Globalti
Legendary Member
I wrote this a few years ago and have just stumbled across it on an old disc so thought CC readers would enjoy it.
I am swooping on a 10lb super liganium bike down my favourite forest trail when an elbow in my ribs pops the dream. “There’s someone outside the tent!” hisses my brother Tom. Sure enough, above the rippling of the waters of Loch Etive I hear gravel crunch, and something brushes a guy rope… Somebody stealing the bikes? We’re alone, there’s nobody else for miles. “I’ve got my head torch – get ready to open the door,” whispers Tom. “Now!” I whip the tent door open and a large grey shape disappears silently behind the car. Hell! – A huge grey dog!
Heart rates slow and we settle down in our sleeping bags, still nervous. Then the sound of an engine approaches down the glen. Now what? It’s three in the morning and there’s a fine mizzle falling, fizzing gently on the tent. Bright white headlights sweep around the car park at the road head and settle on our car, stopping for several minutes without moving. We wait, nervously. Lights and engine are suddenly cut, a door opens and footsteps approach.
“Have you seen those lights up on the slabs?” asks an English voice. I crawl out of the Saunders, slip into flip-flops and a ‘cag, and peer up into the dark. There! A tiny light flickers; way up on the Etive slabs, then disappears. The grass is cold and wet around my feet. The visitor identifies himself:“Customs and Excise… just looking around.”
“Blimey,” I groan, “not collecting council tax are you?”
“No” he laughs.
“Well, we saw a trawler arrive a while ago, and a dozen Turkish blokes drove off in a Transit… any interest?”
“No, different department, that’s Immigration.”
“Well, what are you doing?” asks my brother.
“Oh, just routine checks. Do you know what those people are doing up on the slabs?”
“Well, they’re climbers. We saw them going up last night and thought they’d gone up too late. I wonder if they’re in trouble?”
We decide to try flashing a light at them. Customs and Excise produces a monster torch with a beam like a car headlight which we flash towards the slabs. No reaction, just an occasional distant flicker, dim as starlight.
We reckon they must be okay and return to bed, but I wake at six still worried. So we collect climbing gear and a rope from the car and set off in the drizzle to investigate. A mile up the path we meet the climbers coming down, they’re fine – got benighted but no problem. We make them a brew and they head back to Glasgow, leaving us feeling rather foolish.
We spend the day messing around on the bikes and swimming in the river Etive. Glen Etive has everything; seclusion, the best skinny-dipping pools in Scotland and a fine mountain; the Buchaille Etive Mor. But the riding is rather limited so we head off down Glencoe to Fort William. After an expensive night in Fort Bill campsite we decide to try one of the rides from Frances Fleming’s Scottish Highlands book. The Fort William loop via Kinlochleven seems the obvious choice, 33 miles and described as “challenging”. Two days of muggy wet weather give way to a perfect cool clear morning and we pedal gently five miles through the forests of Glen Nevis to the road end, from where we manage a few more yards before the rough path forces us to carry the bikes.
A full rigid Specialized Rockhopper and a Saracen Traverse, virtually identical bikes, make their way through the Nevis gorge like twigs balanced on the backs of ants as we sweat over the rocky path. Narrow gorge gives way to a delightful open green valley, the crystal Water of Nevis fed by a fine waterfall. Then we are into a heart breaking five miles of peat hags. A short ride, sweat, pant, get stuck, fall off, carry, push, try again, get stuck. The book says the trail is “rideable for most of its length”. Who rode it? This is high summer and the ground is still soggy, you’d need waders in winter. Perhaps it’s just that both of us are new to mountain biking and lack the skill to keep moving.
Great is the relief when we reach the start of the rough track to Luibeilt bothy, more of a shell than a bothy. After a rest, a wash and a drink from the burn and a photo of the massive bulk of Ben Nevis behind us, we plod on. More rough track takes us five miles further, past Lochs Eilde Beag and Eilde Mor, to the start of what the book describes as an “incredibly fast descent”. Who wrote this? The trail is so rocky that we teeter painfully down, shoulders aching, leg muscles screaming, hands cramped on the brakes as our bikes thump over loose rocks, bouncing about and clattering. Mamore Lodge Hotel above Kinlochleven provides welcome tea, shandy, cakes and a doze in the warm sun on the lawn, which is a disastrous mistake because it takes us most of the ensuing mile of steep climbing to wake up.
Yet more rough track and we are really beginning to tire now. The surface is covered with fist-sized rocks, there are no smooth wheel tracks to ride in, it’s just mile after mile of unrelenting hammering. Suspension forks are still five years in the future and we are on entry-level full-rigids. My bike’s head bearing is loose and clonking and my body aches from the constant pounding. We have covered 28 miles of trail and are not enjoying ourselves any more, when we reach lovely smooth tarmac where we stop for a refreshing skinny dip in a burn, but no rest yet as this circuit has three short agonising climbs in store before you swoop down the last mile into Fort William.
The day has been brilliant, with truly superb views and fine hard riding, but we fancy no more of Frances Fleming’s torture trails so we make for Glen Shiel to keep a rendezvous.
We drive up the glen to a handy bothy, conveniently hidden near a forestry access track where we suffer a major midge blitz while packing rucksacks and assembling bikes, causing us eventually to crack up and spray insecticide at random into the air as we tear around in mad circles, screaming and slapping our heads. After a truly disgusting meal cobbled together in the midge-free haven of the bothy we set off rather late for the pub, wasting valuable drinking time squelching through bogs before a farmer, watching our antics from the valley bottom, shouts to us to “Come on down and ride in my field and make it easier for yourselves!” Nice fella!
A rapid tarmac run down to Glenelg delivers us to the hotel for two swift pints of over-chilled, caramelised and gassy Scotch bitter before we set off in the midsummer dusk to complete the circuit back to the bothy. More time is lost photographing the sunset over Skye, so that it’s almost dark by the time we ride up into the hills. There follows an extraordinary ride, as for two miles along the road several startled deer, caught unawares by our silent approach, shoot across our path in the gloom and crash away into the undergrowth causing us major fright each time. The dew falls and we can smell warm damp tarmac and grasses. Road gives way to track and my head torch fails. We blunder into Balvraid farmyard, to the delight of the dog who lives there. Excusing ourselves, we leave swiftly by the back gate and regain the track. This is our first experience of true night riding; my brother Tom leads the way, using his head torch only occasionally for rough patches. Otherwise we just follow the slightly paler wheel tracks in almost complete blackness. Up several unseen hills we climb and over a summit, with only a faint glow of light behind us in the west. I am leading when suddenly the paler track ahead seems to disappear… I skid to a halt and the torch beam reveals a deep gully across the track, cut by a stream. A near miss! At last we sense that we are dropping down towards the bothy, which we find only by it being slightly blacker than the surrounding blackness and we settle in for a spooky night in our sleeping bags, lying in luxury on a wooden floor up in the panelled bedroom.
The following day we move down to Glenelg so as to be nearer the bar and away from the midgey forest. We camp on the foreshore near the house of a fisherman named Donald. Like most modern highlanders, Donald and his family have long abandoned the old thatched black house for the comfort of a smart new cottage with picture windows and a proper roof. Donald is anxious that we should hide our tent in a dip, so as not to encourage other campers with their noise and litter, but he tells us the secret of the hidden water tap beside the ruined Bernera barracks.
After a boozy night in the pub we are joined by our friends from Gloucestershire – Tim, a big tomato in the growers’ world, and his Dutch fiancée Marie. Their Citroen van comes crowned with two huge sea kayaks in bright yellow and red and Donald is surprised to be presented with a crate of hydroponic salad vegetables. Tim and Marie want to go off and practice their paddling – they later made the second ever recorded crossing by sea kayak from Shetland to Foula – so Tom and I decide to try a bike and foot expedition.
Up the glen again, this time with big boots forced into toe clips. Avoiding the dog, we hide the bikes in bracken at a bridge at the foot of Beinn Sgritheall and slog up steep screes to the top. A spot of “bouldering” provides some amusement as we roll huge rocks, which crash hundreds of feet down the slope, splitting off chips with a stink of sulphur… completely irresponsible but great fun. The view from the summit of Beinn Sgritheall is ample reward for the effort – to the south, Loch Hourn and the 3000 foot drop straight to Arnisdale, said to be the steepest continuous mountainside in Scotland. To the west, Sandaig Islands and bay, the home of Gavin Maxwell, otter lover and author of Ring Of Bright Water. Beyond Sandaig, the easterly part of the island of Skye. To the north, Glen More with Loch Alsh beyond. Patches of cloud shadow float across a pewter sea and the islands of Eigg and Rhum lie on the surface like blotches of ink.
After some summit photos we drop down to a small lochan where we wash and drink and watch a herd of deer on the hillside. Then we tank on down to the bridge and recover the bikes. Now the value of the mountain bike to mountaineers becomes obvious; instead of a dreary five mile slog back to camp we shove boots into toe clips, stand on the pedals and let rip… all the way home, hardly turning the pedals at all. What bliss!
Crossing to Skye in rain the next day we feel depressed, but drive on to Elgol in the southwest corner of the island. From there we help launch the kayaks into a choppy sea then return to Kilmarie and the start of the Land Rover track over to Camasunary Bay. Luckily for us, the kayaks need ballast and have taken all the heavy kit including food, whisky and five pints of milk, so we carry only sleeping bags, clothes and karrimats. Even this small extra weight makes a difference to our climbing ability and we reach the col with relief, to be greeted with a superb view of Camasunary Bay and the bothy. To our surprise the kayaks are only a mile out, having had the benefit of a stiff breeze for their paddle up Loch Scavaig. We pick our way down the steep technical descent, meeting two amazed walkers to whom we preach the joys of mountain biking. After a sprint across the sheep-cropped grass of the foreshore we reach the bothy just as Tim and Marie are dragging their kayaks up the beach. Of course they swear they have got there first.
Camasunary on Skye is a mysterious and beautiful place. A wide shingly bay faces Soay and Rhum. On the foreshore there is a small bothy and one holiday house, and nothing else. The next bay to the west leads into Loch Coruisk, possibly the last truly wild place left in Great Britain. Coruisk is a freshwater loch, surrounded by the towering gabbro ramparts of the Cuillin Mountains. In any weather it has an atmosphere of gloom, with the rippling water and the calls of the seabirds to heighten your sense of isolation. You can only reach Coruisk by boat from Elgol, or from Glenbrittle bay by crossing the forbidding and dangerous ridge of the Black Cullins, the climbers’ Mecca. Otherwise you approach on foot from Camasunary via a coast path and the “Bad Step”, an infamous slab of rock leading straight down to the sucking sea, which terrifies the non-climber but must be crossed.
Tim reappears dragging a washed-up tree, probably the only wood left in the bay and we settle down for the evening. Camasunary bothy is a fine whitewashed cottage with two large rooms and a number of small bedrooms, one of which seems to be occupied by a mystery resident who has left his belongings including a monster bottle of Brufen tablets, a huge chunk of cheese, an invalidity benefit book and a sack of whelks, but never actually appears, which causes much speculation. Scottish bothies are spooky places, and this one is no exception. During the night I am awoken by the sound of a door banging and take my headtorch to investigate. Somebody seems to have unbolted the front door from the inside, yet none of us have stirred from our sleeping bags. It’s very dark and dead quiet, a warm breeze blows through the open window of our room and out of the door, whirling the ashes in the grate… still no sign of our mystery resident, so who opened the door…? I sleep fitfully, alert for more strange noises.
Morning, sheep outside the window, a freezing dip in the burn, bacon and egg butties and endless brews, sunshine streaming in. Tim and Marie paddle and we walk round the headland, crossing the Bad Step with no trouble. We meet at the point where a short river carries the waters of Coruisk spilling across the smooth brown glaciated slabs of the lip of the corrie and plunging straight into the sea, only a few feet below. It’s an extraordinary and spectacular place, sweet water meeting salt – one of those significant points in the world that will never change, despite the efforts of Man to tame Nature. The heavy kayaks are portaged two hundred yards to the loch and re-launched for a freshwater outing, then back to the sea for a dramatic and risky launch right at the meeting point, in a tricky swell.
It is the last day of our holiday and the magic of Skye is hard to shake off. We cycle out the next day with regret and head south, remembering evenings in bothies, spinning yarns by the fire, the easy comradeship of like-minded friends, the whir of tyres on forestry tracks, the elation of a long and difficult ride… who wants to metro trek their local big city when the outdoors is there, waiting? But don’t worry… it’ll still be there next year and the next! Our only complaint is… why didn’t somebody invent mountain bikes twenty years ago?
in the area a must do, future wannado, with a visit to the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe the only bit you missed 
