It all ends in teas (this time)
It was going so well. I was the fittest I’ve been in my life, completely prepared and incredibly excited about the trip. After a overnight stop in Glenfinnan, I was so pleased to finally be on the road. Even with a very heavy pack, my steps felt light as I made my way up into Glenfinnan.
As I passed Corryhully bothy, a huge stag ambled nonchalantly onto the path and stood eyeballing me in that way they have, about 10 metres down the path. The weather was almost balmy (see picture above) with clear blue skies. I had a real sweat on as I made my way up to the pass between Sgurr Thuilm and Streap. There were still patches of snow making the descent into Gleann Cuirnean on he North side of the pass interesting (although I think a lot had melted since Rich Simpson’s group passed here - see earlier comments).
The melting snow made for a deep wade to reach the bridge over the river Pean, just before Strathan, and overall the going was very sloshy, but the forest track to A’Chuil bothy was well metalled and a pleasure.
A’Chuil is a fantastic two-roomed bothy and I was joined by two air traffic controllers from Prestwick who had been out climbing the Corbett behind the bothy, Meall nan Sparden, having driven in to the loch head at Strathan. They had carried in some coal and wood so a roaring fire lifted all our spirits as the weather closed in. Going out to “answer the call” in the late evening, I was squatting in the woods as the wind whipped horizontal sleet into the side of my face. I actually had a slight sense of foreboding then about the following day.
In the morning, my companions took one look at the weather and decide to beat a retreat to their car. The wind was gusting very strongly and the rain was absolutely torrential. I set off at about 8am into the darkness, the rain so strong my head torch was useless as it just picked out raindrops. Nevertheless, the path was good for a few kilometres and by the time I had hauled myself out of the boggy woodlands onto the track up Glendessary, it was getting lighter.
In the nearly 20 years I have been walking in Scotland, I’ve never known conditions worse than that day. Torrential rain doesn’t really do it justice. It felt like standing directly under several fire hoses and the wind was dropping to nothing and then whipping up to gusts of more than 100 mph. I didn’t really want to be out there.
Progress was therefore slower than I would have hoped, and perhaps the knowledge I was falling behind schedule was a factor in what happened next. I was negotiating one of those tricky “I wouldn’t want to fall off this” paths that you encounter many times a day in the highlands. This was skirting around a rocky outcrop, just before Lochan A Mhaim. I must have been slightly off balance when one of those super gusts came rushing up the valley and flipped me right off the path.
I tumbled thirty foot or so, bashing most parts of my body and hitting my head on something hard. The next thing I remember (I must have briefly blacked out) was lying spreadeagled in a ravine with icy water gushing over the top of me. My first instinct was to get out of the water rather than check anything was broken, so it was only when I had clambered back up to the path that I realised all my bones were intact.
I knew that I needed to get somewhere where I could try and warm up very quickly, and fortuitously, Sourlies bothy was only about 4km away. As I struck off, I could feel that my left knee was not in a good way, but I think adrenaline got me to Sourlies. I quickly stripped off my wet clothes and managed to pull some clothes out of my rucsack that were still relatively dry, despite total immersion in water (my sleeping bag was almost totally dry - thank you Exped drybags).
I was shivering uncontollably now, I knew I had to try and warm up, so started doing star jumps. I’ll leave you to imagine the bizarre scene of someone trying to do star jumps with a battered knee, but any flies on the wall must have died laughing. Anyway, it had the desired effect of warming me up a bit and after an hour in my sleeping bag my spirits lifted and I realised what a close shave I’d had.
Overall it was a pretty cold, miserable night at Sourlies. After fitful sleep, I woke up and tested various bits of my body. Everything hurt and I felt like I’d gone ten rounds with Tyson after saying something derogatory about his mother. The awful reality dawned that I wasn’t going to be able to continue the trail.
It’s hard to overstate how gutted I felt at this stage, but I thought “I’m lucky, let’s not wallow in it, just get yourself out of here”. The knee was throbbing like someone was hitting it at regular intervals with a lump hammer, but I had a pack of Nurofen in my bag so I necked them which helped a bit.
I knew the closest civilisation was Inverie, about 15km away, so I decided to try and make it there if I could. The steep climb up to the pass at Mam Meadall was pretty agonising. I kept myself going into the heavy rain and wind by cursing a mental image of Julia Bradbury and the fact that you only ever see her walking on sun kissed lakeland fells on TV. Strangely, this kept me going, so thanks Julia..and sorry.
I eventually struggled into Inverie and have never been more pleased to see a warm tea room with a roaring fire and friendly company where I awaited the ferry to Mallaig. As I was boarding the ferry, the guy running the boat asked if I was Iain Harper, which took me aback slightly. Turns out Donald from Adventure Trading Post had been monitoring my SPOT satellite signals and had grown concerned for my welfare and asked them to look out for me (Thanks again Donald- you’re an absolute star).
At Mallaig a very friendly policeman picked me up from the ferry and made me a cup of tea. He checked I was ok and I was relieved to hear no one had been out looking for me. I told him I felt embarrassed by the whole thing and the most bruised thing was my ego. He made me feel slightly better by telling me about a person they’ve had to airlift off the mountains three times now. He suspected that the guy liked the attention and said next time they’d be airlifting him to the local prison! The policeman very kindly gave me a lift to Fort William where I caught the train home, tail very much between legs.
So what has this taught me and where does this leave my plans? Being honest, I feel in hindsight I was slightly overconfident and some of the route planning may have been overambitious. That said, the conditions were off the scale bad. The lesson is that in winter every day has to be planned with the absolute worst case scenario in mind. That may sound obvious, but in winter I’d now say that terrain, light and weather make any day over 20km marginal.
Also, I didn’t (couldn’t) build in enough time flexibility to be able to say “the weather is just too bad to be out in today”. I think the Cape Wrath Trail is still doable in winter, but you need to have the time to be able to let the conditions dictate your pace rather than try and press on and force the issue, as I found out.
It’s been a chastening experience all round, and a timely reminder of the innate dangers we all face when we go into the wild places, no matter how experienced or prepared.
But I see this very much as the beginning, rather than the end of my Cape Wrath Trail ambitions. Whether I’ll be able to find the time to have a crack at it all in one go again, I’m not sure, but this experience has only strengthened my desire to finish this wild, dangerous, peerless journey. Watch this space.
