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Stob Ghabhar Dreaming -
the western edge of Rannoch Moor
By John Allen
This fairyland of mountains set in levels of moorland lochans is seen by all who enter the Rannoch Moor landscape by car or train from the south via Tyndrum. You pass Loch Tulla and begin the final climb, and never need you be disappointed once past the watershed, where the rowan tree grows out of and splits that ice-age boulder on the left of the road. Anticipation rises, whatever the weather, and once over the crest and on the level, the panorama is wider even than the film screen can manage. You arrive inside the dream picture, and don't know where to look next, and slow down to feel the silence and expanse; you sense a wilderness. This arrival on Rannoch Moor makes the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
Stopping points beside the road are few, but there is one, right here where you enter the reverie. If you get it right, you can just see Stob Ghabhar, tucked round a corner to the left, a gem hidden from easy access. The real gem is actually the lochan set deep in the ring of ridges, one the Aonach Eagach on the south side, the other the Sron na Giubhas to the north. But how do you get there? Better not to start from here, or so goes the comic reply to the enquiring traveller. Here is where you might be touched by the yearning to go there, and leave behind the hurrying traffic madly fleeing to destinations beyond the dreamworld. Now is the time to know that you must go there, for the intimacy, or your life will not be complete.
Pity the Munro-bagger who only needs another scalp, another summit. Does he see the lochan on his map, or does he only see 1090 as the O.S. metric height? Does he only read the easiest route, or the one which most 'efficiently' links other metric numbers over 914, the starter number equivalent to 3,000 on the Munro scale? For the broader view, and perhaps the most logical, look downstream from the lochan to the River Ba and Ba Bridge, and even further to Loch Ba, and even further to Loch Laidon, to Rannoch station, to Loch Rannoch and Loch Tummel. Now that would be a great trip, upstream to the very summit, where the geography dictates that a shower of rain here drains part eastwards to Glen Lyon, the River Tay and the North Sea across Rannoch Moor, and part westwards to the Atlantic by way of River Orchy and Loch Awe.
And now for the compromise to cut down the walking; cheat a bit and use a bike. As the starting point of Rannoch Station is just too far for a single day's walk (or perhaps you have two days and a tent in mind?), cycle to Ba Bridge along the West Highland Way from Victoria Bridge and walk upstream. Not that I first did it that way, for I was the winter climber who yearned for the Upper Couloir in winter conditions, and had no eyes even for the Munro then. Pick a clear day (in 2003 there were about 250 of them!), and after dumping the bike in the grass, walk upstream on a passable track for a while, up the river Ba, with the mountain ahead in your sights. You are reaching for the north eastern end of the Sron na Giubhas.
On a clear day arrival at the eastern end of this spur bestows the glories of this circuit. The full length and depth of the hanging coire are revealed, the lochan gem deeply set in the tumbled stones of the mountain's flanks, with the headwall and buttresses rising impressively to the summit. Once aloft on the ridge it is worth lingering, not to hurry, for these precious moments make the day memorable, spiritual gifts that cannot be taken away, escapism from the slavery of the daily grind of entrapment by employment, the mortgage and the credit card. I was once here and coming the other way along the high-level ridge, sort of space-walking but looking for the best descent to earth across the coire to return south to Victoria Bridge. We stayed high for as long as possible, and kept going on and on and on until, almost falling off the edge of the stage, we had to step down the steep south side, with the watery panorama of Rannoch Moor still ahead, below and beyond.
I can distinctly remember that day when we did the Upper Couloir in winter. Living nature turned up one of its exquisite moments. In our winter apprenticeship we had heard of the place, dared to challenge the idea, carried all the gear (a long wooden axe, crampons like fire grates) and tied onto the end of the hawser laid rope, when a mountain hare popped up out of a hole at the foot of the route, almost between my feet. In less than a minute it had soloed the route in leaps and bounds, non-stop, and disappeared over the summit. No-one else there, no other people prints, no guide book, just the hare's footprints to show the way.
Winter of course isn't always crisp snow and bright sunlight; far from it. Most of the time there is cloud and when we're up there on a mountain, we're in it. Worse still, it can be raining, with a wind coming from nowhere in particular but blowing right into our clothing. Without days of storm like this there would be no snow lying, no rivers running, no clouds pouring across the landscape, no quiet beauty. Once I was with a guy with whom I had never been on the hill before. It was a cold grey day, one I would probably give a miss now but I had promised him. Stob Ghabhar was on his list and he wanted it. It was late January and not being a winter walker he needed company. As we entered the cloud towards the Aonach Eagach ridge section, the ground became frozen; slightly higher, an overnight snow shower had covered the icy surface, so that in a short distance the walking was slippery and uncertain, tentative. We had no crampons, not needed, but a long axe each. I then knew why doddery old men use a walking stick – as a third leg. At the beginning of the day, I'd never have guessed I'd be stumbling like a crock with a walking stick. He'd never used his axe before and this was its unexpected baptism. Nowadays, fear disguised as injury prevention, and the fashion to look cool, sells the beginner two sticks, walking poles. Just the other day while descending the steep slope northwards off An t-Sron towards the Clachaig Inn, I asked my companion why he didn't use his two poles to save his knees. 'Because I might trip over them.' And I thought they were to save his knees.
I actually think that paths are the problem. Some walkers now expect a path, one even that has been specially maintained. A good path facilitates a rhythmic pace, up or down, makes some Munro days relatively easy. People pound along them like old steam engines, but once off the path and onto rough stones or heather or grass and tussocks, the walking poles are a liability. It's back to balancy babyhood, uncertain and stumbling. I'm expecting some commercial enterprise to pop up soon offering courses in alternative walking; walking on stones, walking on ice, walking on water, when to use your hands while walking, how to stay upright when off the path…. Buy our poles….
Anyway, back to the theme of Stob Ghabhar. If you stumble into the black pit that is the deep recess of the little lochan east of the summit, Coirein Lochain, you will be able to practise your new walking skills, for there is no path, just rocks with gaps between, steep little cliffs and slippery boulders not reached by sunlight. Quite quickly you feel a sense of remoteness and isolation that with a twisted ankle a mobile phone might not get you out of, not because your ankle doesn't work, but because your mobile phone doesn't. Are you equipped to step off the path? Never mind the phone, do your feet and legs work? Is your brain engaged?
I used Stob Ghabhar as the practice ground for a new pair of boots once – big plastics in preparation for a foreign trip. I planned a fairly long walk-in, first the hard road and track, then a steep grassy ascent to some rock scrambling on the Aonach Eagach bit described in Noel Williams' book 'Scrambles in Lochaber', followed by rocky ground, the summit, then back down the south east ridge, much of it grassy; in summer conditions, with no snow, so not a comprehensive trial. But I learned a lot. Yes, they were awkward and stiff, just as ski boots are awkward, but different lacing tensions, and suitable footbed adjustments improved matters. The walk-in was a torment until I laced loosely. When tightly laced, I tip-toed nimbly up the rock scramble (good sole stiffness), and after sore soles of feet prompted a change to the walking boots I carried just in case of severe torment, I gave the plastics a last chance and changed to different footbeds and looser lacing. Perfect. But all a lot of hassle, so I'm back to a good quality walking boot for summer, and stiff soled leathers for winter. Like ballet shoes, they are, or might be if I knew anything about ballet shoes.
A recent trip to Stob Ghabhar was on a clear, brown, autumn day, late in the season. We dawdled all day, unaware that time mattered, until the sun began to dim down its brightness; still wonderful to be out as dusk hung limply bronze and hazily on the hills to the east and south, yet sad to know that our day was almost up. But not quite. The universe had one final miracle to reveal; the birth of a full moon from the womb of mother Earth. In the failing light before darkness it was rising and beginning its next inevitable, mysterious journey through the night. As witness of the event you were in the right place at the right time, enthralled, captivated by its slow journey into the darkness of space and the awesome firmament, a tiny spec within it. All too soon in the silvery blackness you reached your car and the slam of the door broke the spell and turned out the light.
Stob Ghabhar is still calling. That lochan, Coirein Lochain, bids me return. And not only for itself, but also for the ascent direct to the summit by the broad buttress which tapers to a fine arête at the top. In winter conditions. I've slogged all the way up the gully in winter snow right through to the summit slopes on the west side, but not yet the broad buttress and fine arête in winter. Obviously there awaits a challenging finish, with the crux of the ascent at the top. I know, because I've been there in summer. I might never get the right conditions, might never do it. Like I never did Brant Direct in North Wales, nor when I lived in Manchester did I climb Deer Bield Crack in Langdale before it fell down. But this route on Stob Ghabhar is still on the list of dreams, from an ice covered lochan, up steep névé, to the steep summit buttress, two axes thudding into solid snow-ice, balancy moves along the sharp arête and a finish into afternoon sunlight at the top. This winter perhaps.
And if you still haven't been, look behind those guys in red kimonos before News at Ten from your armchair. Stob Ghabhar is there behind them.
