Cape Wrath Trail in Winter

With the route planning for my winter trip on the Cape Wrath Trail approaching completion (I’ll post it here as soon as it’s done), I thought I’d write a few thoughts on North to the Cape by Denis Brook and Phil Hinchcliffe.

This book has been invaluable in helping me sketch out the route I’ll take. Like Wainwright’s Coast to Coast path, there is no official route for the Cape Wrath Trail, indeed that’s one of the attractions. The authors simply share a journey they took that avoids long strecthes of road and offer some possible variations.

They break the trip down into 21 stages, none longer than 15 miles. Most stages finish at places where overnight accomodation is in theory available. In summer, many of the stages will be too short for the more ambitious walker, but the authors seem to have struck a reasonable balance.

The prose is well written, if a little old fashioned in places and the route descriptions detailed. The journey narrative is interspersed with bits of history, trivia, warnings against midges and occasional poetry. Not to everyones taste, but adding colour and charm.

This book is an excellent starting point for anyone considering the Cape Wrath Trail. There are a few frustrations. It is now over ten years old and so references to collapsed bridges which may well have been resurrected and even fallen down again in the interim are no longer reliable.

Also, the book is black and white (with the odd bit of red) throughout. The enclosed maps are therefore of limited use. Instead of photographs, you get rather odd pictures reproduced from wood carvings which add to the slightly dated feel. The choice of a 3D image for the cover over a photo of the cape is just weird.

Consider in contrast the newish book on the Coast to Coast path by Martin Wainwright (no relation apparently) which has colour photography and OS 1:25000 maps throughout and is £2 cheaper. Perhaps these are issues that can be looked at for a future edition.

The most serious criticism I can find is the omission of bothies (dealt with in the next post).

All this notwithstanding, if you are doing the Cape Wrath Trail, this is the book for you. Don’t be fooled by alternatives such as A Walk Through the Highlands of Scotland: Discovering the Cape Wrath Trail which has little detail about the walk itself or The Cape Wrath Trail: A New 200-mile Walking Route Through the North-west Scottish Highlands which has stunning photography, but little in the way of practical help for planning a route.

Which leaves North to the Cape, an invalubale (if quirky) tome that could do with being brought into the 21st Century.

One of the main failings of North to the Cape, reviewed in the last post, is its omission on all but one occasion to include details of the many bothies found along the Cape Wrath Trail.

The authors stated rationale is as follows “As members and supporters of the Outdoor Writer’s Guild (OWG) and in accordance with the agreement between the Mountain Bothies Association (MBA) and the OWG we have refrained from identifying bothies on the route”.

However, they appear conflicted as they later add “whilst we undersatnd the dilemma the MBA is in, we feel that knowledge of the precise whereabouts of bothies would be a decided advantage”. Classic English understament methinks.

I came to bothies late. In fact, despite many years on the Scottish hills it was only during a trip to Knoydart in April that I discovered the incomparable Sourlies bothy. During the trip I stayed at another bothy at A’Chuil and on my return contacted the MBA and paid to become a member.

The dilemma the authors refer to concerns the location of bothies. Bothies work on trust. They are shelters in wild places, maintained by volunteers, for the use of everyone. There have been some instances, particularly in recent years, of bothies being vandalised. For this reason the MBA tries to keep bothy locations out of general circulation. A list is only provided when you join.

I’m not sure if the situation with the Outdoor Writer Guild has changed in recent years (for instance I regularly see bothies mentioned in magazines like Trail), but the omission of bothies from North to the Cape seriously detracts from an otherwise excellent book. In several instances the authors suggest camping when their are bothies within a few kilometres. To not mention these is ridiculous.

Balancing the need to protect bothies with the needs of those who would use (and potentially abuse) them is difficult. But you’d have to hope that the sort of person who buys a guide to the Cape Wrath Trail is not going to fall into the abusive category.

In the same way, I’d like to think that anyone reading this blog will treat bothies with the respect they deserve. I personally feel that if you use bothies it is only right to support those who work so hard to maintain them and join the MBA.

All of which is a rather long winded plea for bothies to be included in future editions of North to the Cape and my personal justification for revealing some locations in this blog.

As I’ve discovered, there are very few alternatives.