The Hare and the Tortoise on Ben Wyvis
Club member, Marcus Risdell recounts his traumatic move to the Highlands from London and how he took inspiration from a mountain hare to complete his first ascent of Ben Wyvis.
The mountain hare had bounded straight up the cone of Tom a’ Chonnich, leaving distinctive footprints in the now deepening snow, its fore-paws seemingly behind its rear. The steepening slope forced me into a staggered zigzag and I could only marvel at the speed and agility as it had raced up the slope. The summit reached, it’s fleeting presence veered straight down into Glas Choire. I was now alone in a pristine snowscape, with gentle flurries flitting around my face, melting on my tongue as I struggled to regain my breath. The hare’s excellent adaptation to this winter mountain-scape inspired me and the lure of Ben Wyvis called me on.
My plan to leave London after 28 years had been fraught with anxious moments, all the more so due to the pandemic and lock-down. With most of my belongings left behind in storage, I returned the key for my home of many years and boarded the train to Scotland. The cottage I was to share on the farm on the Black Isle was idyllic but cold in mid-February. Another volunteer was already in residence and huddled around the stove we chatted late into the night. I was looking forward to some hard work in the fields.
The soil was still frozen: we were planting willows, the going heavy with the mattocks. It was exhilarating to gulp in the cold, clean air, and I put down the nagging pain in my abdomen to the hard seat of the train. This was Tuesday. By Thursday the pain necessitated a trip to the doctor who prescribed laxatives and sent me home to bed. Saturday afternoon I was in agony and called 999. The paramedic pumped me full of morphine and called the ambulance. They operated that evening.
My appendix had burst and I was developing peritonitis. To be honest, I was in a bad place. Despite the operation to remove what remained of the manky appendix and flush out my belly, I was still going downhill. I have sketchy memories of the next few days: there was an episode of vomiting green bile, an impressive 2.6 litres according to the nurse who caught the brunt of it. I had one tube up my nose and another coming out my belly, drips in each arm and an oxygen mask. But gradually the feverish haze lifted and I became aware of my surroundings and the view out the window which the patient in the bed opposite explained was Culloden Moor. He’d had a leg amputated but was still feeling pain in his missing foot. Already nifty in his wheelchair he reassured me I was already looking much better and would soon be racing him round the ward.
My first tentative steps were only as far as the loo. I had by now gone a week without food, and was frankly wasted. Just getting my various drainage bags, tubes and drips onto the wheelie-stand was effort enough. A few more days passed and the suppositories were a spectacular success: the through passage was now open and I was allowed ice-cream. Freed from my drips I could roam the ward and began doing laps until myself and the nurses were all dizzy.
One evening I plucked up the courage to leave the ward and explore more of the hospital, despite a wintry chill in the corridors from which my flimsy gown offered little protection. I found a large window overlooking Inverness and there to my surprise was this massive snow-covered mountain, glowing red in the sunset. Captivated by the spectacle I gazed on until forced back to the warmth of my bed in the ward. The map app on my phone told me it was Ben Wyvis. On its north side is Loch nan Druidean. These names held magic in my imagination and I knew then that as soon as I could I would climb the mountain and camp by the side of the loch.
Ten days after entering Raigmore Hospital I was discharged and back in front of the stove in the cottage on the Black Isle. The healing I realised was only just beginning and would be a slow process. The pain was not too bad, but any swift movement jiggled all my bits around inside. I was bloated and had to hold up my trousers with a bit of old rope. A short stroll to visit new neighbours, the sheep and the cows, left me exhausted: I had to rebuild myself, and I needed to eat. Oh how I needed to eat!
I set myself the task of walking a little further each day. After two weeks I made it as far as the A9 and the man that sold goose eggs. Another week and I was on top of Ord Hill, all 191 meters of hard won ascent: hill fitness must be stored in the appendix. And there in the distance was Ben Wyvis again, still a glorious white above the dreary browns of the moors. As my explorations of the Black Isle became more ambitious, so I began to appreciate how the mountain unexpectedly pops up here and there as you pass over the crown of a hill or reach a clearing in the woods. I visited ruined neolithic tombs and Pictish hill-forts. Here I felt a deep sense of awe that the ancients must have known as the mysterious massif, shining white in its winter blanket, floated in and out of their landscape. Indeed it’s name derives from the Gaelic fuathais, with its meaning of terror, dismal and gloomy. However it also carries an obsolete meaning of great quantity or size, just as does the English word awesome. It is sometimes likened to a beached whale but I feel that does it an injustice. I saw it as a massive mountain hare, ears tucked in and curled up in its scrape in the heather.
In April I returned to work on the farm. Organic soil requires a lot of weeding, but bending over still caused a lot of pain in my still tender belly. I preferred to volunteer for all the heavy jobs, the shovelling, digging and turning the compost, as this made me feel stronger. May was approaching and the days lengthening. Lock-down restrictions were being eased. I pulled out my big pack; it was time to go for it.
My choice of a high camp at Loch nan Druidean was fortuitous: public transport options suggested a start from Evanton in the east. My route would be broken into stages which could be easily reversed should I find my body or my stamina were not yet ready. I was even concerned that the hip belt of my pack, heavy with winter gear, would irritate my scar tissue and make the journey impossible. This would be tested on the first stage, a shortcut struggling over the broken ground and stumps of a cleared plantation and onto the bus stop at Tore roundabout.
I couldn’t resist including a quick visit to the chambered cairn at Drum Mor and the Black Rock Gorge of Harry Potter fame. It’s a long old plod up Glen Glass to the road end at Eileanach Lodge, but that suited me fine, as did the loch side track to the incongruous Tudor revival Wyvis Lodge. It had been a long time since I’d been in big boots and my feet dragged heavy, but other than this I felt fabulous as I turned up the stalkers path to Carn Gorm. To reach my camp at the upper Loch I had to struggle through thick heather and clamber over deep peat hags, tricky with a big pack at the best of times, but I remained mindful of my condition. The ridge of Glas Leathad Beag gleamed white across the water with old snow piled deeply in hollows round the corrie. I got the tent up for an early night.
Sleep came fitfully. Snug in my winter bag I had fulfilled one part of the challenge I had set myself in the hospital just ten weeks before. Perhaps that was enough, and in the morning I should descend? Then it started to snow. Every now and then I had to whack the sides of the tent to stop them folding in on me. I found the sound of fluttering flakes and swoosh of snow as it soughed off the fabric soothing, and drifted away into dreams full of druids and stone circles. Before I knew it, it was dawn. Loch nan Druidean was like a mirror and everything was white, light flurries adding to the beauty of the scene rather than showing malice. I decided to go on.
It was as the path disappeared under the ever deepening snow that I met the hare tracks. My progress may have been that of a tortoise, but I felt so alive. Despite the unusual exertion required I was at peace with myself, my mind, my body, and the mountain. It all made perfect sense. I would climb Tom a’Chonnich, and then make a decision about climbing to the higher summit on Ben Wyvis, Glas Leathad Mor. Deep down I believed the decision had already been made for me.
After departing company with the hare tracks the snow lay undisturbed across the bealach separating the two peaks. Over to the east, brooding beneath a glowering grey cloud ceiling, mothballed rigs lay moored in the Cromarty Firth.
These dark hulking sea-monsters jutted abruptly into the sky, potent symbols of our thirst for oil and the race to destroy our world. Such a contrast from the pure soft curves of the summit plateau ahead, a seemingly pristine home for the mountain hare. But this too has been tainted. Already global warming is stripping away the snows, leaving the hare naked and vulnerable in its white winter coat. How many aeons will it take for the hare to adapt to the destruction we have caused in such a short time since our industrial revolution.
Lost in my thoughts as I plodded through the snow I disappeared into a heavy snow squall with a brief white-out. One last test. I took a hasty bearing on the trig point and panting from the exertion arrived at the summit just minutes before midday on the first of May.
Marcus Risdell