E-Book, Englisch, 432 Seiten
Allen Cairngorm John
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-912240-70-8
Verlag: Sandstone Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
A Life in Mountain Rescue: 10th Anniversary Edition
E-Book, Englisch, 432 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-912240-70-8
Verlag: Sandstone Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
John Allen is the long-serving, now retired leader of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team. He was instrumental in leading the team forward on all fronts including training, technical advances and funding. Born in 1942 in Glasgow he was, for many years, a practicing pharmacist in the Highlands. He was awarded an MBE for services to mountain rescue by Her Majesty the Queen.
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PROLOGUE
The Mountains
The Cairngorms in Scotland are a mountain range, a hard reality, a unique and sensitive environment, a playground, a sanctuary, an idea. The name ‘Cairngorm’ is a modern development taken from the name of a single mountain. A Gaelic word it means ‘blue hill’, with ‘cairn’ implying a high degree of rockiness. It is not the true Gaelic name of the range, which is ‘Am Monadh Ruadh’, but those puzzling ‘dhs do not sit well in the mouths of English-language speakers.
The name is also applied to wider areas with boundaries that vary depending on the authority involved. The area as described in the Scottish Mountaineering Trust’s guidebook, The Cairngorms by Dr Adam Watson, covers Ben Rinnes in the north to a line drawn between Pitlochry and Montrose in the south, with the west side boundary running down the centre of the River Spey. Against this, the Cairngorm National Park Authority crosses the Spey to place its boundary along the crest of the Monadhliath hills (‘liath’ means ‘grey’). The heart of the matter though, is the mountain range which has its own history, literature, songbook, human ecology, plant forms, animals, birds; it even has its yeti figure in the Great Grey Man of Ben MacDhui. If ghosts exist it most certainly has ghosts.
Even in planetary terms its rocks are old. Five hundred million years ago masses of molten rock emerged from the earth to form mountains many times higher than those of today. Glaciers, wind and water gradually eroded them to their foundations, the three relatively flat plateaux of the Cairngorm massif at around 1,200m above sea level. The westernmost of these plateaux has the most peaks with seven designated as Munros – mountains attaining a height of 3,000ft as measured in imperial units. The wide flat area between these peaks is termed the Great Moss, the name it gives to the whole plateau.
The central plateau has two Munros, Cairngorm and Ben MacDhui, with the two outliers known as Beinn Mheadhoin and Derry Cairngorm, and takes its name from the most famous of them to be generally known as the Cairngorm Plateau. Although the most celebrated peak, Cairngorm is not the highest. Before the hills of Scotland were surveyed with modern accuracy Ben MacDhui was thought to be the highest mountain in Scotland. In fact, it is the second highest after Ben Nevis. In Ben MacDhui, Cairngorm, and across the Lairig Ghru, Braeriach and Cairn Toul, this range boasts the next four highest peaks in the British Isles.
Granite does not allow for tremendous fertility and neither does the almost constant south-west wind that blows unhindered from the Atlantic to trouble the gravel and short spiky grass of the tundra. Across Beinn a’Bhuird and Ben Avon, on the easternmost plateau, these processes have formed weird rock shapes that could pass for modern art sculptures.
On the plateaux themselves there is much to be seen, although it tends not to be noticed by the untutored eye. A herd of reindeer was introduced in the 1950s, tiny alpine plants blossom in their seasons, the bare, exposed rock faces take all manner of forms, and flocks of a most charming little bird, the snow bunting, arrive each year from the Arctic to nest among the boulder fields. The robotic weather station on Cairngorm was built for the use of mountain rescuers as a radio shack, but everyone who uses the mountain professionally knows it as ‘The Igloo’. Provided it is in sight a rescuer can be in contact with others who might be below the horizon. Effectively it is a repeater station. Its location though, makes it ideal for long-term studies so Heriot-Watt University adapted it to test outside conditions every 20 minutes or so. It is a good, practical example of co-operation between bodies with a substantial overlap of interest, although unwary hillwalkers have been known to jump out of their boots when a gleaming cylinder of plastic and steel grinds noisily out of the roof.
The area features three great mountain passes that have been used by travellers since human beings first arrived in these parts. Glen Feshie links Strathspey in the north with Deeside in the south. The Lairig an Laoigh, the Pass of the Cattle, was used in earlier times by Highland drovers herding their beasts to the markets at Crieff and Callander.
Most famous of all is the central pass, the Lairig Ghru that joins Coylumbridge and White Bridge, dividing the Great Moss from the Cairngorm Plateau. At its crest the Pools of Dee at 760m are usually taken to be the source of the River Dee that runs ever widening to Aberdeen and the sea. However, the Wells of Dee, high on Braeriach, to my mind have at least an equal claim. In former times traversed by cattle, but too rugged to be paved for vehicles, the Lairig Ghru remains more or less unspoiled and one of the world’s great mountain walks.
Equally distinguishing are the huge, bowl-like corries that have been carved by glaciers from the sides of the mountains. Photographs do not do justice to the scale. For a full appreciation it is necessary to go there, especially into the Lairig Ghru, to stand beneath the Highland sky and look up. Eagles live here, as do ptarmigan, and dotterel lay their eggs on the high tundra.
The mountain features carry names that bear testimony to the primacy of Gaelic in former times and act as a repository of lore, but the language has long since been displaced by English. In the nineteenth century the Highland Clearances took their toll when the native people were evicted in favour of large estates and sheep. Those remaining suffered the imposition of a class system such as had been unknown to their ancestors and was contrary to their traditions.
Theirs is a great and important story but it is not this story. Rather it is one factor in what the Cairngorms have become, to be acknowledged as an irreversible tragedy but otherwise accepted. Different people live and work here now and have made their commitments to remain and to build.
In Glen Feshie and Glen Derry, in Rothiemurchus to the north, around the Dee to the south, are stands of Scots Pine and mixtures of broadleaved native trees, birch, alder and willow, remnants of a much greater woodland environment. The forests have been attacked and diminished by man for centuries, but much good work is now being done to preserve and extend what remains. Even what we have teems with birdlife, redwing, goldeneye, the rare Scottish crossbill, capercaillie. They are also home to red squirrels, hare, red deer, many kinds of moth, dragonflies.
The Northern Corries are more rugged than the corries to the south and are a magnet for climbers and rough walkers. The four greatest are Coire na Ciste (of the Chest, or Coffin), Coire Cas (of the Foot), Coire an t-Sneachda (of the Snow), and Coire an Lochain (of the Lochan, or Tarn), and several of the massif’s notable summits are situated on their edge, including Cairngorm itself. Each of these peaks is marked by a cairn, and all are important wayfinders in low visibility, none more so than the unnamed Point 1141 between Coire Cas and Coire an t-Sneachda.
The years after the Second World War saw an increase in the steady growth of popularity that outdoor pursuits had enjoyed for several decades. As a consequence, in 1947, the Glenmore Lodge Outdoor Centre was established beside Rothiemurchus Forest in the foothills of the Northern Cairngorms, providing training for anyone with an interest in the outdoors. From the outset its instructors raised the levels of knowledge and standards of competence in all sorts of outdoor activities, winter hillwalking, rock climbing, kayaking and more.
Through the decades Glenmore Lodge has developed from no more than a few huts into a sophisticated complex of buildings and technical equipment. In the same period its reputation for progressive outdoor education has widened from a relatively small group of enthusiasts in Scotland into an international circle of appreciation and acknowledgement. Parallel communications systems have been created between this complex and the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team’s new Rescue Centre near Aviemore and, on those occasions when a mishap occurs in the Northern Corries, the Rescue Team will often use Glenmore Lodge as its Control Centre. With the full and active support of successive Glenmore Lodge Principals, instructors make themselves available for mountain rescue operations in these areas if at all possible. Due to their location they are often first on the scene and, in these circumstances, the two Teams work almost as one.
In 1960 and 1961, two years before the foundation of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team itself, a new road was built onto the mountain from near the Outdoor Centre, with chairlifts to hoist skiers onto the higher snowfields and to the new Ptarmigan Restaurant only 150m below the summit. From that time access into the corries has been made easier and walking and climbing activities have increased to a significantly higher level. Between 1999 and 2001 a funicular railway was constructed from the road’s end to a new improved Ptarmigan Restaurant against a background of much environmental discussion, and has proved a popular tourist attraction.
The area to the south and south-east has always been more populated because nature made the land more fertile. It takes more of the sun, and the same ice sheet that shattered the northern faces 10,000 years ago made easier slopes and created a richer soil. It enjoys the presence of royalty which brings its own sub-culture of ceremony and style, and encourages tourism, and the Dee is one of the world’s great salmon rivers. This is where herds...
