Out There

by Chris Townsend

  Winter is a more serious time for high camps as nights are long and cold and storms severe. Snow can transform undistinguished hills though, and make camping on them an exciting adventure. One February, when deep snow lay from the glens to the summits, I went from my front door up little Carn na Loine, a heathery bump just 549 metres high in the far north-east corner of the Cairngorms National Park. Snow free, this is a rolling heather moorland hill managed for grouse-shooting; under snow it is more like an arctic wilderness. The sky was overcast as I pitched camp but at dusk the sun sank below the cloud, turning the snow pink and the western sky red and orange. Night brought a clearing sky, a full moon, stars and a temperature of -8°C, and I was glad of my down jacket as I watched the wildness and listened to the silence. Home was just a few miles away but it could have been on another planet. Indeed, it seemed as though it was.

  The world of the summits is different. Camping there takes you into a special place where the flatlands can be forgotten and wildness embraced.

  Entertainment in Camp

  Midwinter nights in the Scottish Highlands are long. With over seventeen hours of darkness the sun sets in the middle of the afternoon. On moonlit and starry nights I like to walk long after dark and spend time outside my tent star gazing, but when the sky is overcast and the weather stormy I’m usually in my shelter soon after sunset. The question then becomes: what to do with all that time? With no views, just blackness outside, you can’t watch the night evolve through the open door. Cooking and eating don’t take up much time either, though in winter I carry more food that needs cooking than when daylight hours are long.

  On long winter nights like this, and nights at any time of year when stormy weather or biting insects make it preferable to be inside my shelter, I occupy myself mainly with reading and writing. Some people like to listen to music or podcasts or even watch videos or films (options that weren’t available until quite recently). I don’t usually like anything that requires sound though, as I find it cuts me off from the world in a way that reading doesn’t. A bird or animal cry, the rattle of rain on the flysheet, a change in the wind - I like to register all these. I do have music on my smartphone and, very occasionally, listen to this, but when it feels out of place I soon turn it off.

  Reading used to mean a paperback book and on many long walks I spent rest days scouring shops, for a second-hand book preferably as I’d leave it in the next town or pass it on. In small towns there is usually little choice, and I’ve read some strange stuff over the years. This has all changed with the e-reader, which I think is one of the greatest inventions for backpackers in recent years. Even paperbacks are quite heavy so I never carried more than a couple at a time. With an e-reader I can carry a whole library for the same weight (and much less bulk) than a small paperback. The size of the books doesn’t matter either. The complete works of Dickens and a slim paperback are exactly the same with an e-reader.

  On my 55-day Scottish Watershed walk I read thirteen books, all downloaded before the walk, including several that were sizeable hardbacks in physical form such as George Monbiot’s Feral and Wade Davis’s Into the Silence. I’d never have carried these except in digital form. With a wide selection available I never became bored either. If I couldn’t concentrate on something fairly heavy like Into the Silence I had the Complete Sherlock Holmes and some Neil Gaiman novels for light relief. With paperback books I had no choice if I wanted a change.

  Whilst for reading I’ve gone with the latest technology, for writing I’ve stuck with traditional means - pen and paper. I’ve tried writing on tiny keyboards, both real and virtual, and just find it too difficult in the confines of the tent, where I’m usually lying on my side and often have cold fingers. Many typing mistakes can make writing unintelligible too. I can always read my scrawled writing (though others might have difficulty!). I like notebooks with waterproof covers (Alwych brand) and I use pens with waterproof ink (Nite Ize Inka Pens and Fisher Space Pens) that will also write at any angle and on greasy paper. Of course, I started keeping a journal long before smartphones and tablets and other electronic devices existed. Maybe if I was starting out now I’d find tiny keyboards usable.

  Keeping a journal doesn’t just occupy time, it also means that you have a record of your trips for future enjoyment and as a spur to memory. When writing my book on the Pacific Crest Trail, Rattlesnakes and Bald Eagles, I reread my journals, written over thirty years before and found that, whilst I could recall much of the walk, there were details I’d forgotten and I was fascinated to read about some actual incidents I couldn’t actually remember!

  If you don’t hike solo, finding activities to fill hours in camp isn’t so difficult. Even when talking to each other pales you can produce a pack of cards and play endless games. However, in big storms even groups may find it hard to pass the time. I once led a ski tour in Greenland and, at our highest camp, on the ice cap, stormy weather kept us trapped in the tents for four days. A few people had brought paperback books which became highly valuable. The generous owners allowed them to be torn into sections and passed round so everyone had something to read at least some of the time. Those book pages were more valuable than anything else for those few days.

  Bothies

  On those trips where the rain beats down day after day and the wind thrashes your tent through the nights, lying inside a small and increasingly damp piece of nylon can eventually become unappealing, and that’s when bothies enter their own. These simple unlocked shelters have two big advantages over a tent in stormy weather. Firstly, they don’t shake noisily in the wind and flick condensation at you. Secondly, they have space in which you can stand and move around without having to don all your clothes and venture into the wind and rain. Bothies only have basic facilities, sometimes being no more than one room with a wooden floor. Many have several rooms though, plus wooden sleeping platforms, old chairs, tables and a fireplace or stove. There often isn’t any fallen wood nearby so fuel may need to be carried in if you want a fire.

  My first introduction to bothies was during a Pennine Way walk one April long ago. Coming off Cross Fell in dense wet mist I found Greg’s Hut and spent a warm night there after drying out damp gear in front of a fire. Since then I have spent many nights in bothies and grown to love the individual quirks and designs of the many different buildings that have been pressed into service.

  Bothies are particularly welcome on winter trips, especially when the weather is stormy, as spending long hours cooped up in a small tent can become wearisome. I was reminded of this one February when I hiked the Southern Upland Way, a thirteen day trip on which the weather was mostly wet and windy. My second day was spent in wind, rain and low cloud and by the time I reached the little wooden Beehive bothy amongst dripping trees in Galloway Forest Park. I was very glad of its shelter as I had a damp tent from the night before and the wet mist meant that any camp would be very soggy indeed. Next day the weather was worse, starting with drizzle and finishing with several hours of heavy rain, and throughout I was in thick damp mist. Rather than camp I decided to press on to the next bothy, White Laggan, which I reached long after dark, having been out for eleven hours during which I sloshed through some 42 kilometres. The bothy had a good store of wood and a stove so I was soon sitting in the warm, cooking my late supper and feeling amazingly relieved.

  Next morning I stuck my head outside as the first light was creeping over the land. My journal entry tells the story – ‘mist blasting past the bothy in wet waves. Very windy. No visibility’. I was glad I hadn’t spent the night in my damp tent.

  Bothies are also a place to meet other outdoors people and share experiences. I have had many interesting conversations with walkers and climbers over a hot brew and a bothy fire. Of course sometimes bothies can be crowded. Many years ago fifteen of us crammed into little Corrour bothy in the Cairngorms, which was really only big enough for half that number, and since then I have always carried a tent or tarp and been prepared to camp out if a bothy is f
ull.

  The only exception was when I planned a TGO Challenge Route across the Highlands using bothies plus a few B&Bs the whole way, including one high level rickety wooden hut that was blown down by the wind a few years later. On this trip I found another disadvantage of not carrying a tent – you have to reach the bothy regardless of conditions. Overall it was a difficult crossing, the hardest of the fifteen Challenges I have done. There was still deep snow on the hills and the weather was windy and frosty. An ice axe was essential and our route was changed a few times to deal with the conditions (we were blown back from an attempt on Ben Nevis).

  On reaching the Cairngorms we stayed in Ruigh Aiteachain bothy in Glen Feshie before crossing the Moine Mhor to Corrour bothy. The going was hard work due to the deep soft snow and it was late when we arrived on the rim of Coire Odhar high above the bothy. The snow on the steep upper slopes of the corrie was hard and icy and, having no crampons, we had to cut steps with our ice axes, slowly zigzagging back and forth across the slope until we reached easier ground. All the time we could see tents outside the bothy so we had the added worry that it might be full. To our great relief it proved to be empty. If we’d had tents we’d have camped on the tops or found an easier way down.

  Another attraction of bothies is the bothy book where visitors can record their thoughts, feelings and experiences. Here you can learn about suggested routes in the area, weather conditions at different times of year, problems with river crossings and see how many people use the bothy and at what times of year. (There is one bothy in the Eastern Cairngorms – the Shielin’ of Mark – that has a sudden spike in visitors in the middle of May when TGO Challengers pass by and hardly any visitors at any other time.)

  Bothies require maintenance if they are to remain safe and watertight of course. A wonderful volunteer organisation, the Mountain Bothies Association, does the work and deserves the support of everyone who ever uses a bothy. I joined it after my stay in Greg’s Hut and have been a member ever since.

  Camp Fires

  Flickering brightly as the flames gathered strength, overcoming the hissing of the damp wood, the fire lit up a small circle in the dark rainy forest. Inside the orange light there was warmth and comfort. Outside, the night was black, forbidding, almost sinister.

  The day had been frustrating, progress slow up the pathless, densely wooded valley where the going was awkward and finding a rhythm impossible. The sky was overcast, rain fell and the landscape and my mood were gloomy. Cooking away from my tent, as this was the Yukon Territory and grizzly and black bears lived here, I erected a tarp as a kitchen shelter.

  Sitting under it in the damp darkness I stared out at the shadowy trees and shivered. Craving warmth and light I scraped around for some dry tinder and ‘not too wet’ sticks, cleared a patch of soil in the mouth of the tarp and lit a small fire. The transformation was instantaneous. The world changed and with it my mood. Heat and brightness made my little camp a home rather than a functional necessity, friendly and cosy inside the circle of firelight. Outside, in the darkness, the rain fell relentlessly and the forbidding forest hung dark and oppressive, but I was no longer in that world. I was in one that was warm, bright and welcoming.

  Camp fires can do that, and have been doing so since humans first learnt to control fire. The desire to see those flames flickering and coals glowing is deeply ingrained in us. When wild camping, far from electric lights and heating, the yearning for a fire grows, especially if the weather is wet or cold. For some it’s not really camping if there’s no fire. Whilst I camp without a fire far more than with one I well understand the attraction. When I don’t have a fire it’s because I can’t light one without leaving a scar or because there is no suitable fuel. On some walks in remote wilderness areas such as the Yukon and the Canadian Rockies I have lit fires so regularly that it’s been worth bringing a light grill as a pot support, the weight justified by the stove fuel I didn’t need to carry. In most areas though fires are too damaging and a practical but rather soulless stove replaces them.

  Despite my delight in them I’d accepted that camp fires were a rare luxury, especially in the UK, but when little, lightweight, wood burning stoves appeared it became possible to have a miniature camp fire without leaving scars or even needing much wood. Just a handful of twigs produces a roaring blaze that is warming, enthralling and invigorating. I carried one of these stoves on the Pacific Northwest Trail and was delighted with my little camp fires.

  Once I’d cooked my meal and boiled water I could remove the pot, add more fuel and stare into the flames. Such a little, contained fire still had the power of a much, bigger open one, still produced the same enchantment and was just as absorbing. Back home I’ve used such a stove with pine cones in the woods and dead heather twigs in the hills.

  Warmth, light, cooking – all practical reasons to have a fire. The deeper reasons are the real ones though, and these are ethereal and internal with no immediately obvious function. Just watching the fire can seem like a pointless activity. It’s not though.

  The complex, ever-changing patterns of flames and slowly disintegrating twigs have a hypnotic, seductive power. Hours can pass as I stare into the fire, watching the embers glow and the sticks dissolve into pale ash, my face glowing from the heat. ‘Dreaming the fire’, a lovely phrase I learnt from Colin Fletcher’s The Thousand-Mile Summer, takes me out of time, into a world where the fire is all that exists. I find it to be amazingly relaxing and soothing, a marvellous way to unwind after a day’s walking, a way to empty my mind and allow whatever images the fire brings to enter my psyche.

  In the flames strange shapes and ideas are conjured, a magical world where nothing exists for more than a second. Outside the fire the other world still exists and sometimes softly intrudes on my meditations. The pale shapes of trees and rocks assure me I am in a natural place, the call of an owl from somewhere in the woods and the rustle of an animal in the bushes reminds me life goes on, the swish of wind in the branches and the gentle patter of rain remind me that the weather is not still. Glancing up when the sky is clear I marvel at the vast starry expanse, a universe of unimaginable size, and look back down into the tiny yet no less wonderful world of the fire. Often it’s only when the last flames die that I shake myself, surprised to discover how much time has passed. It feels as though only seconds have gone by.

  3

  BACKPACKING TALES

  Footpaths, trails and tracks lead the backpacker through the wilds, over the hills and down the dales. A nice clear path makes walking easy and route finding simple. Just follow that narrow ribbon of dirt to your destination. I can walk many miles a day on a good path, and if the trail is smooth and wide I can look round and enjoy the country. Of course, many paths are bumpy and uneven, beset with stones, roots, puddles and holes. They still lead you towards your goal but you do have to pay attention. Then there are those trails that fade away, perhaps to reappear after a few hundred yards, perhaps not, or are thin and indistinct.

  I like footpaths and have followed thousands of miles of them over the years, but there is a little problem with that strip of worn ground disappearing into the distance. It holds you away from nature, away from the trees, the rocks, the tussocks, the bogs, the hard reality of the landscape. Compared with the alienation from the wild produced by motorised travel (culminating in the total lack of contact with anywhere in jet planes) this is slight - but it is real, and the more manicured and waymarked the path the more it intrudes. Many, particularly in areas like the Alps, are like those found in urban parks: sanitised, denatured, tame. Wilderness paths should be rough and rugged, even harsh and jagged. They should fit the landscape and not be imposed on it as if dropped from on high, but even these are still made by people, still barriers to the full experience.

  Step off the path and the world changes. Suddenly there is no line leading you on. There is just the wild. You are in the landscape and not, merely, on the edge looking in. The direction you go in will now be decided by the natu
re of the land and by your desires. Now there is freedom but also responsibility. You cannot let the path make the decisions anymore.

  Reaching a destination cross-country and reaching it via a path are different experiences. The cross-country journey will probably need to be broken down into short sections – how to get through this band of forest or stretch of marsh, how to get down this ridge or up to this col – and you may have to retreat at times and look for another way past an obstacle. The relation between time and distance changes. Sometimes you may still be able to stride out, or you may find it takes an hour to progress a mile. Off-trail travel is not for those who like to make high mileages and cover big distances every day. It is for those who want close contact with nature and who want to learn about the landscape and how best to make a way through it.

  The most direct route is often the slowest and hardest when there is no trail. Finding the easiest way through the terrain becomes important and even then you may end up bruised, muddy, and exhausted only to find that you’ve made hardly any progress. I remember stumbling and clawing through almost impenetrable willow and alder thickets in the Little Twelve Mile River valley in the Tombstone Mountains in the Yukon Territory, clothes snagging and tearing on branches, soaked in sweat. A mile in an hour was good. I camped on a strip of stones overhung by willows wondering how to avoid doing it again. A thigh-deep river ford and a steep 600 metre climb through the forest to alpine tundra was the answer.