TGO Challenge 2021: Day 4: To the River Spey

Desmond Tutu is supposed to have once said "There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time." Strictly speaking, he wasn't necessarily thinking about my current predicament, but I'm pretty sure that if was sat by my side right now, that is the advice he would volunteer. You see, my previous two days had been a struggle and the second of the two really shouldn't have been. The first - the walk from Glen Affric over to Glen Moriston - had knocked me for six, and so I had struggled badly the next day.

Whilst working my way through my monster haddock last night I decided to follow my Foul Weather Alternative route today instead of scaling the ridge of the Monadh Liath and camping high. The high route had about a hundred extra metres of ascent and was two miles shorter than my FWA. However it committed me to a high route the following day, and if I wasn't going to feel too clever at the end of today's walk, I could see myself really struggling tomorrow.

I opted for the slightly lesser climb but longer day today, knowing that if I did feel rough I had only to walk out on easy terrain to a bit of civilisation the next day. However, the Corrieyairack Pass was still a pretty big undertaking for me as I'm obviously not at my best. To put this into context for readers who are not avid hill-walkers, you will probably have heard of the mountain 'Helvellyn' in the Lake District. You may indeed have scaled the beast in your youth, either with the Scouts or on a Duke of Edinburgh jaunt. It's a very long way up for anyone, being 950m above sea level. Today's climb is also an ascent of 970m, and I'll be carrying a rucksack full to the brim, with the newly added food parcel, and walking fifteen miles to boot.  

Clearly, our Desmond's advice was the answer. Take it step by step, one bite at a time. 

CLICK TO ENLARGE: TODAY'S ROUTE IN GREEN

Distance: 25 km

Ascent:  970 m

I left Rose Cottage at a sensible 8:30am and headed into town to buy some food for today - chiefly things that I would look forward to, like cheese and onion pasties and steak pies. 

09:25 - LEAVING THE VILLAGE

Take the scenic route to the start of the Corrieyairack Pass, via the graveyard - it's so much calmer than the busy A82 you're leaving, despite watching with glee as motorists hurtling down the hill towards the village are caught in a radar trap.

Pootling along a quiet lane takes you gently down hill to this signpost. Take its advice and walk with me over the Corrieyaircak Pass and beyond. You'll see (from the route profile on the above map) that before very long there's a pretty brutal looking climb. Fear not, Dear Heart! It's not a forty five degree climb - even though it may feel like it first thing in the day - as that's simply the distortion of the profile diagram. It is in fact the steepest allowed by General Wade for pulling the army's gun carriages up hills. Look again at the profile and you will see that there are three such gradients, the last being the longest and cruelest of all, to take you over the pass into the Spey River System.

LOOKING BACK TO LOCH NESS

It's ten miles from my B&B to the top of the pass and it's well worth stopping often, to take in the views that are chiefly behind. In front it's rising ground and the never ending Wade road. 

AN ORIGINAL WADE BRIDGE, NOW FORTUNATELY BYPASSED BY THE TRACK

I'm unsure of the original purpose of the concrete hut in the next picture, but it appears to be an old store for explosives. There's a similar hut on the pylon route from Hilton Lodge to Torgyle Bridge. I think the explosives were used when constructing the original pylon line that has now been replaced by the upgraded Beauly-Denny line. It could prove a useful refuge in foul weather, if a tad draughty for Challengers having to get over the pass. If you were staying you'd need a weather-proof bivvy bag.

CONCRETE HUT ON THE FLANK OF MEALLAN ODHAR

From the outset the new The Beauly-Denny 400kV pylon run was controversial. It replaced a far smaller pylon run because the SNP led Scottish Government was hell-bent on increasing wind energy from the Highlands of Scotland. I'm not going into the rights and wrongs of renewables in this blog post, but the upshot of the decision to build the new pylons was a massive increase in the construction of upland wind farms in the Highlands. To start with these upland power stations picked the low-hanging fruit for their locations - as close to the pylon run as possible to reduce the costs of transmission. They were met with massive local opposition, which was quickly stomped on by the Scottish Government by appointing a planning inspector, who invariably steam-rollered any opposition. 

It was a massively one-sided fight and the new line was built and new wind farms proliferated all over the Highlands, destroying forever what, to all intents and purposes, had been wild land. The wind farms subsequently spread further north and west. It is an indelible black stain on Scotland's protection of wild land.

Here's a very shaky video of the view of wind farms from the climb up the Corrieyairack:

CLICK TO ENLARGE: WIND TURBINES AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

You can find out more about the Beauly-Denny line's planning and construction from the Scottish and Southern's Electricity Networks' site HERE with a few factual videos showing what was involved in its construction.

I had been playing tag with another Challenger since I had first spotted him at the burial ground at Fort Augustus and lastly near the Blackburn of Corrieyairack bothy. Latterly, with my snail's pace he had disappeared from view. He must have had a really good break at the top as that's where I came across him again.

A WELCOME SIGHT - THE TOP OF THE CORRIEYAIRACK PASS

Finally a view of the Spey Valley hove into view. At last I had a landscape I could walk into, and the beauty of whizzing downhill at last. I felt surprisingly good after a long climb, which boosted morale considerably. I made a mental note to eat more whale-sized haddock.

AND OVER THE TOP TO SPEYSIDE. CLICK TO ENLARGE

I love this next picture. If you were stood here around 12,000 years ago you would see a massive glacier filling the valley almost to the height of each bluff. Temperatures in the winters then were some 30 degrees Celsius colder than they are at present and in summer some ten degrees colder. It was known locally as the Loch Lomond Stadial and the glaciers were fed by an ice sheet that covered the Western Highland of some 9,000 square kilometres in extent. That last glaciation has left behind some fascinating geomorphological features such as half a dozen or so dircs slashed across the hillsides.

SPEY VALLEY: CLICK TO ENLARGE

Dropping down to Melgarve I had a poke around but the bothy was very firmly locked. I decided to have a bite to eat and a large drink. I was thoroughly pleased with my progress and lack of knackeredness. At this point the other Challenger strolled past on his way down to Garva Bridge to camp. I keep saying 'other Challenger' to my huge embarrassment as we had introduced ourselves and I had and still have completely forgotten his name.

VIEW DOWN THE SPEY FROM MELGARVE; CLICK TO ENLARGE

After three quarters of an hour or so I was on my way again to camp at a spot I had noted some years ago that I thought had looked promising. It was more than that. It was a wonderful spot.

LOOKING UPSTREAM

DOWNSTREAM

BEHIND THE NEAR HILL ON THE LEFT IS ANOTHER OF THE SPEY DIRCS - DIRC CREAG CHATHALAIN

Perhaps I've regained a little fitness? Either way, I tucked into my food with relish that evening, having regained my Challenge legs at long last. 

I slept early, knowing that tomorrow should hold no terrors and slipped into sleep very happy indeed.

New Fetteresso Wind Farm on the cards...

This is a holding post for the new Fetteresso wind power station. It will be lengthened in scope when I have time.

Here are the salient points.

• The turbines are huge
• It is simply an extension of the existing Mid Hill power station to the south and east.
• Fred Olsen is extending the Mid Hill power station from 25 to 35 wind turbines.
• The land is owned by the state, and run by Forestry Commission Scotland. 
• Because of its size (50MW) there will be no local enquiry: it will be decided by the minister
• In effect, it's a dead cert.

NB: The new turbines are to be between 150m and 200m high. These will be the largest turbines (so far) ever seen on land in the UK. They will all be visible from over 25 miles away to the west.

SITE LAYOUT: RIGHT CLICK TO ENLARGE IN A NEW TAB

ZTV MAP - RIGHT CLICK TO ENLARGE IN NEW TAB

Many thank to HMP3 for the next image, which shows the quite shocking size of a 200m wind turbine.

SIZE COMPARISON OF WELL-KNOWN BIG THINGS TO A 200M TURBINE AND A TGO CHALLENGER

Now,  you may well be thinking - That's Big! But it's only when you look at the swept area of the blades that it really hits home how *massive* a 200m high turbine actually is: The image below shows the pitch at Wembley Stadium tilted vertically compared to the area swept by the blades. The swept area is getting on for double the area of the Wembley Stadium Football pitch. That really is colossal!

THIS IS THE SIZE OF THE PROPOSED BEASTS! 

More later, when I get some time.

Scottish Highland Estates, greed & the loss of wild land

INTENSIVE MUIR BURN ON A GROUSE SHOOTING ESTATE [RIGHT CLICK TO ENLARGE IN A NEW TAB]

Regular visitors to this place will have read the piece posted on here a couple of days ago: Scottish Highland Hydro Scheme Mapping. I provided a link to it on the TGO Challenge Message Board, as these schemes have a direct impact on Challengers who walk across Scotland, particularly so as the majority of these schemes have not yet made it onto Ordnance Survey Maps.

Here's a screen grab of that post on the Message Board, and the first reply from a chap who will be taking part in the Challenge for the first time this year. 

RIGHT-CLICK TO ENLARGE IN A NEW TAB

For those of you with small screens, I'll reproduce Paul's comment at a larger size below:

I've met Paul and I found him to be an intelligent and likeable bloke. I'm sure quite a few other very decent hill walkers will share his view, which is why I'm giving space to it as a separate piece, away from the narrower issue of Small Hydro schemes.

As regular readers will know I am particularly keen to promote the TGO Challenge, especially to first-timers as they are the life blood of the walk. (Mortality is a statistician's delight as without exception everyone dies and the more Challenges you do, the closer you are to meeting your maker.) If we want the TGO Challenge to continue, then fresh blood is vital.

I've walked across Scotland for over twenty years and over that time have seen a dramatic drop in the wild places. The predominant reason for this being the remorseless spread of wind farms (with the associated tracks and electricity pylons) a massive rise in hill roads for the grouse shooting industry and considerable changes, especially in the eastern Highlands in vegetation as muir-burn has become the predominant landscape. Recently Small Hydro (predominantly run of the river schemes) have  spread like a rash throughout the wild places.

Elsewhere on this blog I have written extensively about my despondency of walking through more and more damaged landscapes on the Challenge. (Just click on "Wind Power stations" under the 'Label' heading on the RH column of this blog) As I promote the Challenge a great deal, I think it is time to accentuate what is fabulous about walking across the Highlands and some of the positive changes that are being made by enlightened estate management.

*****

As I understand it, Paul is making two points; The first is that Highland Estate owners have to make a living from their land and the choices are from either small hydro scheme subsidies, wind farm rental, commercial forestry or grouse shooting. His second (supporting) point is that he's all in favour of killing mountain hares to preserve the grouse shooting industry, which in his opinion preserves the land from commercial forestry, as he would prefer to see shooting instead of forestry or wind farms.

He suggests that it is not helpful for me to rail against small hydro, grouse shooting and wind farms, as that leaves only forestry and he would not like to see that marching across the hillsides. In his view trying to limit wind farms, small hydro, grouse shooting and forestry (which I don't believe I have ever mentioned) will lead to the depopulation of the Highlands.

At first pass it might seem that Paul is making a fair point. Indeed, these are the points that Scottish Land & Estates - the representative body of the majority of Estate owners - trot out at regular intervals to support grouse shooting, industrial scale wind farms, hydro schemes and commercial forestry across Scotland. After all, these Estates provide a living for a fair few estate workers across the country.

Let's look at Paul's second, supporting point to start with, as it bolsters the main thrust of his comment.

The points about livelihoods and killing hares (regarding grouse shooting) are made well in the recent BBC Countryfile television programme that Paul made mention of on the TGO Message Board, before he deleted the comment. The programme examines the mass shooting of mountain hares (a native species) to protect the grouse shooting industry. However, the same could also be said of the points made by Harry Huyton of OneKind against the shooting of Mountain Hares. Take a look at the programme  yourself: It's about a ten minute watch. You can see the programme on the BBC iPlayer for the next 16 days by clicking on the following link:

COUNTRYFILE: 28TH JAN 2018 

NB: Rather than watch the entire programme, the relevant sections are from 7:00 to 14:00 and 30:30 to 36:10

Harry Huyton's subsequent take on the programme can be found here: Three reflections on Countryfile's mountain hare culls feature 

For a detailed look at hare culls you might like to view this document: Mountain hare persecution in Scotland After reading that, I think you'll agree that Paul's position on culling mountain hares looks pretty shabby.

*****

Now let's take a look at Paul's first, main point: Scottish Estate owners have to make a living, and it's going to come from either grouse shooting, rental income from wind farms, commercial forestry or small hydro.

Of course, this is a straw man argument. Those are a carefully selected sample of possible income streams for Highland Estates. As it happens, they are the income streams that some find unacceptable in the modern world and so we are given a choice by the estates (and Paul) to choose those we find least unpalatable from their selection.

On the morning of the day I posted the link to my piece on Small Hydro Mapping on the Challenge Message Board I had also posted a piece that Chris Townsend had mentioned on twitter - an inspirational piece from the Scottish Wildlife Trust's website written by the Estate owner, Lisbet Rausing, detailing the work that Corrour Estate has been doing over the last ten years or so and the plans it has for the next ten. You can find that piece by clicking on this link:

LEADING THE CHARGE AT CORROUR ESTATE

LOCH OSSIAN AT THE HEART OF CORROUR ESTATE @ JONNY HUGHES

I really would like you to read this piece so that we can understand each other as we move forward. So sit up straight at the back of the class and take a few moments to read it please.

Thank you.

*

*

*

And, you're back in the room! Hello again. That was a great read. You're jolly glad you took some time over it.

You will have seen that the stewardship of Corrour Estate has shifted fundamentally from an extractive model to a stewardship model. The entire ecosystem - flora and fauna - is recovering from over a century of appalling abuse. It appears from this shining example (and others mentioned in the piece) that Highland Estates can make a living without wind farms, grouse shooting and forestry. The Estate now washes its face economically by generating income from tourism attracted to the place by the transformation of the landscape and wildlife.

Who knew?

Tourism is a *major* business in the Highland economy. Visit Scotland estimated that 1,88 million people from the rest of the UK and 0.4 million people from overseas visited the Highlands in 2012/13. These visitors spent a combined total of £509 million.

However, you will have spotted that Corrour *does* include four small hydro projects as part of its income stream - a fairly big disappointment.

*****

This brings me rather neatly to another reason for disagreeing with Paul's comment.

If you or I were to buy our first home, we would know that along with the mortgage and rates that we would have to pay, we would also be faced with a raft of additional costs. Every once in a while all the exterior woodwork would need painting. The decorations inside the place would need keeping in order. Plumbing problems, heating bills, electricity bills, they all need to be sorted.

Moving on to your next, larger house, all those costs increase, and so on to an even more expensive house, with a large garden, fences to maintain, you'll need a larger lawnmower. You can already see where this is going, can't you?

Those fortunate enough to be in a position to buy a Scottish Estate know full well what they are buying. They are buying a whole heap of ongoing outgoings that to you or me would seem eye-watering! Of course, they would try to mitigate these costs by having an income from the Estate. And that is exactly what Lisbet Rausing is doing at Corrour.

But let's not kid ourselves; these Estate owners are incredibly wealthy individuals, from all corners of the world as well as the UK. And let's be brutally honest. They can afford to run an Estate, even when it makes a loss. Their accountants will have told them how much it was going to lose year on year before they bought the place and that was part of the purchase decision, just as I knew full-well when I bought a sixteenth century listed cottage with wattle and daub exterior walls that it was going to be eye-wateringly expensive to heat. There's not a scrap of difference between the two purchases.

*****

Going back to Paul's comment: He says "...what would you like them to use the land for? It has to be used for something..."

I really do have a big problem with that statement alone. I would be quite happy to sit here for a few days debating just that one question and answer. You see, Paul is looking at land as a commodity, or a vehicle to provide an income.  He's not looking at land as something that just by being there provides huge pleasure to those who live amongst it and those who travel through it. These people are not monetising land. I could quote John Muir verbatim about land and wild places. You'll have heard it all before.

However, the land that these Estates have parcelled up between themselves doesn't care who owns it, or who walks though it. It is just there and that is why we hill-walkers go there ourselves. It is for freedom from the daily grind. It's to reduce stress. It's to be like my friend Mick, who I wrote about only this week, HERE.

And we should not forget, that is the main reason the Estate owners bought the place at the very outset. Because to live there would be to fulfil their dream of living in one of the finest places on the planet.

*****

So let's not hear any more about monetising Highland Estates. It's not about the money. It's not about choosing between one, two or three or even four methods of abusing wild land. Those choices are strawmen arguments put up by those who enjoy shooting birds for fun. This argument is put up by those who want to rake in extra money by letting out their land for commercial forestry, or wind farms or building small hydro schemes - each of which is designed, built and paid for by other commercial enterprises.

So Paul, let's not hear anymore about the further depopulation of the Highlands; Corrour has shown that to be complete nonsense.

Let's instead encourage landowners to take a lead from Lisbet Rausing and the incredible work she is doing at Corrour transforming the place from an extractive business model to a stewardship model. And really, Lisbet, there was no need for you to build those small hydro schemes at all. You can afford to live there without them. 

*****

Footnote: Wise and venerable readers of this blog will have noticed that in this entire screed, written all in one mad rush, there is no political message. I haven't mentioned the SNP once, because there's no need to. Greed is the same the world over.

Planning a wind farm-free TGO Challenge 2017

In the light of the Conservative UK Government's recent axing of new wind farms' subsidies (The removal of ROCs and LECs) and the corresponding sudden drop in the number of new applications, I wondered how a new TGO Challenger might go about planning a wind farm-free route across Scotland for 2017.

Just over two years ago, I wrote a piece titled "Planning a wind farm-free TGO Challenge 2015." I would encourage you to take a moment to refresh your memory. It was quite a popular post, with almost three thousand visits. Of course, there have been quite a few new wind farms that have been approved, or are under construction or have been completed in the years since I wrote that piece. 

The simplest way for a new Challenger to plan a route that avoids wind farms is to have the information available on a map. Of course the SNP Scottish Government, whose policy it is to have wind farms plastering the Highlands, do not provide such a beast. They certainly do not want the full horror of the carnage to be easily available to the public, do they?

There has been a really good effort to log the position of wind farms (and a host of other renewables as well) for the whole of the UK, and THIS MAP shows the wind farms, but only provides an indication of the location and not in relation to landforms, paths and tracks etc, that a walker needs to plan a route. It also requires a subscription, but after spending an hour trying to subscribe, unsuccessfully, I gave up. 

So, I set out to find wind farm maps that cover the TGO Challenge's bounds. Most of the Challenge area is covered by the following planning authorities: 

MAP NICKED FROM WIKIPEDIA

           In the north & west:     Highland (20)
           In the northeast:          Moray (19)
           In the east:                  Aberdeenshire (17)
           In the east:                  Angus (16)
           In the southeast:         Perth & Kinross (23)
           In the southwest:         Argyll & Bute (22)

So I went to each of the Councils' websites to see if I could find current maps of the status of wind farms in their areas, ie., wind farms being scoped, in planning, approved, in construction or built. Presumably because resources are very stretched, not all the councils have such maps. But where they do I have included them in this piece.

Here is what I have found so far:

HIGHLAND:

After a few years of dreadful inactivity, Highland Council now has a pretty good online resource, albeit missing the vital information of wind farms that are being scoped by developers. 

This is what their online map looks like for a chunk of the Challenge area:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

You can zoom in and click on each wind farm to get the location and size of every turbine, in relation to the surrounding area at 1:50k scale O.S. mapping. 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

You certainly would not want to plan a route up the track following the River E, would you? It runs right through the centre of Corriegarth Wind Farm. I can tell you from personal experience, it was utterly ghastly.

To summarize: The Highland Council interactive map is very good, although it sorely needs scoped wind farms to be included. It is ten months out of date; the last update being January 2016. It can be found by clicking: 

HERE   

Next up? 

MORAY:

Moray Council's map is not good. In fact, it's pretty poor: It is a downloadable pdf that shows the approximate location of each wind farm, in two versions: Turbines up to 50m in height and turbines over 50m. Each location is numbered and there are tables below the map that give details of each wind farm. 

It looks like this:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

However, Moray do show wind farms that are being scoped by developers. It can be found by clicking :

HERE

Next up?

ABERDEENSHIRE:

What can I say? I couldn't find anything on Aberdeenshire's website. Now, it may be that I'm looking in the wrong place, and if so, please could someone correct me. But I believe this is pretty poor. But perhaps the following interactive map provided by "Concerned about Wind Turbines in Aberdeenshire" explains why there is no map. It is deeply shocking:

SCREENGRAB OF TURBINES OVER 50M HIGH: CLICK TO ENLARGE

Every single turbine is located on excellent O.S. mapping. This is a credit to whoever built this map. It can be found by clicking:

HERE

Next up?

ANGUS:

Now then. I may be wrong, but I have searched high and low for a map showing wind farms in Angus on the Council website. But there is nothing. At all. They do, however, have a downloadable pdf on where developers are welcome to apply for planning permission for wind farms. 

This is deeply shameful. If anyone can correct me on this, please let me know in the comments section and I will amend the post. In this area I would use the very first resource I mentioned earlier. Click: 

HERE

Next up?

PERTH & KINROSS:

Another excellent map, from the Perth & Kinross Council website However, it does not show wind farms that are being scoped by developers. 

It looks like this:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

It can be found by clicking:

HERE

And lastly:

ARGYLL AND BUTE:

CLICK TO ENLARGE

At first glance, this interactive map looks promising, but when you come to click on the individual wind farms you realise that the map is like a cheap chocolate Easter Egg: Beautifully presented, but sod all inside - not even a bag of Smarties. There is precious little information on the wind farms or the position of turbines. If it isn't on the O.S. map's own information, it's unlikely to be on this web-map. It shows the likely location only. Still, I suppose it's better than nothing.  It can be found by clicking:

HERE

So there you have it. If you want to plot a route across Scotland that avoids the worst of the wind farms, you're going to have your work cut out, but this post should be of help.

Good luck with your planning. I hope to see you on the walk if we are lucky in the draw for places.

NOTE:

If anyone can find better resources or maps please let me know in the comments section. Thank you.

TGO Challenge 2015: Part II: Days like this

When it's not always raining there'll be days like this
When there's no one complaining there'll be days like this
When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch
Well my mama told me there'll be days like this 

***

Today, the second day of our Challenge, is one of the most perfect days in twenty years of TGO Challenges. This is described in pictures, a couple of video clips, and a few words chucked in for good measure. You don't need me prattling on about it.

We start the day a mile short of our intended destination as the previous evening we had spotted a horde of the Great Unwashed camping at our intended stopping point. Lord Elpus and I are antisocial bastards and didn't fancy a rare sunshiney evening of R&R spoilt by all the hobbledehoys and ne'er do wells camped further down Glen Affric.

Here, then, is today's route, laid out for you, care of those Most Magnificent Men at RouteBuddy. Don't be frightened, but do hold on to your seats, as there are elevation profiles.involved as well. [You can click on the maps and pictures on all these posts and they will blow up to a larger, more blog-reading friendly size.]

As I'm sure you already know, Lord Elpus and I have lived most of our lives on the edge of Fenland. This is a place where the highest points in the landscapes are the bridges over the dykes, a place where you can walk almost all day below sea level. This day, then, is a big one for us Southern Softies, with two whopping great climbs. 

BROTHERS JOHN AND PETER

PHIL LOOKING BACK. TAKING PICTURES ALLOWS US A WELL-EARNED REST. WE HAD ALREADY WALKED A MILE!

VIEW FROM STRAWBERRY COTTAGE

LOCH AFFRIC FROM THE STALKERS' PATH [c/o PHIL]

GLEN AFFRIC

PHIL'S MAGNIFICENT PICTURE - STRAWBERRY COTTAGE AND ALL THINGS WEST

A SMALL BUT PERFECTLY FORMED PIECE OF ALL THINGS WEST

It is as we are coaxing our heavily burdened carcases halfway up the first brutal climb that we hear the beat of a helicopter coming our way. Surely Phil hasn't called out Mountain Rescue already? He does have form in this respect, having organised a big yellow taxi for Darren in 2007. Do I really look that bad? I think I've done well stifling the sound of my wheezing lungs!

PHIL'S CHOPPER PICTURE - NO, REALLY!

YES! A (BAD) VIDEO OF THE HELICOPTER. IT TRANSPIRED IT WAS CARRYING PAT DOWNIE, A FIRST TIME CHALLENGER, OUT FROM AFFRIC YOUTH HOSTEL WITH A DISLOCATED SHOULDER

PHIL, GOING WELL

PHIL, ALMOST AT THE CREST OF THE FIRST RIDGE

A TRIUMPHANT LORD ELPUS ON THE CREST OF THE 1ST RIDGE 

THE STOPPING IS ALL. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. THE 1st LUNCH [c/o PHIL]

HORRIFICALLY, DROPPING INTO GLEN GARBH, WE WERE CONFRONTED BY THE CORRIMONY WIND FARM

This really is a deeply unpleasant shock. We are in the heart of wild land, just a day's walk from the west coast! Some money-grubbing bastards in the tiny community of Corrimony have taken the developer's bribe, and in doing so have trashed one of the most beautiful places in Britain, if not the world. They disgust me.

Fording the burn we come across this extraordinary folded rock. I could spend quite a while mooching about here; it has a wild, remote feel to the place.

MAGNIFICENT SERPENTINE FOLDING

SO GOOD, YOU GET ANOTHER LOOK AT IT!

TREES FROM A MUCH WARMER PERIOD IN SCOTLAND'S (COMPARATIVELY) RECENT HISTORY 

PHIL'S PICTURE

We'll draw a veil over our struggle up to Bealach an Amais. Suffice it to say it is a running bog at a fortyfive degree angle. Rests are taken. Every thirty steps. Then every twenty steps...

BEN NEVIS GLIMPSED FROM BEALACH AN AMAIS

BEALACH AN AMAIS, AND LUNCH No. 2 [c/o PHIL]

The climb up the western ridge of Aonach Shasuinn is dry and easy going, if a bit grunty-steep, but is it worth it! The views opening up just get better and better!

CLAMBERING UP THE WESTERN RIDGE OF AONACH SHASUINN: BEN NEVIS ON THE RIGHT

MAGNIFICENT SGURR NAN CONBHAIREAN FROM THE WESTERN SHOULDER OF AONACH SHASUINN

LOOKING DOWN GLEN GARBH TO AFFRIC FROM WESTERN SHOULDER OF AONACH SHASUINN [c/o PHIL]

PHIL, WITH AN ELRIC BEHIND

LOOKING SURPRISINGLY CHIPPER NEAR THE WESTERN END OF AONACH SHASUINN [c/o PHIL]

WESTERN TOP, AONACH SHASUINN. GLEN AFFRIC IN DISTANCE [c/o PHIL]

LOCH BEINN A MHEADHOIN, GLEN AFFRIC [c/o PHIL]

PHIL & THE AFFRIC HILLS FROM AONACH SHASUINN

LOOKING WEST FROM AONACH SHASUINN

BEN NEVIS FROM AONACH SHASUINN

DISGUSTINGLY, THE MILLENNIUM WIND FARM, SEEMINGLY WITHIN TOUCHING DISTANCE

HEAVILY CORNICED COIRE, AONACH SHASUINN, WITH AFFRIC HILLS BACKDROP

CLAIMING AONACH SHASUINN [RIDGE OF THE ENGLISHMAN] FOR THE ENGLISH!

And now, for your edification and complete delight I give you a video clip of an unknown Englishman claiming Aonach Shasuinn back for the English!

YOU CAN VIEW THIS ON YOUTUBE AT A RESOLUTION & SIZE OF YOUR HEART'S DESIRE!

To me, the next three images are completely heartbreaking. They demonstrate the SNP Scottish Government's complete disregard for wild land. This government is single-handedly responsible for steam-rollering ugly, useless and incredibly expensive wind power stations in the heart of some of the most achingly beautiful landscapes in Scotland - if not the world. They have destroyed a wonderful environment for the foolishly mistaken belief that by building wind farms they will earn a fortune from the hated English (often described by the trolling internet ScotsNats as "Westminster Tory Scum," by the way) to replace the income from North Sea fossil fuel revenues after winning the Independence Referendum.

Well, they lost the referendum (badly, even after lying about future income from the North Sea by a factor of eight) and have fucked up Scotland's wild land. Well done Alec Salmond. Well done Fergus Ewing. Well done Nicola Sturgeon. May you each rot in hell.

CORRIMONY WIND FARM: TO GAUGE THE SIZE OF THE TURBINES, THE GREEN AREA IN MID-DISTANCE IS A MATURE FOREST. CORRIMONY IS A TINY WIND FARM COMPARED TO THOSE IN THE MONADH LIATH

MILLENNIUM WIND FARM & MONADH LIATH, FROM AONACH SHASUINN

MILLENNIUM WIND FARM & MONADH LIATH FROM AONACH SHASUINN

The walk along Aonach Shasuinn is quite wonderful and we drop down into a snow filled Choire Bhuidhe for a longish plod down to our campsite. This is actually quite hard work, as neither of us is 'hill-fit.' 

DROPPING INTO CHOIRE BHUIDHE

PHIL & CHOIRE BHUIDHE

All in all, a magnificent day. 

However, the SNP Scottish Government should be held to account for the criminal damage they have inflicted, quite needlessly, on this fabulous wild place.