At the Well of the Fox

I left the car in the Balmoral car park and took the track that leads from the estate village south to Gelder Sheil. This was new to me, as all my previous walks up Lochnagar had been from the Spittal of Glen Muick or long days from the old campsite in Glen Doll. It was in the last days of March 2016, after a winter of heavy snow on the hills. By this time the wide moors were clear but the northern corries of Lochnagar were still plastered with snow. In fact, we were going through another cold snap and much of the snow on the tops was new.

Beyond the woods a good Land Rover track wound across  the rolling moor. In the distance, the small clump of trees around Gelder Sheil were an obvious landmark, slowly growing closer. About a kilometre from the trees there was a parting of the ways. The left fork carried on over the bealach between Conachcraig and Meikle Pap to the Spittal of Glen Muick, while my route swung round and followed the course of the Gelder burn.

Along the banks of the brawling Gelder the Queen had been out planting trees. Unfortunately, many of the young saplings had been swept away and a stretch of the gravel track damaged and repaired. I took this to have been caused by the great downpour in January of the previous year which had washed away part of the A93 between Crathie and Ballater as well as destroying the footbridges at Derry Lodge and Glen Clova

Gelder Sheil is a small shooting lodge and stables dating from Queen Victoria's time. The stables have long been used as a climbers bothy and have only recently been renovated by a group of tradesmen called the Ballater Chiels. They've done a grand job. It is now well insulated with wooden floor, walls, and a stove. Unusual for a bothy there is no communal sleeping platform but wooden bunks. I was slightly suspicious of the high, coffin like sides, but the truth was that I had the best nights sleep I've had in a bothy in one of these bunks. It kept me tight and snug and I couldn't role off my sleeping mat.

I was out at first light and stood at the edge of the trees and looked up over the moor to Lochnagar. There was not a cloud in the sky but the still hidden sun blazed on the snowy tops and corries. It was magnificent. I had to be there.




Lochnagar from Gelder Sheil. Oil on board, 2016.



I strapped my drawing board to the back of my rucksack and set off over the moor. The track soon ran out and I followed a faint, boggy path up towards the corrie. I couldn't help notice that cloud now covered the sun and mist banks were slinking in from the north east and obscuring the tops. This was not good and It was very cold. The boulder fields were snow covered and I had to exercise great care to prevent plunging into hidden holes. I struggled on, probing every footstep with a walking pole till I could see the loch which was frozen and snow covered. There was no sense of the scale of this great amphitheatre because of the mist swirling across the corrie. Occasionally the high edge of the plateau would appear and I'd think the mist was lifting but it didn't and closed in again. I brushed the snow off a boulder and sat down to sketch but knew it was a forlorn hope. I'd piled on all my warmest clothing and I can draw with thin gloves on but the wind cut through everything and I soon began to feel cold. I couldn't see anything so why risk hypothermia by hanging about? Reluctantly, I repacked my sack and followed my route back over the boulders again. I wandered down to the bothy feeling rather despondent and decided to implement 'Plan B'. The previous day I'd started a drawing of the Gelder Sheil so I finished that then went home. Although it had been a good trip I'd expected too much of the weather and from a sketching point of view had been a failure. I'd have to give this more thought.



Gelder Sheil with the bothy on the right.
Above, view of Lochnagar.





Just over a year later, in April 2017, I was back on Lochnagar. I'd risen early and arrived at the Spittal of Glen Muick just after 9am. My pack was heavy for as well as a drawing board and art kit I carried a tent. I took the 'tourist route' that crosses to Gelder Sheil. From the top of this Land Rover track, now badly eroded, a footpath cuts off to the west, climbing up over boulders and heather grouse moor. This took me some time with a heavy pack and I pitched the tent on a rare patch of gently sloping grass by the Fox's Well. This little spring is the last water before climbing onto the summit of Lochnagar.



Camp by the Fox's Well, looking down to the Spittal and Mount Keen.

After a quick snack I set off with only my drawing board on my pack and with the lightened load felt positively sprightly. The view into the corrie is dramatic but this winter had been a poor one for snow and there wasn't much in the gullies. There was, however, a sprinkling all around as it had snowed the previous night. I walked up to the rocky summit of Meikle Pap and tried to find a sheltered station with a good view of the corrie. The view was wonderful but shelter hard to find so I maun thole the bighting breeze. I managed to sit and draw for about two hours, usually long enough to make a good start to a picture which I then finish back in the studio. This time I was not happy. Drawing is a bit like sport. When you are warm and relaxed its possible to work fast and there is no separation between hand and eye. The colder you are the tenser you become and more aware of the hand not doing what the head wants. This disconnect leads to messes and mistakes. Pens are dropped, splodges appear, the wind buffets the drawing board so its impossible to make accurate marks. Pencils roll down holes between boulders and are difficult to retrieve. Eventually you begin to shiver and blurt out, even though there's no one there to hear you," THAT'S IT!" and give up in disgust.

Quite clearly drawing in extreme conditions requires different methods. I had tried one but had another up my sleeve. During the winter I'd been drawing along the Fife coast, just using pencil on A3 paper which I'd prepared previously with a wash of watercolour. This meant I could work quickly standing up and complete a sketch in a few minutes. This could then be worked up with watercolour back in the studio. This method was practical for a cold, windy climate, required the minimum of equipment and also retained a freedom and spontaneity which I like.

Lochnagar from the Meikle Pap, April 2017

I descended from my windy perch on the Big Tittie rather thankfully and started to climb the Ladder. This, of course, is not a ladder at all but a cunningly constructed track up a steep boulder field. I used to enjoy scrambling up the higgledy- pigildy granite slabs where I always seemed to make good time for less effort because it was interesting. Whoever planned this path, however, is a subtle genius and by the tilting of a rock here and moving one there has created a pathway of delight. It is virtually invisible till you are on it and carries you heavenward, or at least to the rim of the corrie. From there you can peer down the Red Spout to the dark lochan below









Looking into the corrie from the top of the Red Spout.
Pencil and watercolour, April 2017.

The path moves away from the corrie edge then starts to climb again to the summit plateau. From a big cairn you can see over to the western corrie and the rolling plateau that stretches to the Tolmounth and Glas Maol. Sir Hugh Munro, him of the 'Tables', commented that, "so elevated and flat is the range that a straight line of ten miles could be drawn from Creag Leacath ( just south of Glas Maol ) to the Meikle Pap of Lochnagar and except for about half a mile on either side of the Tolmount, the elevation is everywhere above 3000 ft. while even at these points it only falls to 2863 ft. and a dogcart could almost be driven the whole way. "

It was a fine day with high cloud and visibility was good. I did a few sketches on the broad summit and peered down the black spout then headed back again. A few minutes walking passed the cairn I realised I was on the wrong track and heading west. This was a navigational error in perfect visibility. I cut back onto the correct route reflecting that I was tired and couldn't be too careful. At the top of the ladder I met a gentleman coming up and  had a pleasant but brief chat. He looked up at me and I looked down on him, both unable to pass until the other gave way. He had, however, to press on as the day was getting late, so I stepped aside.

Cac Carn Mor, left and Cac Carn Beag, the summit, right. In
English, Little Shit and Big Shit.

Looking north from the top of the Black Spout

It was 6pm when I returned to the tent with still a couple of hours of good daylight left. I was tired and a bit fed up as I felt my drawings had been a failure. A brew and a meal of spicy rice and chorizo sausage cheered me up a bit, but I was still wondering why I did this. I looked out of a narrow gap in the tent door at a small patch of rough heather. A cold breeze was blowing so I wrapped my sleeping bag over my shoulders. Time for a dram. I poured some whisky with a dash of water from the Well of the Fox. Ah! I felt the warmth of the spirit spread around my body till I glowed all over. Time for another dram. Ah! I sat there like Buddha, smiling to myself and quietly at peace with the world. I loved my tent which was as steady as a rock and kept out the chill winds. I loved this patch of heather and the raucous, croaking grouse. I loved being here, probably the only person high on Lochnagar in this cold, Spring night. It's a grand drug, whisky, taken in the right place at the right time.

Next morning a cap of cloud clung firmly to the summit so I gave up any thought of going back up and doing more drawing. I was away early and sat down on a rock where the Lochnagar and Spittal tracks meet. The grouse were very active and noisy. They make interesting sounds, which in human speak sound like "I will, I will, I will - What?, What?, What?" then take flight and land with the classic, "Go back, Go back, Go back." Lower down I rounded a corner and stopped dead as a heard of red deer flowed over the track only a few yards away. They scrambled up the banking with a touch of wide eyed panic when they noticed me then headed up the hill. I presumed this was the same mob I'd seen the morning before cropping the haughs at the Spittal. They were still in their drab winter coats and quickly became invisible among the dark heather.

The slopes around here are managed grouse moor and just before the woods there was a big patch of moor burn. This is done by sporting estates to encourage new growth of heather and provide a variety of environment for the grouse. Among the black ash and stalks were weird clumps of sphagnum moss, not green but pinky brown in colour. Soft and spongy, they were like the life of some alien planet, surviving in a blasted, hostile landscape, which indeed, was true.

Sphagnum Moss surviving among the moor burn.

 

The path through the woods avoids the estate cottages and a good Land Rover track leads straight across the flats for a kilometre to the stand of pines around the Spittal. Now there is only one occupied house, toilets and a wooden hut serving as a Ranger and visitors centre. The Spittal, (from where we get hospitality and hospital) was a hospice or hostel established for pilgrims and travellers by the Bishop of Aberdeen back in Medieval times. The other main pass, over the Cairnwell, had a hospice at the southern end, the Spittal of Glenshee. In those days, St Andrews with its shrine was a big attraction. This all got knocked on the head with the Reformation but the community must have adapted and the religious hospice became an Inn. This would have served drovers with their herds, cadgers with strings of pack ponies, packmen, itinerant labourers as well as whole regiments of horse and foot crossing the Capel Mounth track. Archaeologists have found the remains of ten longhouses, a corn drying kiln, barn, kailyard and drove road. High on the crystal waters of the Alt Darrarie there was that essential for  medicinal purposes and civilised living, a whisky still. The Inn is thought to have closed in the 1850's.

 

As I suspected, the deer had gone. The leaden grey sky and the distant piping of Curlews gave a lonesome, sad feel to the place. This was exaggerated by a solitary pink foot goose, flying low and honking balefully which crossed the track just ahead of me. It sounded agitated and I suspect it was looking for it's palls. I arrived back at the car just after 9am, having spent almost exactly twenty four hours on Lochnagar.