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Cold Stream in the Forrest
Wandering around the side of the lake.Busses and Weather Patterns: The Weather God Phenomenon Exposed
I may not be particularly striking, I may not be inordinately tall, I may not have superpowers or omnipresence, but I am a weather god. I say this in all seriousness and I can prove it. Unfortunately I don't actually have the ability to control the weather, it just sort of happens automatically, and it's somehow linked with buses in Scotland.
Let me begin to explain, if I can.
After leaving England and heading north, and after a couple of fun days exploring the charming city of Glasgow, I embarked on a day trip to Loch Lomond. This lake, which lies a little north of Glasgow and south of the highlands, is supposedly one of the most beautiful in Scotland, so much so that a song was written about it (I can't understand the lyrics of the song, but they must be good, right?) I boarded a local train and within an hour I had been whisked to the very southern extremity of the lake, at a town called Ballach.
The weather was horrible. Really quite despicable in every way. It wasn't really raining for it was too
Canal Boat
Wandering in the sunshine near Fort William. cold for that, but it wasn't really hailing either for it was too warm for that, and it certainly wasn't snowing either. Something sure was falling from the sky though, some cold icy slush which was light enough to be whipped up by the wind and flung in your face while being heavy enough to really hurt when it did so. Upon tearing into your face and eyes the slush would melt and seep down into your clothes so that within five minutes you were soaked, cold, and standing in a gale of wind. To put it simply, the weather sucked big time.
Nevertheless, I got out of the train and rugged up ready for a long walk. Dressed almost as I was at Everest Base Camp (and it was seriously cold up there) I must have looked like a fool. All the locals were inside with their doors closed; they'd even closed their stores because no tourist would be silly enough to come to Ballach on such a day. And to think that the day before had been perfectly sunny and warm, warm enough to walk around in a T-shirt.
I walked down to the foot of
Partway Up the Small Hill
Have a look at the ground. It was all squishy, wet and hard to walk on. the lake and there I found the wind even stronger. Coming straight across the lake in unending waves of shivering rain the wind blew directly into my face rendering the view nothing more than painful. I could not make out the far side of the lake, despite it only being a few hundred meters away, but next to me I could see the grassed and subsequently muddy park through which I was walking. I idly wondered if there was a fire in the castle at the top.
I kept wandering around the eastern edge of the lake, having a good giggle at the four other tourists who had ventured out (how silly of them to come here when the weather was so foul), and eventually I had to head away from the lake and into the forrest beside it. I climbed upwards slowly for the muddy trail was becomming flooded, but thankfully the thicker trees made the wind slightly less punishing. I continued upwards hoping that my luck might return and a decent view emerge from atop some miraculous rise; this continually didn't happen.
Finally the path turned downwards and back towards the lake as I walked alongside
an ancient, moss-covered stone fence which was clearly keeping the two sheep out of trouble. I thought about turning back, but I didn't want to give up before anything good had happened so onwards I went. At the bottom of a small valley the trees disappeared again and were replaced with sodden grass, so sodden that my shoes now became waterlogged. Somehow this was turning into a bad day. It didn't stop me though, I was determined to find at least one good view of the Loch.
Climbing yet another hill and entering yet another forrest I headed deeper into the wild until eventually I came across a small bench. These had been placed in a few special places along the path so I decided to stop there, sit down, and turn back afterwards. And then I looked towards the lake. . .
Just as I got there the clouds lifted ever so slightly and I could see, just, across the lake. Between me and the far side there was a large island, with a few old houses proudly standing on its shore, and then nothing else all the way across to the far side. Looking down along
Glasgow Green
Inside the green (a big public park by the Clyde) there are a couple of 19th century museums and this fountain. It is supposedly the oldest terracotta fountain (or something like that) in the world. the lake I could see just a little of the mountains rising above the lake, snow capping each and every one. It was as though the entire land lifted in that direction, rising from the lowlands where I was into the highlands further north. It was the view I had been waiting for. Satisfied, and also too cold to do otherwise, I turned back and hastened to Balloch, getting even colder and wetter as I trudged through the now completely flooded forrest. By the time I returned to the castle the weather had improved ever so slightly, the clouds had returned by the rain had slowed, and I quickly got myself out of the rain and into the train heading back to Glasgow (plus some fish and chips to warm the belly).
The following day I caught a bus northwards to Fort William, a small town at the western extremity of the Great Caledonian Canal, a series of Lochs and canals which link the east and west of Scotland along a perfectly stright fissure in the highlands. The day was sunny, warm, perfectly clear skied (perfectly, not a cloud in sight), and it could not have been more ideal
Museum in the Green
As well as a museum, this place doubles as a tropical greenhouse. for a day hiking around Loch Lomond. Instead, the bus drove me along the Loch's western edge, right beside the water and the old houses. In the perfect conditions I was able to see for miles in every direction, the crystal clear water of the lake shimmering without a single trace of a breeze.
The bus continued along the pristine lake with the perfect views and the towering snow clad mountains until eventually, and rather suddenly, the road lifted into the highlands and the scenery completely changed. Now we were driving though a barren wilderness like that of Tibet, a land where tumbleweed seems appropriate and trees hide in shame. All around there were rocky crags of mountains limping out of the earth at inordinate angles and with horrendously sharp sides. Nothing but rock seemed to be a part of those mountains and they embodied the cold unfeeling nature of a desolate peak. Here, from the road, I could see a dozen such mountains at any time as we slowly wound our way across the plateau towards Fort William.
The weather held good for the entire bus ride and coming into Fort William I spied the principal attraction:
Imperialism
Fountain detail. There are panels for each of the main English colonies. Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the United Kingdom. It is not the tallest mountain in the world, rather far from it, but it is impressive all the same for it strikes up from nothing to its highest peak with unbelievable speed. There is no gradual incline on this mountain, not even at its foot. Additionally, all around the town of Fort William (which is a pretty spot in its own right) there are mountains of notable impressiveness, in every direction it would sometimes seem that there is a mountain worth admiring.
The bus had taken most of the day and after I had found my hostel I chose to use the remains of the glorious day to climb the more modest hillock rising behind the hostel. It rose to some five or six hundred meters in a single heathy, soggy, grassy sort of way, with some sections being so steep as to make me reconsider my attempt. After all, soggy grass which sinks two feet when you stand on it is not the stable sort of ground which I would like to be climbing on. Nevertheless, after two hours I made it to the top where a small
cairn marks your achievement. There I sat, as the wind picked up and the clouds began to roll in for the evening, and I enjoyed one of the most magnificent views in the UK. Behind me the highlands continued to march on towards the tip of Scotland, to my right a Loch lead to the sea, to my left the Caledonian canal cut a straight line across to a second Loch which further along was joined to Loch Ness and the east, and in front of me rose the Munro Mountains including Ben Nevis.
I stayed at the top, drinking in the almost perfect view all alone, and I spent some time reflecting on things, before I eventually had to make my way down before the light failed. On the way down I ran into the rather annoying Scottish habit of fencing off any patch of land they feel like without including a single gate (it took me ages to find a way down and in the end I had to jump three fences anyway), but finally I made it to sea level and my hostel. Weary but happy I headed out to buy myself a Haggis, I was
going to need the energy for the next day. I just hoped the weather would hold.
But you see, that is where the problem arises for whenever I am on a Scottish bus the weather is perfect, but on a day without a bus the weather is quite inhospitable. This is the inadvertent weather god aspect to which I referred earlier, and to which I shall no doubt moan about some more.
Assault on the Highest Point in the World (that is in the UK)
I woke up in the morning rather early, I had been told that I would need a full day to be able to make it to the top of Ben Nevis. I had also been told that I would need a compass and map, but I had ignored these advices. I got out of bed, got myself ready to go, and headed downstairs for breakfast where I sat myself down at the table and looked out at my target, the top of Ben Nevis. Unfortunately the top wasn't to be seen, and neither was the middle, or the bottom for that matter. In fact, I was having difficulty seeing the building
across the road through the thick fog. It really didn't look like a good day to be climbing mountains even if you had a compass.
It was early morning though and I figured that there was a good chance of the clouds lifting as the day warmed up later on. I ate my breakfast slowly, waiting patiently for the weather.
After an hour or so, and some lazing around, I headed out into the mist and started walking towards Fort William. It was pretty obvious that I wouldn't be climbing the mountain that day as the clouds were still covering everything and a drizzling rain had started to make matters even less comfortable. I felt like walking though so I started heading along the road heading east past the mountain, I thought that I might find the old path up Ben Nevis and hike into the valley there to see what it looked like without actually climbing up the hillside. Somehow though, and in hindsight I can see how I managed it, I completely missed the path and ended up walking a couple of miles without seeing anything really noteworthy. Disheartened, I turned around and walked back to
Fort William and by the time I got there it was lunch time anyway. The rain was still falling, the clouds were still covering everything, and it looked like the whole day would be wasted. It was a real shame that I had planned on leaving the following day; my only chance to hike in the Highlands and the clouds were stopping me.
After lunch, a delicious Angus steak burger, I walked outside to find that the rain had stopped and the clouds were ever so slightly higher than they had been before and I felt that there might be some chance of seeing at least something nice in the afternoon. To make the most of it I started walking towards the Ben Nevis path as it heads up the side of what is supposed to be a lovely little valley. The rain started again almost immediately.
At about this point I decided to just sod the whole thing, I had been rained on so much already that I didn't even notice it anymore, so as soon as I found the Ben Nevis path I simply started to walk up it. Almost immediately I was rewarded with a
view up the rocky side of a mountain, similar to those I'd seen the day before but truncated halfway up by the beginnings of the clouds. I quickly climbed the first section and found that in the valley the clouds weren't as low as elsewhere so I had a decent if not good view down it's length. The valley was filled with farms and a small village, clearly visible thanks to the lack of any decent vegetation in the area, along with a meandering stream and a number of cold looking sheep.
Climbing higher and higher, all alone thanks to the weather, I decided that I felt like walking up to the cloud line and looking back down on the world. The path was ridiculously easy to follow, no compasses needed here, so I didn't feel in any danger and it wasn't as though I could get much wetter. The view made it all worth it as it improved steadily with every step, slowly expanding and lengthening as the valley opened up before me.
Eventually I met some others on the trail, returning down past me, and I asked them about the conditions ahead. The assured me that
the path became completely snowed under and invisible only a short way ahead so that it was too dangerous to go ahead, but I felt like getting up to that point anyway. I think I was liking all of the walking. I kept up a good pace as I had been told that it takes a good seven hours to do the full round trip even for fit people, and thanks to my late start I was in danger of losing the light. I walked onwards, rather quickly gaining altitude now, and pretty soon I was in the clouds. Sure, the clouds were thick and I couldn’t see any view, but the path was so blatantly obvious that only a blind person would have lost it. Really, the path was paved and had fences in parts, a compass was hardly necessary there!
In the distance somewhere I could hear a waterfall; that was the point where the snows were supposed to start so I figured I was close. I walked up what I thought would be the last rise and suddenly found myself standing on an open plain, a flat section of land without vegetation or interest, just a
flat expanse of grass with the red gravel path cutting straight across it. Once again I found it impossible to imagine how anyone could get lost there. Further up the path, when the waterfall sounded close enough to touch I came to a small branch where the main path turned away from where it should have been going and started heading downhill and a small, slightly muddy and snowy path headed almost straight up the side of a hill. I searched around a bit down the main path, looking for clues as to where I was until I came to the conclusion that I’d reached the point where the two paths up the mountain (old and new) came together, so I had to backtrack and start up the smaller trail.
Immediately the small path became fun, I was no longer walking on a groomed trail and instead I was faced with a small and often poorly maintained path. Within five minutes I’d cross the waterfall and started up the main hump of the mountain which was almost totally covered in snow. The path was still clearly visible as a white streak running across the mountainside between whereas the rest
of the slope was dotted with rocky outcrops. On either side of the path a row of rocks marked the extremities. The snow was thick, perhaps a meter or two, and it was easy to fall through it and be ankle deep, but thankfully the snow was not fresh so walking was not difficult. Despite the poor visibility - I could only see thirty meters in front of me - I didn’t feel that the path was difficult to find and I was certain that I would be able to get down.
Half an hour later, after walking through the snow constantly, switching back across the mountainside as I did so, I came to the first section where the edges of the path were completely covered by snow. For a distance of perhaps ten meters the path was indistinct but as the path was perfectly straight it was not difficult to find my way even then, especially because I could follow the deep footprints in the snow made by other hikers. Nevertheless, I stopped to consider my options as time was limited and the view wasn’t worth the effort anyway. After all, what is the point in climbing a
mountain if you don’t get a good view from the top? Especially a mountain as short as Ben Nevis.
Someone must have overheard my thoughts because at that instant the clouds simply vanished. A stiff breeze came through and all of a sudden I could see everything below me, and a lot of what was above me as well! I could see the grassy plateau which was the saddle between Ben Nevis and the mountain to the north which I could now see had a large lake preposterously positioned on it, and below that on either side the mountain dropped away to nothing and the valley floor below. The view was staggering, the mountain literally fell away below me. So, prompted by the change in weather I started back on my efforts to climb to the top.
Immediately the clouds returned and once again I could see no more than thirty meters.
Another half an hour of climbing, sometimes across areas where the path disappeared for ten or twenty meters (still not indistinct enough for me to get lost or need a compass), I finally got to a point where I felt that should the mist get
The Banks of Loch Lomond
Windy, raining and cold. any thicker then I wouldn’t be able to find the path back down the hill. At the time it was alright, but I was afraid that if the weather got any worse (shudder to think that it could do such a thing) I could feasibly require a little scouting and thought to find the trail across the snowy gap in front of me. So, taking the smart option and happy with having come so far, I turned around and started heading back downhill.
Going down was a lot more fun than going up. I managed to run most of it at full tilt; letting my feet sink into the snow on each step to give me balance and letting gravity do all the work. Within ten minutes I’d dropped a good hundred and fifty meters and only occasionally had I sunk into the snow up to my waist. I was having a whale of a time, and then I heard a helicopter. Somewhere below me there was that distinct sound and it was clear that it was coming from the mountainside itself. I idly wondered what sort of lazy rich person would take a helicopter up to the plateau
to get the view rather than walking for two hours, but then I realised that it was probably rescuing someone. As I was the only person I had seen going uphill I was really wondering who it might be.
I rushed downhill further to try and get a glimpse of what was going on only to see the helicopter flying off through the mist below me just before I got there. Almost immediately though I came across a crazy young Scottsman who was walking up the hill and he informed me that a couple had gotten lost at the waterfall; they had thought that the path went straight upwards and so were found climbing up the sheer waterfall! Looking down through what was now turning out to be some pretty decent weather (the cloud level had lifted above the waterfall but it was still thick on the slopes above me) I couldn’t imagine how anyone could miss the path and think that climbing an icy waterfall without gear in such conditions was a smart idea.
As the weather was clearing the Scott invited me to join him on the way up but I didn’t feel like climbing back
all the way that I’d just run down so I let him go off on his own. However, on my descent back to the valley floor I saw the rescue helicopter return to the mountain two times; probably for the Scott. Clearly it was easy to get lost up there as lots of people were doing it. I really have no idea how though. I’d had my fun though, and the view on the way down had been unbelievable.
Although I didn’t make it to the very top I did manage to get within 350 meters of that point, and given the weather I don’t think getting there would have been worthwhile. I would say though that if you’re at least passably fit and keen then it definitely doesn’t take seven hours to climb Ben Nevis (it took me about four to get up to where I did and back down again) and if you have eyes and a brain then you don’t need a compass and a map. However, there clearly are plenty of people out there lacking one of these things.
Edinburgh and Disproof of the Weather Theory
The day after climbing Ben Nevis
in the clouds I hopped on a bus to Edinburgh only to notice that it was a perfectly sunny day. The summit of the mountain was clear and shining brightly with the sun, it even felt warm and dry. Once again my powers had worked against me and I was stuck on a bus when the weather was perfect. If this pattern was going to continue forever I probably wouldn’t have been able to cope, all my luck seemed to have disappeared.
I arrived in Edinburgh in the late afternoon and had just enough of the day left to wander around the park below the castle. The city is a beautiful place where the Rock (the old volcano on top of which is the old town with the castle and Royal Mile) is separated from the New Town by a long, green, and well maintained garden. I walked through the garden enjoying the sunshine and warmth while I looked up at the imposing old castle. It was a great day to be in Edinburgh.
After sleeping soundly that night I got up early and headed up to the castle only to find that the weather had changed again.
Finally! A View!
When the clouds opened up and I could finally see across the Loch. Now that I was able to explore the city the gods had decided that rain, wind and a slight snowstorm was in order and the day turned out to be terribly frustrating and cold. The castle was quite amazing though as the views from its walls spread across the entire Firth of Forth and for a long way in all directions.
The Royal Mile, the ancient market street running along the ridge from the castle down to the palace, on the other hand was a completely unremarkable place filled with tourists and tourist junk being sold to tourists. If you feel like listening to competing bagpipers while someone sells you your family Tartan (which is a myth anyway) over a glass of fine cheap Whiskey then the Royal Mile is for you. Otherwise it’s better to stick to the other, more normal streets and museums in the old town.
Although I did enjoy Edinburgh in many ways, most notably the park and New Town, I don’t really think that a whole lot goes on the worth talking about. Perhaps when the festival is happening it’s a different story, or when the weather is good, but for me it
was just another old town.
So I came to leave Scotland and head back south to London and eventually on to the Continent. However, for the first time since my arrival in Scotland the weather worked in my favour (sort of) for I spent an entire day on the bus driving through a snow storm. I was truly fed up with spending all the good days on buses and all the bad ones walking around cold towns, but for some reason I still wasn’t happy when the snow delayed my bus. I guess that I just hate bad weather.
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