkaig (click on it for bigger version)

It’s a bit of a trackless clamber over three bealachs to get into Glen Mallie. If the weather is nice then Gulvain “will go” from the second bealach, with the prospect of a fine ridge walk down to Invermallie bothy afterwards. Ah – it’s all so easy sitting here at my desk in Mission Control…

 

Later on I have found another nice little trackless plod through the Talla Bheith Forest, in a wonderfully direct route in an easterly direction (we don’t want to go west, do we??) towards the A9 and hopefully a bed and a bath…

Talla Bheith Forest (click on it for bigger version)

 

From looking at the far end of the view, there appears to be quite a big of bog hopping towards the end of this particular routelet. That will add to the fun! As I said earlier – this is all very easy sitting here on Halloween at my desk. It will be a bit tougher next May!

Threading the Forest of Atholl

The Highlands of Scotland is (or should that be “are”?) a pretty big place. Stand on a top somewhere in the middle and the hills just roll away in every direction for ever and ever. Occasionally a hill  stands apart (and to sort out all the arguments, the pointy one is always Schiehallion) but generally the scene is a vast sea of rolling waves and breakers. The size of the place is truly magnificent.

Somehow, when plotting a route for the TGO Challenge, you need to find a way through this ocean of mountains. The first time you try this, you begin to realise that there are a few corridors handily placed to help the walker wander in generally an easterly direction. And splendid routes they are too. Glen Nevis, the Corrieyairack, the Feshie/Geldie, Glen Tilt.. You soon realise that these are the superhighways of the Challenge. When you walk your route, you bump into loads of other Challengers, all of whom have discovered these routes for themselves.

Keeping the Challenge fresh shouldn’t be that difficult: There are a dozen or so start points on the west coast and you can finish more or less anywhere on the east coast, leaving the choice of routes seemingly limitless.

I have been across quite a lot of times now and have found the trick to keep it ‘challenging’ is to search out new ways of threading your way across in new territory - new places to discover, new places to stand and goggle at the vastness of it all.

For me, planning the route is usually shared with my mate Phil but this year I have been playing about with the route earlier than usual. I start by planning little bits of interesting threads through the hills – often having some twenty or thirty little strings of ‘routelets’. Then the fun part comes in trying to link them all up in a fresh and interesting way.

For what its worth, here is a routelet for next year, should I get a place.

(You can click on it to make it bigger)

It’s through the Forest of Atholl, a few miles to the west of Glen Tilt. As usual, its my Foul Weather Route – the fine weather route is immediately obvious, taking in Beinn Dearg. It should be wonderful wild stuff. So – Please, Uncle Roger – Can I have a place? Pretty please?

2003: Binder's Beginnings

I am sure that everyone has a little bit of Binder in them. No – honestly – I am sure that everybody indeed recognises in themselves just a little bit of Binder, buried just beneath the surface.

 

Well, perhaps not everyone... I, on the other hand, have recognised Binder’s shadow falling across my person for a number of years.

 

I first noticed his arrival back in 2003 on one of our PreWalkDaunders. Rich (Wish), Oli (Burley) Phil, (Jungle) Bob, (Constant) and I arrived at Tulloch Station on the Sleeper from Euston a little worse for wear. A swimming pool of supplies had been consumed the night before and a very tired and emotional party alighted from the train.

 

The Porters were nowhere to be seen. We set off towards Tom Mor at a deliberate pace having to carry our own packs. This was not what the team had signed up for. Within a few hundred yards of setting off, I noticed that my left tight-clad leg was sopping wet. A quick check revealed that I was covered in what appeared to be blood! A closer inspection revealed it to be red wine. In an effort to reduce the packweight I had removed the 3 litre red wine bladder from the wine box and carefully stowed the flollopy silver bag in the side mesh pocket. This bag had obviously now punctured and the supplies were draining down my leg.

 

How on earth had this happened? The team were quiet.

 

There was nothing for it but to drain the supplies down right there and then. So, at about breakfast-time, the five of us were to be found leaning against a five bar gate, polishing off the three litres of red. The team triumphed. The selection of team members had obviously been sound as everyone mucked in and dealt with what otherwise would surely have been a disaster.

 

Burley, Wish, Constant & Jungle

Base Camp was eventually reached in Glen Turret as the team were just about all-in. It had been a hard day with the team going High. In a tremendous effort to reduce the team’s heavy burdens, Burley, Wish and Jungle heroically made inroads into the weighty supplies stowed amongst the teams’ baggage.

I tried to rest that night but sharing my Nallo with Burley’s bulk and strenuous snoring, sleep was hard to come by. Packing, bleary-eyed, the next morning our day’s plan was discussed amongst the team. We were to clamber over the eastern col into Glen Gloy and make for the supply dump left by a previous expedition, led by Tom & Eddie. We had the grid reference and description of the cache, suspended from an “obvious” tree on the corner of a forest just a few miles from before our day’s objective, Camp One.

 

Our handpicked team was built from the titans of the outdoor world. Burley, Wish and Jungle decided that the expedition should go High once more, eschewing the planned route down the valley to Torness and take in Druim Ghlaoidh. The noble trio took off up the terrifyingly steep flanks of the glen. Constant and I continued on the safer route to recover the supply cache and we wondered if we would ever see them again.

 

We did indeed find the cache – it comprised another three litres of tempranillo, huge slabs of chocolate and a magnificent Cashel Blue. The fate of the expedition was now safe.

 

Constant & I made our way to Torness – our Camp One – and waited for the arrival of the summit party. Constant erected his one man shelter whilst I waited for Burley’s arrival. Burley had our Nallo and so I waited patiently, sat at Constant’s door in the darkening evening which was getting colder every minute. We agreed that we should shoulder our burden and reduce the level of the supplies. Great inroads were made.

 

We decided to text the Summit party using the mobile telephones brought for just this purpose. I tapped out my message: “ETA? Over”

 

Within moments, my telephone chirped a reply: “250913. Over”

 

Neither Constant nor I understood this reply. Worried for the Summit Paty’s safety, we tried again. “Have found supplies: What is your ETA? Over”

 

“Red Cuillin discovered. 250913 Over”

 

We scratched our heads. Surely they must be delirious. The Red Cuillin were another three days march to the west. Burley may have been a strongman but he was young and could fall to lassitude if overstretched. Another, last, desperate text was sent to try to ascertain their condition and position prior to sending out a search party: “Is Burley well? Give Position and Conditon please. Over!”

 

“Burley leaning badly. Legs gone. Speech slurred. Position 250913. Over”

 

250913. I clutched at the expedition maps. 250913. The grid reference for the Letterfinlay Hotel. The summit party were 12km away, stranded in the hotel.

 

They must surely have had a terrible night in cramped quarters as just before midnight a Jaguar arrived at the campsite delivering the Nallo so I could at last take some rest in the warmth and safety of my shelter. They had selflessly arranged for porters, with whom they had shared their new found supplies, to deliver poor Burley’s shelter to me. The poor lads of the summit party were no doubt facing appalling privations that night…

Forgotten Treasure!

Digging about in the blanket box this morning, just one of a number of an embarrassing number of repositories of my old walking gear, I found all manner of stuff that I had almost forgotten about. There was my old red Buffalo, (that really was a love/hate relationship) various micro fleeces that now look fine for knocking around the house in, an old much loved 2 person Trangia set (wow that was heavy!) my old Akto which I bought in 1995 and which did twelve years excellent service, and joy of joys, my old Hilleberg Nallo 2.

I bought this tent in 1998 to use on the 1999 TGO Challenge when I walked across with Phil, Tini & Lynnie. It stood up to one hell of a storm halfway across. I was amazed at it’s resilience. The only use after that was in 2003 on the PreWalkDaunder – a three day backpack designed as a “loosener” for the Challenge – with my son Oli. Now Oli is a monster of a chap; a strapping 6’ 3” of walking machine, and it was a bit of a squeeze in the old Nallo. He also snored for Britain and so we decided that the Challenge would best be achieved in separate tents.

So the old tent has only ever spent a dozen nights, or perhaps even less, camped. I was fascinated to see what condition she would now be in. I was concerned that the fabric and inner suspension elastics might have perished.

But, quite incredibly she is in absolutely perfect condition. Here she is, in all her splendour, gracing the garden:

Hilleberg cognoscenti will notice that Nellie is the original model – later editions have a reduced size rear hoop. Ventilation was never a problem as the venting is excellent, with the inlet at the raised rear and the exhaust at the front top hoop.

I shall now have to see if I can swing a few days away in Nellie.

Blog’s 4th Birthday…

Have just realised that we have now been together for four years. What amazes me is that you are still here. Now then, peeps. Talk amongst yourselves. That way there will be something more interesting to listen to.

 

Still here? Wow.

It was all going famously…

Those amongst our congregation who visit other places in the blogosphere will have no doubt learned the reasons why this organ has been unusually quiet of late: I took part in a very uneven contest with a barbed wire fence on the Peebles to Moffatt re-match stroll some three weeks ago, resulting in visits to two major hospitals in the north of England and another in the flatlands of East Angular. Even now, I am still bandaged up and typing is pretty awkward.

Those with long memories (I suppose that won’t include you, of advancing age) will recall that four of us were repelled by the Southern Uplands back in April of this year, facing knee and sometimes waist deep snow in pretty poor conditions. So, the Pieman organised a rematch; this time with an appropriately large assault party of nine intrepid souls. He obviously thought that the expedition would be more successful this time around, with the addition of far ‘Arder Members.

The Bolstered Rematch Party

This time around we actually left the pub in Peebles at a reasonable hour and, joined by his Holiness the Incredibly Irreverend Dave, we set off in search of a place to flip up the tents, somewhere close to the target.

Amazingly, we actually found a pretty good place to stay quite close to the  target. Others have told the story jolly well, so I won’t bang on about it. Here are a few pictures though from the second day:

Surprisingly quite hilly, really…

On a toppy bit…

A little bit of Wilderness…

The second day’s walking was toughish but the weather was kind to us and we made the Megget Stone to camp, quite tired. We managed a little party fuelled by the Pieman’s genius of having left a cache of supplies. Splendid Chap.

The third day was quite hard work (well, in truth all walking in hilly places is quite hard work for a chap who lives on the edge of the Fens…) but this time in lots of clouds. We lunched at the appropriately named Rotten Bottom, a slough of a joint that ensured wet tootsies for the remainder of the day.

The next two pictures are from the third day. The first is just after we had dropped out of the clouds for the first time quite near the end of the day – glimpsing our destination, Moffatt down below us.  But be warned, the following picture is not for the faint-hearted – it’s a picture of my left ring finger taken in the Casualty Department in Carlisle Hospital.

Eighteen stitches under general anaesthetic at Newcastle RVI left me a trifle sore, but amazingly the prognosis is quite good – there was no significant damage to the tendons or nerves. The stitches are now out but I am still swathed in bandage.

So what is there to be learned from this tangle with a barbed wire fence?

For years I have always carried a pretty comprehensive First Aid kit and have only used it in anger on other walkers. For the first time in forty years of carrying the thing at last I have used it on myself! I had everything I needed to sort it out – melonin dressing, crepe bandage and lots and lots of tear-able sticky plaster on a roll to hold it all together. There were also steri-strips, but in this case they would not have been up to the job; I could see the bones in my finger.

Interestingly, it was not incredibly painful – but it was a bit “stingy”. Shirl did a magnificent job putting it all together so all the loose hanging bits of flesh stayed together and hardly any needed to be cut away by the hand surgeon at Newcastle. He was very complimentary about Shirl’s skill in keeping it all together and in such a fine state.

I have seen loads and loads of walkers’ first aid kits over the years that would have been woefully inadequate in this instance.

I would urge everyone reading this right now to have a cold hard look at their kits and ask themselves if it worth the risk just to lighten their load by a few paltry ounces. Trust me. It isn’t worth it.

Oh – and take wire cutters with you as well…

Moffatt, just prior to the barbed wire…

Not nice… Rebuild those First Aid Kits, Right Now!