On the trail of the lonesome pine

Garadhban Forest,

West Highland Way

10th December

It was only two days after Hurricane 'bawbag' had passed through Scotland, leaving a trail of destruction, the worst winds we have experienced for over 10 years.

In the calm after the storm, a walk on the West Highland Way over Conic Hill would give us exercise before the Christmas food excesses.

It's a club tradition to wear appropriate silly headgear on a Christmas walk. The girls qualify.

Andy looked the part for a festive remake of the 1979 film 'Alien' - with Santa bursting out of his chest....

 ......'see you Jimmy' Graham, and 'Elvis' Bill, looked just as bizarre.

It was very misty and murky with no chance of views, but we were our usual happy chatty, nonsense talking group, as we strode out along the forest track.

It wasn't long till we came to a fallen tree or two....none of us had thought about this.

It was fun for a while but the detours became harder and harder as we sought out safe routes.

A staggering amount of timber had been blown down, shows the strength of the windstorm.

 Andy pretending to be superhuman, or perhaps a tree hugger?

 Our route was interesting to say the least.

Single trees were just as difficult to get around as you couldn't easily clamber through them.

Fallen timber wasn't just on the WHW forestry track. Deep in the woods hundreds of trees had been blown over.

Some had just snapped -

- to fall right in our path.

To continue to Conic hill and Balmaha was going to take a long while - a decision was made to loop back to our start point.
It wasn't only conifers that had fallen, some natural wood as well, 
but still difficult to get through!

Conifers are relatively shallow rooted - this shows the root spread of a large tree.

 We were getting weary of constant bushwhacking. 

Do you think 'Elvis' modeled for the Forestry Commission sign? Scary....

An eerie scene - the lonesome tree in the mist -
giving a feeling of surveying battlefield remains.

Studying the info board at the start of the track we couldn't believe how short a distance we had covered - all of 4 km in two and half hours.

Web advice a couple of weeks later stated:
  “A route diversion is in place at Garadhban Forest on the approach to Drymen due to fallen trees blocking the Way. Users are advised that other parts of the route may be impassable due to storm damage. A full inspection is under way, in the meantime please take care and avoid taking unnecessary risks.”
I think we were some of the first to discover this!

We ended up the day at the Clachan in Drymen, for a bowl of soup.

With all the devastation in Scotland after the storm - why did we choose a forest walk today? ! 

The would be wood walkers were;

Dee, Roni, Elizabeth, Graham, David, Ron, Andy, Bill and Gordon.

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Sheila's Wet Top

Birthday Celebrations - Conic Hill

Saturday 9th August

Sheila organised this trip, her first in a long time; as she lives in Holland you can appreciate the difficulties!

Originally Sheila's plan was to climb a Munro; it was quickly scaled down to something more manageable as the weather wasn’t looking too clever.

Having lived abroad for over 20 years, Sheila was looking forward to a wee holiday ‘in the old country’ to show her family how beautiful Scotland is…..……cue for the rain to start and the midges to come out!

It was a shame the weather was poor; it made for a rather soggy top.

However the Aarts family took the opportunity of taking the dog for a walk.
Andy ‘Poppins’ had the right equipment today, bet he was glad it wasn’t the breezy North wind.
The younger Aarts would rather have been anywhere but a slippery slope in Scotland.

The top reached, it was time for celebrations, so a quick swig of juice was in order.

HSE ordered Jacques to stand well back.

Fizzy pop……mmm…….Yummmmy.

This birthday girl was really enjoying herself
Shelia's wee sister, Pat, tried to convince Andy that she had the latest in Goretex top’s;
but he wasn't wearing it…….
On the descent the rain was streaming down: It was handy Andy had a brolly - and we all piled in!

Jacques needed glasses wipers.Our descent was very wet, and the path had become a mini-river.
As we entered the trees above Balmaha the sun broke through the clouds, now why couldn’t it have been like this on the top?
For the benefit of our Dutch visitors who didn’t see anything, Conic hill is a fine easy walk with excellent views.

Our birthday girl was pleased to see so many people had turned out to support her celebrations. Has she forgotten that free drink is a magnet to the Moray Club?

The Aarts family went on to have a wet holiday...........................

Conic Hill & 'a lovely scone'

27th January 2008

Not much free time this week for a big hill, but we all wanted some excercise.

We left the Garadhban carpark above Drymen for a short walk over Conic Hill.

There was four of us, five if you count Pooh Bear.

Roni and Elizabeth set off at a cracking pace and it was all Andy and Bill could do to keep up.

There have been major forestry operations along this track and the character of this section of the way has changed considerably .

Garadh Ban Wood used to be a favourite part with dense trees, a narrow winding path and glimpses of the open hill beyond, now it's just an area of clearcut.

We were going so fast that we overtook the other walking groups.

Soon we had the hill to ourselves.

A flooded Endrick mouth told how much rain had fallen in the previous week.

It was warm, in fact it was an exceptonally mild day for January and looking around us the higher tops were shrouded in cloud. We completed our walk in around 2.30 hours, which is fairly brisk!

Deirdre, eat your heart out, we retired to the Oak Tree where we had coffee and 'a lovely scone'.

Looking forward to our Burns Weekend - we might manage above 1000'