Information for Cape Wrath Trail caperers and some musings on gear

Just to milk this little adventure as much as possible in terms of blogging inches, I thought I'd summarize a few potentially  useful notes for anyone else thinking of setting out on a Cape Wrath Trail caper, as well as add some thoughts on a few bits of kit I took with me for the trip.

The following information relates to how things were in July 2010.  River levels can go up as well as down, bridges can fall into disrepair and become unsafe, etc, etc.  Standard terms and conditions apply.

Useful information (well we would have found it useful)

Mostly this relates to places to stay and to eat.  There are a few notes on route-finding specifics in the individual posts for each day.  I still don't know the correct way to get out of KLH.

There are bothies at

• Corry Hully (3 miles from Glenfinnan)
• A Chuil (western end of forestry in Glen Dessary)
• Sourlies - this is very small but there is enough excellent camping space outside for a small army
• Barisdale - £3 per person per night.  Camping in the field opposite the bothy at £2 ppn.  See http://www.barisdale.com/.  Camping in the bay is not allowed.

There are no opportunities for wild camping between Kinloch Hourn and Glen Shiel or at least it is all very lumpy and wet.  The shelter on the west side of Buidhe Bheinn (at NGR 940096) - the Garden Shed - should only be considered for emergency use and is very small.

The camping spots noted by Brook and Hinchcliffe along the River Carnach look ok.

There is no camping at Killilan.  There is a bunk house at Camas-Luinie.  There is a good wild camping site in Glen Ling ( at NGR 945327).

There are hotels at Glen Shiel (Kintail Lodge) and Strathcarron.  Be warned that the prices for Kintail Lodge are per person not per room (next time I will be more careful to check such things).

Kintail Lodge also has a bunk house and a drying room.

There are tea rooms at Kinloch Hourn, the Jac-o-Bite at Glen Shiel and at the Pottery a mile south of Stratchcarron.

River crossings

Most river crossings were bridged and the bridges in a safe state.

There is a bridge across the River Carnach, after Sourlies at NM865964, which is in need of repair but appears usable with care (I walked over it and back)

We had river crossing problems at :

NG928107 where the river coming off Buidhe Bheinn meets the Allt Coire Mhalagain (day 5)

NG934163 where the Allt a Chiore Chaoil meets the Allt a coire Uaine (day 5)

NH006265 where the Allt na Laoidhre meets Allt a Ghlomaich (day 6)



Gear

I'd bought a few new bits of kit for this walk.  Most of them performed well.

Neoair Regular - This was good once I got the hang of inflating it hard enough.  It takes me more than the dozen man sized puffs stated in the literature.  Maybe that's for the small one.  The first time I used it, it felt like a water bed but I think it was a bit soft.  It requires 20 of my sized puffs. It's quite narrow but I've got used to that.  I think it was probably worth the money.  It would be interesting to try the larger size.

Skin So Soft  - This just didn't work, well not as a midge repellant.  The chap who runs the cafe at Kinloch Hourn said it didn't work for him either

Skin So Soft + Lavendar Oil (as suggested by Alan Rayner) - This didn't work either but it does make sweaty armpits and socks smell a lot nicer!

Garmin Geko 201 GPS - this worked very well, though the stated accuracy was quite low in some areas surrounded by high mountains.  Don't know if that is usual for this sort of device.  It usually found the satellites in under a minute.  Anyway, it did what I wanted, which was to confirm where I was, is very small and light (88g) and is a doddle to use.  My son reckons that the eTrex H finds the satellites a bit quicker than the Geko.  My experience is that the Geko takes up to a minute to find them, unless it is completely lost and you accidentally press the wrong button, when it takes 20 while it seems to scan the entire universe for signs fo life.

Evernew Titanium cooking pot - There are good reviews of these coming out in the press but I was a bit disappointed with mine for a couple of reasons.  The metal is so thin that it doesn't disperse the heat from a pocket rocket very well.  If all you want to do is boil water, it works fine but heating up rice or a non-freeze dried bag meal usually ends up with food burnt on the bottom of the pan, even if you use very low heat.  I've read since, that titanium is a poorer conductor of heat than aluminium, so the heat won't disperse across the pan base as quickly.  It's probably better with a wider diameter burner but that would add weight to the overall setup, which makes you think you'd be better of sticking with a pocket rocket and aluminium pan. 

Also, the lid flips over sometimes if you don't place it on the pan too carefully and then it's a faff getting it the right way up without burning your fingers.  Finally, the plastic sleeves on the handles could do to be a bit longer.  When they get warm the plastic softens and they slip, so it's possible to end up holding the metal bit, which can be hot.

TravelTap - I blogged about this last year but it's worth saying here that I still love it and the convenience of having fresh tasting, pure water instantly from just about any water source.

Osprey Exos 58 rucksack - I love this rucksack.  I love the pockets.  I keep my wet whether gear in the main one on the back (front?), GPS and day snacks in the mesh ones on the hip belt. water bottles in the mesh side pockets and a ton of stuff in the top and side zip pockets.  If I pack it right, I can go the whole day without having to open the top to get into the  main compartment.

MemoryMap and Ortlieb A5 map case - I cribbed this setup from Alan Sloman after the Moffat-Peebles debacle.  Rather than buy expensive waterproof paper to print from Memory Map, print on standard A4 paper, fold it in half and use an Ortlieb A5 map case, which is both a convenient size and totally waterproof.   I kept the maps I wasn't using for the day in a ziplock plastic wallet inside the drysack inside my rucksack.  Previous day's maps can be easily disposed of, e.g.as emergency bog paper or for setting fire to things!

There are two things I need to sort out still.  One is a way of keeping my feet drier and the other is experimenting with some freeze dried food.  Last time I tried this stuff, 15 years ago probably, it was disgusting but it sounds like it may have got better.  My daily food ration currently weighs around 750g, which for 4 days feels too heavy - at least I wouldnt complain if it was lighter, as long as what I was carrying tasted ok and didn't leave me feeling hungry.

The Hohneck

Over the years of travelling I've found that some of the most interesting places you come across are the ones you find by happenstance. The deserted beach in north west Scotland with golden sands stretching as far as the eye can see, the bistro/cafe in back lane of a city or a family run hotel deep in the countryside with an unpromising facade but a menu of superbly cooked, local dishes (and really here I'm thinking France for this) and of course that surprise view, as you round a corner on a road or a mountain track (though it's less of a surprise if someone has marked it on a map as 'Surprise View')

And so it as with the Hohneck (1362m), third highest point in the Vosges, an area of north east France, to the west of the Rhine and geographically and geologically speaking the French equivalent of the Black Forest on the German side of the Rhine.  It's part of the Alsace, which over the centuries has changed hands between those two countries, the last time being after WW1, when it became French once more, and this explains the number of German place names.  It's terribly confusing, especially when the local French people speak to you in German.

I was on a road trip last week with my daughter in our campervan.  We'd arrived in Calais, driven up through the Belgian Ardennes and then onto Luxembourg city, a quick visit into Germany, past the steel industry of Saarbrucken, which possibly makes Sheffield, even at it's peak of steel production look a bit tame, and then crossed back into France with the intention of looking round the old part of Strasbourg.  We arrived in the Vosges from Strasbourg not exactly by chance but certainly by circumstance, preferring not to cross back into Germany and the Black Forest (it feels so tense on that side of the Rhine) and constrained to be back at Calais in 5 days time, thus putting a limit on how far south we could go.

We stopped on a campsite on the edge of Munster, a small town of robust cheese and a spectacularly pretty main street of colourful half timbered buildings and so clean and tidy, it could be in Switzerland. Gone it seems are the days of France being a country full of litter and toilet paper. Even my daughter commented on how there were no discarded sweet wrappers and drinks bottles on our walk.

The road out of Munster goes up to the Col de la Schlucht (a name having an impossible number of adjacent consonants, so that it could almost be Welsh, only it's German - or is it French? I give up.).  Anyway, it's a bit like the Snake Pass only easier to drive and having a small ski centre at the summit of the col at 1139m.

It was a rather grey and blustery but we were up for a walk and the Hohneck was only about 3kms away and 100 vertical metres.  As the detail on my road map was a bit thin even for such a short walk, we called in one of the shops on the col and picked up an IGN 1:25k.  This only served to confuse me more. "That way", I pronounced, trying to sound confident, pointing south and we set of towards the base of the chair lift where, given the lack of obvious path, I decided to risk some dodgy French on the man selling tickets for the luge d'ete. "Monsieur.  Le sentier pour le Honeck, c'est par ici?" Amazingly it worked and he told us to go up the piste to the top ski station and follow the "ballons rouges" which were large orange lollipops on poles. It was a bit of a steep pull up by the side of the lift but levelled out at the top into a pleasant stroll through woods of birch and oak and some other kinds of arbres, and we strolled along a track lined with myrtilles (bilberries ) and wild raspberries which necessitated frequent harvesting stops.

After 1 to 1.5 km, the woods give way to open countryside, along a ridge of alpine meadows and grazing bell toting cows, with steep cliffs of volcanicky looking rock falling away to the Munster valley on one side and more gentle slopes on the other. This is part of the GR5, the Routes des Cretes. On the far side of the coombe about a km away, we could see a rounded summit with a building on it, which we hoped might be a mountain cafe, as it indeed was. You can in fact drive to within a few metres of the summit, so there were quite a lot of non-walkers inside as well as a couple of backpackers, who looked like they were on a more serious mission.

Tartes aux Myrtilles guarded by the madame!











On the walls were pictures of the region, a few cow bells and other items of 'tat' to tempt the tourist. I ordered drinks and a tarte aux myrtilles for the two of us and we watched out of the window as the thin, whispery clouds raced up the valley at our eye level and a few spots of rain started to fall. The tarte was heavenly - my daughter said it was the best thing she had ever eaten - and had the tray of remaining tartes not been so well guarded by the madame, we might have been tempted to run off with it. The coffee on the other hand was an extreme disappointment. It used to be that any self-respecting establishment in France would serve real coffee made with freshly ground arabica beans as a proper, full on espresso created with all the hissing and wooshing gadgetry of a Gaggia. That no longer seems to be the case and whereas in England now everywhere serves coffee, usually made with cheap, bitter tasting beans, a culture of 'instant' seems to have overtaken France.  Quelles horreurs, c'est un catastophe! I do hope I'm wrong on this and I've just been unlucky in the places I've bought cofffee on this trip but I suppose working an espresso machine is a dying art.

Mountain restaurant at top of Hohneck












The wind was no less blustery when we stepped outside but the cloud had come in, so we took a few quick photos of some murk from the summit and headed back out of the car park to retrace our steps. By the time we reached the top ski station, the lateness due in part to yet more myrtille forraging, the lift had stopped. I'd hoped we might blag a ride down as my daughter has never been on a ski lift.  Instead we made do with walking and trying to spot where we'd left the campervan, debating whether I had in fact put the hand brake on.

It wasn't a big walk but it was quite special.

(More pics to follow)

Three Norberts and a V Diff

I spent last weekend with some friends from university days, Nick and Anne, who live in Kendal and who are obviously in demand as a base for adventures in the Lakes.

On Saturday we walked up onto High Street from Hartsop.  It goes without saying that the weather was pants.  I don't seem to be able to go outside Derbyshire these without walking into rain.  Leaving the car park and a group of intense looking mountain bikers who were engages in assembly their double sprung machines (lets hope they didn't get them from Ikea), we strolled up the track to Hayes Water.   For some reason I had it in my head that Wainwright's ashes were scattered here and we debated why he would want to end up in such a uninspiring location.

Hayes Water

Actually, I've just checked and they are by Innominate tarn on Haystacks.  You can see my mistake, Hayes Water, Haystacks.  Anyway...

Summit of The Knot












We plodded up the bridleway and speculated if the bikers had set up their gears and would be making an appearance any time now (they did - in case you wanted to know).  And we bagged out first Norbert of the day, The Knot..

A brief word about Norberts

Norberts are my response to tickers.  Norberts are to be climbed because they are there, for the pure pleasure of the hill and not for any statistic (especially one that is meaningless now OS maps are metricated) that may have been attributed to them by some glory seeking, albeit possibly well-intentioned, individual.   The only rule for a hill to be counted as a Norbert is that it should have a summit.  Norberts shouldn't be tickable but that would rule out anything that was a Munro, Marylin, Birkett (i.e. most of the hills in Lakes), Corbett or Nuttal (and I'm sorry if I have missed any).  I haven't quite resolved this dilemma yet but I'm working on it.

There is a sub-class of Norbert, which is a hill that is 'in the way'.  It's the unwelcome hill that lies between where you are and where you want to be.  These I refer to as Fekkin Norberts although the descriptor may be modified to one of your own chosing.  Clearly one person's Norbert may be another's Fekkin Norbert and vice versa.

The Knot, sports a summit cairn and pillar built from stones pillaged from the nearby wall.  Nick, a planner for the National Park, was critical of this wanton destruction of local heritage, even though the wall no longer serves any purpose.  A brief photo stop against grey skies and we headed onto High Street.  Somewhere near the trig point we stopped for a snack and to sit in the rain and following that felt no inclination to go in search of the actual highest point, so we headed on to Thornthwaite Beacon.  High Street doesn't have much of a clearly defined summit (it's more of a ridge if one were to get picky about it), so its Norbert status is questionable but I counted it on this occasion. You can have hours of pointless fun with this malarkey.

The Beacon is a stone tower and must have some history to it but I haven't researched it yet, so I'm going to make some up.  Built by a jealous farmer, he locked his beautiful daughter in there to protect her from unwanted suitors and also so she could watch over his sheep during the day as they grazed on the fellsides.  Every night he would bring food to the tower and she would let down her plaited hair, which was the texture of tousled Herdwick wool (she wasn't actually that beautiful), with which to raise the basket of vittals.  What happens after that I'll leave to your imagination. I'm bored with this now.

The Beacon

The track from the Beacon is a knee-wrecking descent to a col, either side of which are magnificent U shaped valleys, and is followed by a lung-wrenching climb up to Stony Cove Pike, the third Norbert of the day.  And hey, the clouds lifted and the skies cleared and we were bathed in sunshine and it was good.  We could see half the Lakes and down to Heysham Head and over to the Howgills and across to Ingleborough. 

From there we headed over Caudale Moor and down a much longer knee-wrecking descent to the road and a conveniently sited pub, where we felt obliged to consume a small but refreshing glass of beer before continuing round the back of Brothers Water (in the rain) back to the car.

Distance 9 miles, Upness (and down-ness)  3300 ft

Sunday - Wallowbarrow Crag

On Sunday, Anne and I drove round to the Duddon Valley and climbed a route on Wallowbarrow Crag.  It's almost 20 years since I last climbed here and at least 10 since I climbed anywhere in the Lakes.  Wall and Corner (195 ft) is a Hard Diff in my 1984 guide but is now graded V Diff in the current edition, which works for me.  It's four pitches and the first one felt decidedly thin for a VD, whilst the second came with the added frisson of being wet on the crux moves.  I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I was starting to look for an abseil point when I decided to have one last go with a hand jam in a greasy, wet crack and a smear on the damp wall. Commitment is the name of the game and this seemed to get my head in the right place, as the final two pitches were just a dream, with good gear placements and lots of variety.  Best of all the sun was out and, standing on grassy ledges whilst belaying Anne up, I remembered how much I used to love this aspect of climbing.  It's just the fear thing I could never really come to terms with.

Wallowbarrow Crag, Duddon Valley