Before we headed out to look at the area the scheme was explained and I was shown detailed maps of the forest divided into different types of area. No planting was going on in the mature natural forest or in areas where there was good regeneration I was told. Overgrazing isn’t a problem in Abernethy now as deer numbers have been reduced and sheep removed. However, there is a wide band of higher ground where the sheep used to graze, that runs up to what should be the natural treeline of 650 metres, where there are no trees at all and so no seed source for regeneration. There are also areas of previously felled and then planted forest where many tree species are absent. It’s in these areas that the RSPB is planting small groups of trees to provide a seed source. The planted areas won’t be extensive, just small clumps, and there will be no cages or fences.
Out in the field I was shown some aspen that had been planted on heather moorland. I would never have known they weren’t the product of natural regeneration. Higher up, we found the last tiny pines still well below the 650 metre line. It was clear that there would be no natural regeneration here for a very long time. The RSPB has set a 200 year goal for the return of the forest so even with the planting it will take a long time. For walkers there will be no discernible sign of this management, unlike in Eskdale and Glen Affric. That’s because the RSPB owns the land and has control of grazing, which takes us back to the start of this piece and the question of what sort of landscape we want. For myself the idea of the returning forest is exciting and inspiring. I’ll only see it beginning but that is a joy in itself.
Across Scotland with pylons (and fences, roads and plantations)
This is the story of a walk across the Highlands in search of ugliness. It was my twelfth coast-to-coast TGO Challenge but on this occasion I approached the event from a slightly different and, it must be said, less positive viewpoint. I’d been impressed by David Jarman, speaking at the public inquiry into the Beauly-Denny power line (a string of huge pylons running down the Highlands that has now been built), when he painted a picture of the slow attrition wearing away the wild character of the Highlands. In an email he said ‘amazing how difficult it is to get hold of ‘ugly Highlands’ images - I don’t take them, others I have asked don’t’ in the context of producing a presentation showing the effect the proposed Beauly-Denny pylons would have.
As I was soon to set out to walk from Strathcarron to St Cyrus I thought that maybe I would take some ‘ugly Highland images’. I too had never taken many of these in the past and I knew full well why. When in the hills I want to appreciate the beauty and wildness that remain and try and block out any ugliness or intrusions. For that reason I’ve always planned high level routes, keeping as far as possible to the relatively unspoilt summits and passes and away from the degraded glens. I did the same this time but once I’d started photographing intrusions and damage I found that I couldn’t ignore it as easily as in the past. In fact I found myself looking for opportunities to include fences and bulldozed roads in photos rather than ways to cut them out. I can’t say I enjoyed this different mindset but it did make me very aware again of just how damaged some of our hill areas are. And I did return with a collection of ‘ugly Highlands’ images.
The first intrusion came in the form of a deer fence above Strathcarron complete with high stile and gate through which I could look across the strath to the harsh angular lines of a forestry plantation above which rose the dark outlines of the Achnashellach hills. Soon afterwards, a rusty old iron gate between two tall fence posts reminded me that such intrusions are not new. Over the Bealach Alltan Ruairidh a bulldozed road led to Bendronaig Lodge, an old road that was not too horrible compared with some I was to see. The ugliness faded as I crossed the boggy wastes between Loch Calavie and the Allt Coire nan Each, noting the old tree roots sticking out of the peat showing this area was once wooded, and then traversed the An Riabhachan – Sgurr na Lapaich ridge, finishing with a splendid wild camp on the col with Carn nan Gobhar. Up here the sight of the bathtub rings on the reservoirs either side of this ridge didn’t really impinge on my joy.
The next day I descended to the fake loch called Mullardoch with its bleak, bare shores and crossed Glen Cannich below the massive concrete ramparts of the dam. A blizzard on Toll Creagach cut out all views of ugliness and beauty, then it was down to always attractive Glen Affric, though I was more than acutely aware of all the deer fencing and the straight unnatural lines between the protected and unprotected land. Crossing to Glen Moriston I passed through some really nasty clear-cut forest on the way to Cougie before leaving the glen on the old military road and marching to Fort Augustus with a double line of pylons that looked like H. G. Wells’ Martians and were just as alien. This brought me to the start of the climb to one of the most trashed places in the Highlands, the Corrieyairack Pass, noting how ironic are the signs saying that General Wade’s road here is a protected historic monument. Maybe one day we can keep just one pylon – in a city park - as a historic monument and reminder. Warning signs told of the construction of the dam in Glen Doe just to the east, a huge intrusion into what was a vast wild area.
The Corrieyairack is a tangle of pylons, power lines and bulldozed roads and I was happy to escape it for a walk east over the misty, rain-strewn hills to the Monadh Liath. A short section of Strathspey with its main road and railway led to Glen Feshie, one of my favourite places but where I was horrified to discover that the bulldozed road in the upper glen, built without planning permission some years ago, had been renewed in places while in others 4WD vehicles had very recently gouged great ruts in the ground. Escaping the despoiled glens again I climbed lonely Carn Ealar and An Sgarsoch, then returned to tracks and roads at White Bridge from where I walked to Braemar.
Lochnagar was magnificent on a wild day of high winds, hail, rainbows and flashes of sharp sunlight. I circled round high above the Dubh Loch to Cairn Bannoch and Broad Cairn. A reminder of the fragility of this seemingly tough landscape intruded on the descent of the latter, the wide eroded track up its south eastern flanks being in sore need of repair. The bulldozed roads at the head of Corrie Chash are depressing too as are the gouged tracks on Sandy Hillock. From the latter I crossed the rolling heather and peat bog moorland to Glen Lee, where a bulldozed track runs deep into the hills almost to the head of the glen. Once on the track I was on the downhill slope to the coast and stuck on roads the rest of the way. One and half final days of striding out saw me on the beach at St Cyrus staring out at the sea. It had been a good walk, despite all the damage, but someone really ought to do something about it. I guess that means us.
A fragile freedom
The great corrie spread out far below, glistening as the early morning sun touched the rocks that were wet from the overnight rain. A thin white line split the topmost cliffs, the rushing water looking solid and immobile at this distance. Beside where this water slowed and spread, forming pools in the flat peat and heather bottom of the corrie, I’d camped the night before, looking out across the deep cleft of the Lairig Ghru to the bulky mass of Ben MacDui. Now I was high on a rocky ridge that soared upwards into the sky. The dark black oval of Lochain Uaine lay beneath my feet with the soaring spire of its namesake peak rising high above in a sweep of jagged, broken rock.
I went on up the rough slopes, revelling in the sunshine, the beauty of the mountains and the freedom to be here and the freedom of being here, of being able to wander freely in the hills, going where I wished, seeking out what lay round enticing corners, peeking into hidden niches and exploring everything offered by this glorious wild country.
The ridge ended suddenly and there, just a few metres away, lay the summit of Cairn Toul. Here, unsurprisingly, the solitude of the day was broken and I was soon joined by two others, ascending from their camp in Glen Geusachan. Talk initially was of the wonderful landscape of the Cairngorms that spread out all around us but it soon turned darker as the shadow that lay over all walkers in the spring of 2001 was mentioned: the foot and mouth outbreak. My compan
ions had come up from England to escape the closures still prevalent down there. Yes, they said, you could walk in some places, as long as you used certain access points, stuck to certain footpaths and returned to designated points. Regimented, controlled walking was not what they wanted so they’d come to the Highlands to walk in freedom.
Understandably the debate over the foot and mouth closures concentrated on regaining access, driven mainly by the need to bring visitors back and rescue the hard pressed economies of the hills. Why people go to the hills, what it means and why it is necessary tended to be forgotten. I think it’s important to look beyond the economic arguments and consider the less tangible reasons for access rights and why they should never be lost again.
Over a hundred years ago John Muir wrote ‘thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.’ For many of us that last phrase resonates with truth and meaning. ‘Wildness is a necessity’.
Not a hobby, not a casual pursuit, not a fashionable activity. A necessity. Necessary in order to feel whole, to feel free, to feel able to cope with the complexities and restrictions of the modern world. One of the great insults of the foot and mouth debacle was the dismissal of walking and climbing as unimportant, trivial, just hobbies that people could abandon for something else. No mention here of mental and spiritual renewal or physical wellbeing.
An essential component of wildness is freedom; freedom to go where and when you like, freedom from the rules and regulations that govern the world of work and urban living. Take that freedom away and the wildness disappears with it. That’s why disinfection points, controlled access, a plethora of notices and all the other attempts to regulate access to the hills during the foot and mouth outbreak were so objectionable. They destroyed the freedom of the hills, the sense of adventure and the sense of responsibility that goes with mountain exploration even for those who stick to footpaths.
My two companions on Cairn Toul needed that freedom, that’s why they were in the Cairngorms and not the English or Welsh hills. The absence of visitors even in villages and other ‘permitted’ places at the height of the crisis showed that others felt so too, even those who don’t walk far or venture high into the hills. For them, as interviews and letters in the press made clear, the countryside, even farmed lowland countryside, represented a freedom that was lacking in cities. So when the country roads were lined with Keep Out notices people stayed away. Just knowing that they couldn’t stop for a picnic or to wander a few hundred yards to a riverbank or into a forest meant they no longer felt free and no longer wanted to be there.
Days in the hills are a restorative, a way of slowing, relaxing, unwinding, and shedding the stresses of daily life. Watching a buzzard wheeling overhead, figuring out the next move on a rock climb, gazing into a rippling burn, navigating carefully across a mist-shrouded hillside all set you firmly in the present where nothing matters beyond the moment and where you are responsible for yourself. This I think is far more conducive to health and well-being than any amount of happy pills, sleeping potions or other chemical substitutes. A day in the hills, even a physically exhausting one, can lead to feelings of energy and renewed confidence in your ability to cope with everyday life.
Indeed, perhaps it is the physically exhausting, physically challenging days that are the most beneficial because they provide something not usually found in most people’s daily lives. Facing real challenges in uncontrolled wild country can have a marvellously recuperative effect. Just how good can be seen from the results of a two-week wilderness trip in 1972 on which 51 patients from the Oregon State Hospital all suffering from serious mental illness were taken backpacking, river rafting and rock climbing. Some of these people had been in the hospital for over ten years; all were felt to be incurable. However it was hoped that the trip would help them to come to terms with themselves and feel at least some degree of achievement and self-fulfilment. The results were astonishing and far beyond what was expected. Over half the group improved so much they didn’t need to return to hospital.
As well as helping you stay mentally well-balanced going to the hills is also of course a superb way to keep physically healthy. It will never be known just how many individuals suffered in mind or body because of their forced absence from the hills or how much it cost the health service.
Yet how easily the hills were ‘closed’, how suddenly we were told to stay away, as though going to the wilds was an irrelevance, something that mattered little to individuals or society. Most land managers, including some of those who were believed to hold land on behalf of everybody but who proved to be no better than private owners, gave no thought to the needs of those who use the wilds. Farming became the only activity worthy of support or even consideration, even though it was clear from the outset for those who bothered to look into the matter that keeping people off the hills would have no effect on the spread of foot and mouth. The knee-jerk reaction was to shut the land, claiming that walkers and climbers could spread a disease they had no contact with.
To prevent this happening again, to ensure that wild country is always available as a necessary counter to Muir’s ‘over-civilized’ world, the hills need to be viewed as belonging to everybody, to being there for everybody and not as the private playthings of the rich or the property of empire-building conservation bodies. The rights of access to wild land should be absolute. The freedom of the hills has proved to be alarmingly fragile. We need to ensure that it is strengthened.
*In 2003 the Scottish Parliament passed the Land Reform (Scotland) Act, which gives access rights to virtually all land.
Woods and wolves
I was crossing a big meadow when the feeling came over me that I was being watched. I stopped, looked towards the forest a few hundred yards away and froze with a mixture of awe, excitement and, I must admit, slight fear. On the edge of the trees a pack of wolves was watching me. There were six of them, ranging in colour from pale grey to almost black, all silent, alert, magnificent. I stayed still and after a few seconds the wolves began to slowly move away in single file, one of them always staying stationary, watching me. When the watcher fell to the rear of the line another would stop and the pack would continue. After several minutes they vanished into the trees and I breathed out and relaxed. Later in the evening I heard them howling, a wonderfully wild sound.
That incident, far away in the Yukon Territory, remains a highlight of all my days in wild places. I saw wolves once more on that trip and heard them howling many times more. How I would love to hear that sound in the Scottish Highlands! That thought occurred to me several times on my Scottish Watershed walk. The Highlands are wild but could be so much wilder.
During rainy evenings on the Watershed, cooped up in my shelter, I read three excellent books on rewilding and the reintroduction of wildlife. Two were by Jim Crumley – The Last Wolf and The Great Wood - and one, Feral, by George Monbiot. Crumley’s books are about wolves and forests in Scotland and discuss the history of these as well as proposals for the future while Monbiot’s book is more general, though centred on Wales. The message of these books is that for our wild places to become wilder, for their ecosystems to become healthier and more robust, extinct species, especially predators, need to be reintroduced.
Crumley particularly wants wolves, which he sees as being the key to the renewal of the Caledonian Forest. Monbiot spreads his suggestions more widely and accepts that wolves are unlikely in the near future. Lynx however, could be brought back now. Both authors mention the results of reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone National Park, which has led to far more positive changes than expected. As well as keeping deer numbers down the wolves have kept the deer moving, reducing grazing pressure. The deer now completely avoid some areas where the wolves could easily trap them, so in those places there is no browsing at all. This has allowed many plants to flourish and with them a host of birds and animals. It is a fascinating and inspiring s
tory.
Realistically wolves are unlikely to be reintroduced in Scotland in the near future, due to the opposition of estate owners and the false picture created about them over the centuries (well described in The Last Wolf). Other less controversial species could be reintroduced though such as lynx while beavers, already present both officially and unofficially (the latter seem to be doing best), could be released in more places. Cairngorms National Park is considering this.
In the meantime the main way for rewilding to take place is to allow natural forest regeneration, which means reducing deer numbers as overgrazing prevents new trees growing in many parts of Scotland. In the absence of large predators this can only be done either by increasing the numbers shot or by fencing deer out of forests. Where deer numbers have been reduced and sheep removed the results are startling as can be seen at the Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve where a new forest is springing up. I have seen the results much closer to home, though in this case due to abandonment of rough pastures rather than intentional removal of animals. There are wet meadows close to my home that are rapidly reverting to woodland now there are no cows or sheep grazing them. There are roe deer but not enough to prevent the new trees springing up.
The new forests that appear when overgrazing is ended will not be the same as the old Great Wood of Caledon (Jim Crumley reckons there were actually four separate ‘Great Woods’). It would be impossible to achieve this and anyway what period would you pick as the model to try and emulate? 5,000 years ago? 8,000? A new forest will be just that, new, and it will include introduced species such as European larch and even the much-maligned Sitka spruce. The latter, now the commonest tree in Scotland, would be impossible to eradicate anyway, and Sitka spruce not grown in regimented lines in dense plantations are magnificent trees. Ending the plantation system and the clear-cutting that leaves areas devastated would greatly improve forests. On the Watershed I often saw self-seeded spruce and larch growing outside of plantations and I delighted in seeing these free trees.
Out There Page 16