Gaick bike and hike
With a new mountain bike to take out for a spin and a strong urge for hills and solitude, I decided to head somewhere I've only been once before but fell in love with straight away: Gaick. This long and spectacular natural route from Glen Garry to Kingussie is just a few miles east of Drumochter, and it's only thanks to a few twists of historical fate that the A9, the railway and a line of massive pylons is routed through there rather than here.
I huffed and puffed up the track from Dalnacardoch Lodge, grinding the gears on my unfamiliar bike, nearly crashing on a downhill when I changed down to the small chainring thinking I was changing up to the big one. By the end of the day, on the way back, I'd just about got the hang of it. I was also already thinking about the modifications I could make - a 1 x chainring set-up for a start, which would relieve my tiny mind of a lot of the worries about gear changing, redundancies and crossed drivetrains. Anyway, it's many years since I've owned a mountain bike and enjoyed the thrill of riding on gravel tracks. I packed a long distance into a fairly short day - it's nice to expand the travel options, and bikepacking looks like something that may be within reach now - watch this space...
I powered up by the Edendon Water, past the empty house at Badnambiast, which would make a great bothy, past the curlews and anxious pipits, and ground to a halt in a muddy morass by the sad ruins of Sronphadruig Lodge. There are no lights now in these long glens of Gaick and Dalnacardoch and Dalnamein; the many summer shielings are rickles of overgrown stones, and the subsequent heyday of the sporting estates is long gone too.
I trudged up into the drizzle and clag in search of a of A'Chaoirnich, a Corbett on the east side of the pass. Not nice but not too threatening, a chance for a bit of navigation practice on the crisp plateau, following bearings and counting steps to the tiny summit cairn. Then another bearing off to the northwest, to find a wide boggy bowl, gathering waters and tipping them over the lip down a steep ravine into the Gaick. Deer tracks took me to slopes steep but unbroken and safe to descend. Then a wade across the river and lunch while the rain stopped and clouds brushed the plateaux, lifting all the while.
This is a place of vastness and serenity. Come here in the summer, camp on the grassy well-drained flats by the river. Sit outside until 11pm when it's still quite light, listen to the pipits and oystercatchers, let the sound of water send you to sleep. OK, there might be some midges, but still.
An Dun was another Corbett and a strange one, a steep-sided fragment of plateau which must have once been moated by gouging glaciers. It's steep north ridge narrows to something of an arete near the top. I climbed out of the world of pipits and into the realm of golden plovers and their squeaky-creaky calls. There were at least four up here and they traced wide anxious circles around me.
Schiehallion dominated the view south...
Then a steep descent back to the bike and a white-knuckle ride back down the glen.
I powered up by the Edendon Water, past the empty house at Badnambiast, which would make a great bothy, past the curlews and anxious pipits, and ground to a halt in a muddy morass by the sad ruins of Sronphadruig Lodge. There are no lights now in these long glens of Gaick and Dalnacardoch and Dalnamein; the many summer shielings are rickles of overgrown stones, and the subsequent heyday of the sporting estates is long gone too.
I trudged up into the drizzle and clag in search of a of A'Chaoirnich, a Corbett on the east side of the pass. Not nice but not too threatening, a chance for a bit of navigation practice on the crisp plateau, following bearings and counting steps to the tiny summit cairn. Then another bearing off to the northwest, to find a wide boggy bowl, gathering waters and tipping them over the lip down a steep ravine into the Gaick. Deer tracks took me to slopes steep but unbroken and safe to descend. Then a wade across the river and lunch while the rain stopped and clouds brushed the plateaux, lifting all the while.
This is a place of vastness and serenity. Come here in the summer, camp on the grassy well-drained flats by the river. Sit outside until 11pm when it's still quite light, listen to the pipits and oystercatchers, let the sound of water send you to sleep. OK, there might be some midges, but still.
An Dun was another Corbett and a strange one, a steep-sided fragment of plateau which must have once been moated by gouging glaciers. It's steep north ridge narrows to something of an arete near the top. I climbed out of the world of pipits and into the realm of golden plovers and their squeaky-creaky calls. There were at least four up here and they traced wide anxious circles around me.
Schiehallion dominated the view south...
Then a steep descent back to the bike and a white-knuckle ride back down the glen.
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