Glenmore Lodge course gave chance for Cairngorms hill walk
OUT AND ABOUT WITH RALPH
It is well over 50 years since I first hitched a lift up to Loch Morlich Youth Hostel in Glenmore, above Aviemore. I climbed Braeriach on my first day then on my second walked over Ben Macdui to Inverey Hostel, my trip continued with a marathon trek through Glen Tilt and across to Loch Tummel.
Both Inverey and Loch Tummel hostels have now long closed. Whenever I’m on the A9, though, I glance up the hill opposite Blair and remember slogging upwards towards the end of the 26-mile walk! It must be strange to travel that road without all these connections to the landscape through which you pass.
Even when I first visited, Glenmore was a busy place but it still surprised me how much bustle there was on a cold grey Friday morning in mid-December with camper-vans, tents and walkers.
I was there for a two-day outdoor first-aid course at Glenmore Lodge and had come early to get a walk in first. Storm Darragh was approaching but the hills were still calm and frosty under a sheet of high cloud.
I chose the easiest hill-walk in the area, the ridge of Meall a’ Bhuachaille to the north – it rises to over 2600 feet but the start by Loch Morlich is already a thousand feet up and there is a blazed trail all the way.
Nevertheless, winter mountains demand care and proper equipment, and eleven in the morning was late to set off – I’d driven down from Caithness. Others were already heading down.

Plantations of Scots pine thin out as you climb up towards bare heathery slopes, with moss and lichen as you gain the ridge. Scattered pines have seeded themselves all the way up to the summit, becoming increasingly bonsai as you gain height.
The ground was frozen hard, the light wind was bitter and the views south over Loch Morlich were to the high Cairngorms white with snow. Northwards stretched Strathspey and the low hills beyond, I could even make out the dot of a lorry heading down the A9 near Carrbridge.
Remember that when you are trapped on a long journey down that road, the hills will still be there. Even a mobility scooter can reach the Green Loch.
I hurried, not wanting to get caught by dark, westwards along the ridge to descend from Craiggowrie and pick my way down through the forest to the sprawling Badaguish outdoor centre, lights gleaming from afar in the gloaming. The snow and rain were beginning to roll in over the hills as I walked the last couple of miles back along forest tracks.
Glenmore Lodge is the kind of place I’d have gone nowhere near in the past when outdoor centres were staffed by ex-army he-men and any training would be like the worst of school PE. But times have changed and outdoor instructors are now a friendly bunch of men and women who love the outdoors and just want to help anyone learn to be competent in their chosen outdoor pursuit, whatever their level of strength or experience.
If I were younger I think I’d book on every course they put on! Accommodation is in warm, comfortable rooms and there is always plenty of food, drinks and cake to sustain you.
With rain and sleet falling almost non-stop for the next 48 hours, many of the outdoor bits of the course had to be moved inside. So after the first day, for a bit of fresh air, I donned head-torch and waterproofs for a walk up the glen.
The track would be thronged on a summer day but on a wet, black night with burns gushing full and hill slopes dimly seen above dark forests, the place still felt as it must have been before all the development. There is a well-know poem written a century ago which includes the lines: “And again in the dusk of evening I shall find once more alone, The dark water of the Green Loch, And the pass beyond Ryvoan.”
I let my torch shine out across the dark waters of the Green Loch and listened to the silence of the wind in the trees and the rain on the water. Ryvoan bothy is now probably the most visited in Scotland and it was just half an hour’s walk back to the warmth and Christmas lights of the Lodge.
Soon, thousands would be flocking to the Cairngorm ski-slopes. But the hills will still be there when everyone has gone.