Hamish's Mountain Walk: The first non-stop round of all the 3000ft Scottish Munros

I – MULL, ETIVE AND GLENCOE

‘‘I lived for the day when I could get out with my ship, and stay away.’’

Alan Villiers

Wednesday 3 April – The road to Moola

We left Dollar in fog – which began to thin only near Lix Toll – steaming off the fields and holding to the line of the river. The whooper swans were dabbling at their reflections in Loch Dochart. Ben More thrust through like Fuji Yama: a snowy cone reaching up from bountiful spring. The gift of such anticyclonic conditions was a blessing indeed for the start of the venture.

Oban was urbane and peaceful in pre-season quietude. We drove on to the ferry Columba. Every craft in the harbour had its inverted twin until our wake washed them all away as we steamed off for Mull. The bar had only one customer; everyone else sprawled on deck in the sun. Duart Castle welcomed to the island; lying dark in the eye of the sun it translated itself for us, the black height. It is the clan Maclean seat and goes back to the thirteenth century, now the home of Sir Charles Maclean, 27th chief, and also recently Chief Scout.

We stopped to change nephew Kenneth’s nappies by Lochdonhead, then ran up the slicing Glen More. The hills were hazy with the sweet reek of burning and when we passed the source of the scent, by Loch Scridain, it was replaced by the tang of the sea. There had been curlews and wheatears in the glen, here oystercatchers and redshank added their calls. It was full spring. The rushed days in Kinghorn and Dollar had only been stations on the way back from Poland; suddenly this felt home – where sun and sea and mountains meet, westwards where all dreams lie.

I should have been ‘‘psyched-up’’ no doubt but found myself calm. There was nothing to do – except savour the scene. Just the walking to do now, and that was not in my control. I had planned and prepared. I could do no more. So Mull was consciously savoured, its perfection an intoxicating joy.

Kenneth spent hours throwing stones, and himself, into the water. A gentlemanly heron watched from a boulder beyond, a perch he maintained while the tide turned and flowed and the sun dipped to halo his shape in gold. Sheep came and ‘‘scarted’’ themselves on the Dormobile and their lambs tripped over the guy lines of my tent. It was a bare feet and bare torsos day, doing nothing and then resting afterwards. I lay reading Travels with a Donkey – which might have been significant.

I had, actually, been re-reading much of Stevenson, a sadly-neglected author. Few have captured our landscape so well. In Kidnapped for instance, the shipwreck on Mull, the crossing of Rannoch Moor, the Ben Alder days at Cluny’s Cage – these are gems of description. Every word of Stevenson is precise and right, truly a man who knew how to live.

We had established ourselves a diplomatic Kenneth-distance away from the tents of our B.F.M.C. friends, Lorna and Carol, Bob and Ian, who rolled in later, brosy with sun and good doings.

I was banned from cooking even, so sat by the shore, after removing a dead polecat. Kenneth was sent, protesting, to his Dormobile bed. The smoke of burning still veiled the hills at the head of the loch. The waters were purply bright. The ponderous heron and two struggling cormorants flew across, the eiders dodged among the weeds, commenting ‘‘Oh! Oh!’’ Curlews called on the hill, a pheasant honked in the wood, a buzzard mewed overhead. Lambs bleated. Two miles across the loch came children’s laughter. These are the magic sounds of silence, the magic colours of content.

After supper we piled wreaths of seaweed on the bonfire so it belched out a great column of smoke and rattled away like musketry. A seal edged in to eavesdrop on our talk. Some deer crossed the road, white caudal patches showing in the moonlight. A big moon seemed to swell gradually, and spent its hours blowing stars across the chill sky. The dew fell. The burn talked in its sleep. …

And on the morrow the Long Walk would begin.

It might have been otherwise if David had not seen us gaily distributing ‘‘Napisan’’ instead of milk powder for the fireside brew.

Thursday 4 April – The Ben More gathering

Mull is one of the two islands which have Munros, but whereas Skye has a whole extravagant ridge of them, Ben More in Mull is the only other. The whole of Mull is worth exploring, the longer you spend on it after all, the less sore you will feel at the penal ferry cost of reaching it. It has a fascinating coast and the attached islands are all interesting: Iona, Ulva, Gometra, the Treshnish, Staffa of Fingal’s Cave fame. …

Not far from the camp, round the Gribun, the sea cliffs tower over the road, and the houses fit tight in between road and sea, spaced regularly along, except, in one place there is no house but a big boulder. There was a cottage originally but the boulder crashed on to it, killing a newly wed couple within. The wedding guests were dancing in the barn and did not even know.

Along the Gribun is MacKinnon’s Cave, one of the biggest in the country, over two hundred yards long; along again lie the miles of the Wilderness, a devastated area of boulders and 1,000-foot basalt cliffs. There is a 40-foot fossil tree.

Ben More queens it over all as the big hill should: a grey, saddle-backed peak, which can be seen from all directions on land or at sea. It radiates ridges in several directions from the summit which can cause confusion in the mist for the top is highly magnetic and the compass can be 180 out – which is always off-putting to those who have been taught always to trust the compass.

The finest approaches all converge on A’Choich first. This 2,730-foot top then allows a fine connecting ridge to the Munro. The best route is the most direct. We reached it up the Allt a’ Ghlinne Dhuibhe – hugging shade and needing little excuse to stop. White hares and deer were more easily watched from a sitting position – and we could always take another picture of the girls in their bikinis. Bob gave us a cheerful dissertation on sheep’s liver flukes.

In turn I told of Alex, an ex-pupil of mine who was reprimanded in the Cairngorms, on a course, for drinking the water straight. Did he not know of this hazard? ‘‘It is what all the old shepherds die of,’’ came the dire warning. ‘‘You must boil it for twenty minutes.’’ Alex took the line that as long as it was old shepherds dying of it, he was prepared to take the risk!

Romping back down to camp Bob managed to set some boulders bouncing down on top of me. I was a hundred yards ahead. I stopped one on my rucksack and another took the legs from under me. This was the most serious ‘‘accident’’ of the trip. Had I been facing uphill and got it on the front instead of the back of the knee there would have been a different tale. As it was I had grand itchy scabs to crinkle at every step for the next week.

The family were off to Iona in the Dormobile so I joined Lorna and Carol for tea. They were very touchy. Lay a finger on them and they leapt. Bikinis were a mistake. They were now in the pink – literally. Even a swim in the sea did not help. I wore my pyjamas (last time for three months) as protection against the sun. It was a long day of ease really. The traces had been freed.

Friday 5 April – By the sweat of your brow

‘‘Only 357,000 feet to go,’’ I had joked on top of Ben More, little knowing this was 90,000 feet short of the reality, but such figures are meaningless anyway; in fifteen Everests, what’s a Munro here and there? I underestimated the mileage too – but it had only been guessed at (1,200 miles) by using a piece of string on a small scale map. The detail that did matter was the daily ‘‘staging’’ which had been carefully worked out. The original 112-day estimate came out at 112 days. The strategy, if you like, was clear, the tactics were often decided on the spot.

Previous, extensive knowledge of the ground made this much easier. I could envisage the ground, a great asset, though not fully realised till looking back. John Hinde and his R.A.F. gangs, Sandy Cousins, all owed a lot to this too; in contrast, many of the failures on such efforts were younger, inexperienced lads. (The Ripley brothers were an exception. I did not consider myself in their class, so their failure was both a warning and a spur to which I paid great heed.)

The sheer scale and loneliness of the Scottish hills can prove a mental as well as a physical barrier. At Aultguish Inn I was told of one ‘‘Walk’’ which ended simply from the demoralising effect of rain. Flooded rivers had not been expected and the route and meeting points all went haywire. It became a nightmare of impracticability – and all the time the rain and wind pummelled and battered till the world became one great wetness and despair. It took only a few days to break the spirit.

Experience would have dealt with that, but experience takes time I suppose. Sandy and John had had years of soaking – maturing – and so, I suppose, had I. It all relates not only to a scheme like this, but also on the prickly topic of ‘‘Leadership’’. I find it horrifying for instance that people are leaving school intending to become mountain instructors. What can they know about it at that age? Experience is a key factor for success, though failure can be rewarding, giving as it does the most emphatic of all experience. So long as mistakes are not fatal, they are useful! ‘‘We are all, in a sense, survivors’’ as I once heard; but again, listening to a radio panel discussing climbing, the chairman drew it all together with the profound remark that ‘‘climbing is not for the beginner’’.

Today’s circuitous route gave not even one Munro though I sweated as I have seldom done in Scotland – or elsewhere. It began gently.

I was off at 6.30 on a dewy morning when the only stir was the wildlife. I left the Broons sleeping, and Lorna and Carol breakfasting, for we were all catching the early ferry. I was using a Raleigh ‘‘Stowaway’’ cycle, as I would for several longer reaches of unavoidable tarred road. Walking hard roads is not my idea of fun. Legally, a bike is ‘‘an aid to pedestrianism’’ and not a vehicle or machine, and it kept my basic rule of self-propulsion. If you object, the solution is obvious! (But then you would have to swim to and from the islands, or go barefoot, or without food. You can soon reduce it to absurdity. The prime aim was enjoyment, after all.)

Six sorry sheep had marooned themselves on an islet at the head of the loch and a lamb in the black burnt area was bleating its woe at being born in such surroundings. Push bike was an apt description for the haul up Glen More. The girls bombed past on the pass. A redwing flew along with me for a while. At Ishriff I raced through a party of red deer (frightening) and at Loch Don a roe buck watched me pass. I suddenly realised it was still some way to Craignure and the boat left in thirteen minutes: intriguing possibilities, as the car had my rucksack with everything, including money, in it.

You cannot hurry cows, or heavy bikes. When I clattered on to the Columba with three minutes to spare I was quivering with the effort. Half an hour later she sailed.

We had a second breakfast while my clammy shirt dried, then prowled the deck, too aware of action ahead to play the placid tourist. Lorna and Carol were off for Glendessary which I would only reach in June.

Oban again, the bay full of eiders and reflections, the pier all bustle and calling voices. I made an inauspicious start by going over the handlebars. The pier planks are carefully laid with cycle-wheel-size gaps between!

There was a long brae out of town but I had stocked up, and on top of the hills found a nook among the primroses and celandine and consumed milk and hot-cross-buns. This was about the richest landscape I would ever see – which is why it is so full of the earliest marks of Scottish history.

I have never trained, as such; life is too hectic otherwise, even if the physical laziness could be overcome. Since much of my time is spent on the hill, I suppose some fitness carries over. The climbing and long ski trip in Poland had removed any surplus weight. I did not lose any more on the Walk.

Glen Lonan was pleasant going but lacked water, so at Taynuilt, on the main road again, I bought ice cream and peaches. Wayside indulgence became a principle in the months ahead. It was interesting to see what was chosen when faced with all the wealth of a grocery shop. I did not develop a chocolate craving as others seemed to have done but sweet, juicy things were top desires.

Taynuilt has a monument to Lord Nelson erected in 1805 by the Lorn furnacemen – thirty-seven years before the one in Trafalgar Square. The main road through the jaws of the Pass of Brander was quiet. Road, rail and river squeeze through here in promiscuous ribbons. The small dam on the river has an electric lift instead of a fish ladder. Brander is famed for fights by both Wallace and Bruce, the latter here clashing with the MacDougalls in 1308, a fray from which the Campbells gained. The main Campbell castle was on Innis Chonnail, down Loch Awe. Kilchurn was also theirs and inspired Wordsworth and others to versify. The clan only moved south to Inveraray in the late fifteenth century. Their motto is still ‘‘Cruachan’’ and the phrase, ‘‘It’s a far cry to Lochow’’ (Loch Awe) has much of history in it beyond the pages of Neil Munro.

Neil Munro is another of the superb painters of the highland scene. His book, The New Road, is one of the best. He is probably better known as the creator of Para Handy, which he wrote under the name of Hugh Foulis.

For years Hydro and road works had been active along Loch Awe but now one can speed by – at twice the speed of seeing anything. A new tourist attraction is to take a minibus tour into the heart of the mountain to see the power station which is part of the second-largest pumped storage scheme in the world. The reservoir is 1,200 feet above the turbines, held in a corrie of Cruachan, whence I was bound after leaving the bike and collecting a parcel from Mrs Moyes at one of the Hydro houses. I also had a look at St Conan’s.

This church is an odd hotch-pot architecturally but its setting by the loch makes it worth seeing. Plain glass windows sweep round the front of the church – nature giving a view no stained glass could match. A rib of Robert the Bruce is preserved here, the rest of him being home in Fife at Dunfermline Abbey.

Cruachan is really an array of summits, eight in all. Sir Hugh gave it two Munros and one of the anomalies of his Tables is that the Taynuilt Peak, 3,611 feet, a subsidiary summit of the Main Munro, 3,689 feet, is higher than the other Munro, Stob Diamh, 3,272 feet.

The toil up on to Cruachan was memorable for the intolerable heat. Every trickle of water was pounced on. Collapsing on the second day with heatstroke would be an odd ending to the Walk! There was a view down Loch Awe as far as New York. It is the longest loch in Scotland, though Loch Ness and Loch Lomond are bigger.

I passed the shapely dam and contoured round into the burn behind Beinn a’ Bhuiridh. Glorious shade! I splashed in a pool with the gusto of a dipper, then followed beside or in the burn to pitch the tent near the col above – at about 2,300 feet. After a brew I went up Beinn a’ Bhuiridh, 2,941 feet, a summit which was all lumps and bumps and pools of melt-water. This is a ‘‘Corbett’’, a mountain of over 2,500 feet, having a drop all round of 500 feet. A list made by their eponymous creator is now printed in with Munro’s Tables. People often think the 500-foot clearance also applies to Munros, but this is not so. Corbetts are much better disciplined, and often much more satisfying besides being better viewpoints. Quinag, Beinn Dearg Mhor, Allival and Askival, The Cobbler – these are all Corbetts. Stac Polly or Suilven do not even reach that height; all of which shows what a daft game this is.

Sunset seemed quick: the burnished loch went out leaving a dull, raw world. A lone bird cried. It was gloriously lonely.

Saturday 6 April – Smitten by the sun and addicted

Beira, Queen of Winter in Scottish mythology, who built the hills with her magic hammer, once forgot to cover a well on Cruachan, and overnight it flowed down to fill the valley below – hence Loch Awe. Now her well’s overflow has a dam, and other powerful hammers have hollowed out her mountain. The reservoir for the power station has done little damage to the surroundings; so often in the months ahead I was to see others with disfiguring shorelines – like dirty bath rims.

As the weather still looked good I set off early to make use of the cool hours. Having the whole day and no base to return to gave a great freedom. I could hurry or dawdle as I saw fit. I averaged about a mile an hour this first hard day of carrying a pack; but the real enemy was the sun which gave a physical battering. At the end of the day it was interesting to see how the pace shot up – uphill – simply because there was shade again. I was quite sorry to leave my ‘‘nest among the stars’’ (Obadiah), and one outcome of the Walk has been a taste for high camping, even at weekends. The rewards make the effort worth while. You cannot know a mountain till you have slept on it.

A long ridge, snow edged, led to Stob Diamh (Stob Daff) from which I made the longer traverse to the Main Summit and back. Drochaid Glas had crags which looked like the Inca altar at Ollantaytambo. Litter today included such diverse objects as an egg-cosy, a U.S. coin, a watch glass and a usable biro. Good winter climbing is to be had in the northern corries but the only account I have read is in J. H. B. Bell’s A Progress in Mountaineering. There was a lot of snow still. Stob Dearg is better known as the ‘‘Taynuilt Peak’’, and it was the poet W. P. Ker who whimsically, aptly, referred to the Nordend of Monte Rosa as its Taynuilt Peak.

I did not linger on Cruachan Beann, the mountain of peaks, but retraced with hopeful, but fruitless, diversions in search of water. I had to go past the last horn of Sron an Isean, the nose of the imps, before it was safe to drop down. With an ice axe there could have been a good glissade. The Lairig Noe was a lonely col but by traversing up and across I reached a good burn. The bliss of a hill brew! The purple saxifrages were wilting in the heat and deer let you pass twenty yards off as they were too done to move.

I followed up the burn which gave a noisy rush of coolness. The summit of Beinn a’ Chochuill was pleasantly draughty. I left a questionnaire on the cairn – which was found the following weekend. This was a brief series of questions, which could give some idea of the usage Munros received, and I left them only on what were relatively remote summits. Some would only be found after several weeks. An Oban couple were on top and we met several times on the dip and rise to Beinn