OUT AND ABOUT WITH RALPH: Morven and me go back a long way, from all directions
On any clear day I see the sharp triangular peak of Morven, the highest hill in Caithness, from my house. Sometimes capped in cloud, sometimes looking like a smoking volcano, sometimes white with the first snow of late autumn.
These days more people visit and there is now a blazed path for much of the way from Braemore. But is has never been the easiest of hills with a long walk-in and steep slopes of loose boulders and deep heather.
The little summit plateau is a wind-blasted place more akin to the high tops of the Cairngorms.
Morven and I share many experiences. My first visit was nearly 50 years ago when I’d been in the county only a week. The obvious walk was to take in the whole skyline ridge from Scaraben, crossing Smean and Maiden Pap, and this I did on a grey March day.
I was well used to pathless rough country but still found it quite hard, and I’ve only repeated that skyline walk a few times.
The easiest way up is from the Langwell valley to the south, taking a bike up to the end of the track at Wag. Perhaps the most interesting approach is from the Strath of Kildonan, a long walk over empty country crossing the rarely-visited dome of Cnoc an Eireannaich and the quartzite ridge of Small Mount.
In July 1981, a bonfire of old tyres was lit on the summit to commemorate the wedding of Charles and Diana. I’d walked out to Gobernuisgeach bothy (now locked and unavailable) then set off in the evening for the summit, arriving as dark fell, to the surprise of the estate officials and guests.
The bonfire was lit, fireworks were let off, an amazing experience for such a remote place, before making my way back down in the dark to the bothy for the rest of the night.
In my fit days I’d sometimes run most of the route from Braemore, good training for the Highland Cross, and be back home for lunch. A favourite was to follow the track all the way to Gobernuisgeach and double back eastward over the summit.
I remember one bright April day of bitter wind, my battered trainers were coming apart and filling with snow towards the top. The rough heathery descent almost finished them and they only just held together for the three-mile run back to the car, by which time my feet had warmed up again.
I would sit on the bridge parapet at Braemore, munch an apple and a chocolate biscuit and enjoy a cup of hot sweet tea from the flask.
Then on a blustery December 31, 1999, I walked from Dunbeath to wallow up through old wet snow, pitching a tent in a little sheltered spot just below the top to see in the new millennium from the very summit. It was, I recall, only an ordinary gale with a few snow showers, the wind though picked up later and swung round, battering the tent with force nine gusts.
But January 1, 2000, turned into just another mild and breezy day and the walk back out became something of an anticlimax.
My favourite route remains from the east, and a few days ago I made another visit – one of these will be my last but hopefully not yet!
On a blustery day – good to keep the midges down – I cycled out (with e-bike) from Loch More by the long estate tracks through purple and orange-tinted moors past Dalnawhillan and its barking hounds to remote Glutt Lodge.
A fine estate road carries on over the hills, crossing the headwaters of the Dunbeath Water to join the Braemore track. A little short of Gobernuisgeach I cut down on foot over the moor, hopped across a very low Berriedale Water then picked my way slowly up to the col east of Small Mount.
The country was empty indeed, just a golden eagle soaring high above Morven and out westward across the vast Flow Country.
The climb from here is steep with lots of boulders but easier than from the east and a nice ridge develops near the summit. There is no path, nobody comes this way.
It wasn’t till back on the estate tracks that I saw anybody, estate guests out for expensive country sporty things like shooting the grouse and deer or catching the salmon.
The ride back to Loch More was fast and easy, mostly a following wind and downhill with the triangle of Morven growing smaller in the distance. And the hill always winks at me every time I see it in the right hand wing mirror of the car when setting off from home!
