Across Scotland, the mountains link in loops and chains and scatterings, from small hills near the cities to giants beyond the knowledge of the masses. Ruadh Stac Mor and A'Mhaighdean, found on the border of the Fisherfield and Letterewe estates, are arguably Britain's most remote peaks, six miles from the nearest road as the crow flies. The route I chose to walk them would be harder because I wanted to cross Loch Maree to start. Out of my seven Scottish guidebooks, each with 40 routes, at least some had to be designed differently. The reader could choose if they want to follow my approach. In a world of prescription, I believe we have to take the odd risk and, so long as we take responsibility for our actions, greater rewards are sure to follow.
I planned the adventure for months. My body had been tempered to run for hours and hours. The equipment was lightweight and compact. I chose the first of September for my D-Day, when the water should have built up maximum latency from the summer heat. Although I had a night job in Inverness and, the morning of my attempt, the work overran to give me only an hour's sleep in the car. But this mattered not to my resolve: the coin was pressed. At noon I left my car.
The ground to the water's edge was boggy and bouldery. Rather than dive in at the shortest point, where a string of islands might help the hop to the far side, I tired of this preamble. Instead, my entrance point gave a 2km crossing. The extra distance failed to dampen my ambition. Into my orange bivi bag I stuffed my SLR, food and provisions, alongside a folded, pumped-up air mattress for buoyancy. I stripped to my briefs and jumped in the drink. I felt calm and knew, instinctively, that this was a brilliant thing to have done.
I started to swim, unhurriedly, since the temperature was certainly below ten degrees centigrade and regulating my effort and core heat was important. The bag floated beside me, a constant companion, attached by a rope around my body. Letterewe House shimmered as a white square in the distance. Only the occasional insect brushed the surface. Silence was complete. Time seemed to stop. I contemplated my good fortune, to be alone and at peace with the world.
Suddenly, my ears buzzed. My eyes caught a flash to the left. The noise died and I continued on my way. The imagination plays tricks when you’re on your own in the outdoors. Every shadow takes on new meaning. And again, a drone in the air and a glint on the water caught my attention. But this time the distraction gained in volume. A blur became a shape and became a boat. It drew up beside me and the engine cut.
What d'you think you're doing? You can’t do that! The man in the Zodiac towered over me, while his female companion at the tiller glared. Treading water, I imagined my endurance slipping out through my toes, down into the deep. Er... I'm swimming! Well, he said, that’s stupid. Far too cold. You'll die. No sir, I said, I'm quite happy, thanks all the same. Listen swimmer, he said. I insist that we give you a ride to the jetty. Scot's hospitality!
They weren't going away and, with two thirds of my journey complete and knowing that I could have done the rest, I nodded and climbed aboard. We zipped across the water. See, said the woman, you’ve got goose bumps. You'd’ve drowned. I stared out to the side and kept quiet. We pulled up by the wooden moorings and shook hands. Pilot and watchman took off to go somewhere else.
Now the action really started. My circular route was 25 miles. Small paths enticed me into the hinterland where tussocky grasses grew as indiscriminately as Lowry figures. I paced over sandstone plateaux, their surfaces splattered with pipe rock fossils like Polo mints. A maze of lochs and chasms and bluffs sought to throw me off a trail that I forged for myself. Here, almost nobody ever visited and, if you stopped for a just a moment to listen, only the sounds of my breathing and of nature were audible.
But when I returned to the jetty, seven hours later, twilight had self-announced. I was tired. The swim back across the greyness seemed opaque. Cramp would be inevitable, the chance of rescue improbable. A bad end would ensue. The sensible thing to do was to run, the long way around. The lochside terrain was immediately rough, marshy, pitted as if from heavy shelling, continually sloping and a full nine miles in the dark to a potential crossing point. The key was never to stop for more than a few seconds nor feel sorry for myself, but just to keep going.
Finally, I reached the head of the loch and the inflowing river. Here was a chance for the short-cut, rather than walk upstream to a bridge. I pulled my pack above my head and stepped in without missing a beat, my headtorch illuminating the near-motionless peat-brown water. From ankle to knee to waist and finally up to the shoulders I kept going, tensing my limbs in the unwelcome coldness. On the far side, I trod blanched shingle. In front of me lay a wall of brushwood. I charged in and began battle, eyes blinded by dust, face whipped by branches, skin ripped by thorns.
After an eternity, I emerged the other side of the scrub to find another tributary. Unthinking, I plunged straight in… ankle to knee to waist to shoulder… and back out again. I kept walking, expecting to meet the road. But this never seemed to come. Soon, the reality began to glow, and had to consult my compass because the reality was imaginable. Yes, I really had! In the bushes, I'd turned full circle, and crossed the same bit of river in both directions.
You plonker! I turned around, waded ankle, knee, waist, shoulder once more, scratched my way through the horror, compass in hand. This time, like a man finding succour from the desert, I stumbled upon the asphalt. A much easier six miles of midnight running remained back to the car, with nothing in my head but the thoughts of more adventures to come.
Image
Fisherfield from the slopes of Slioch
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