When thunders in the mountains roar,
And dark’ning clouds their deluge pour;
That’s when you’ll find the Ooters
Where torrents down the mountain side,
Spread far their waters, deep and wide;-
That’s where you’ll find the Ooters
Only seven of us ventured into the wilds of Galloway today. There might have been eight but one of the old boys has forgotten how to tell the time, so there were just the seven of us. The tardy one was replaced in the ranks by our young guest, Davie Clunie for his first outing since the Deil’s Back Door in April of last year. We reckon his feet must have dried out by this time for he has come back for another go.
The ascent of southern Scotland’s highest peak, Merrick, and the return by Lochs Enoch, Neldricken and Valley was the objective; a long day, so we were gathered at Bruce’s Stone in Glen Trool for a ten o’clock start. The start of the excursion was familiar to all, having been the starting point for the abandoned attempt at the Awful Hand at the end of April and the consequent round of Loch Trool. We were to take the ‘tourist’ path for Merrick.
Indiana led the way. But, remembering his leadership skills from last week, we kept an eye on him today. He led us to the first gate on the ‘tourist’ path. Then, either sense or fear of getting lost overcame him and he called for Allan to lead. We older Ooters have learnt from experience that it is always better to have somebody else to blame but poor Allan has yet to learn this so he cheerfully led us up through the forest to the bothy at Culsharg.
Coffee was called and we sat down outside the bothy for our first of the day. There was nobody in the bothy but there were obvious signs of occupation. The floor has been cleaned up and a new table has been installed. A tent hung over a wire to dry it off, a Mars Bar was stuffed down the inside of a toilet roll and two half drunk bottles of coke sat on the table. But there was no sign of an occupant.
We sat as long as we could for coffee. Two people of our sort of age, a man and a woman, came towards us on the Merrick path. The shy Jimmy approached them to make inquiries. They were a couple from Switzerland on a walking holiday in Scotland. They enjoyed our country very much, apart from the midgies. And we could see why for the wee blasties had just started on us. We lingered not.
Davie made the first move and took us up to the forest road to where a gentle breeze warded off the midgies. Everybody gathered on the road for a breather before attempting the hard bit, up through the forest. We were glad we rested for the path steepened in the forest, the air was warm and the climbing was hot. The wee breeze could not be felt among the trees but we had hopes for it when we cleared the forest. Until then, the sweat continued to pour.
We found the breeze when we cleared the trees on the flank of Benyellary, just the gentlest of stirrings from the west but enough to cool us a bit. We also found the cloud approaching from the same direction; a cumulo-nimbus cloud, tall and white with an ominous dark grey underbelly. We watched as the accompanying shower approached over Bennan. The first spots of rain hit and we donned waterproof jackets. We wondered why Davie pulled on his waterproof trousers as well for it was only a passing shower and not liable to last long. Ha! Davie, like Rudolph the Red, knows rain, dear. For fifteen minutes it came down and came down heavily. And we went up, up toward the drystane dyke on Benyellary.
The ‘shower’ went eventually but not before all, (except Davie, that is) were soaked from the ar hips down.
The rain went and left behind cooler, clearer air. By this time we were well up the drystane dyke on the steep of Benyellary, so we stopped to drip-dry, look at the view and count the lochs (see 07/03/07). Even the two who were well uphill (you may guess which two) stopped to look around. A couple of light aircraft, bi-planes with open cockpits, droned into sight from the west roughly on level with us. We thought by the look of them that they might be left-overs from WW1. The red one in the lead we suggested might be Baron Manfred von Richthofen, Der Rote Baron. ‘In that case’, said somebody, ‘the yellow one chasing it must be Snoopy’. Ian was heard to chant, ‘♫Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more......♪’ At this point we felt the need to climb on.
We met the fast pair on the summit of Benyellary, talking to an English couple. We spent a few minutes on this top while the English folk moved on towards Merrick. Davie and Jimmy took the chance to examine the view, Allan changed into his second shirt, Johnny and Davie C took advantage of the time to rest at the cairn, Rex drank his second coffee and Ian did what Ian does – he ate. We all took the opportunity to remove the waterproofs.
The day was clear and the views superb; as far as Luce Bay and the Mull of Galloway in the south-west, the Moors of Galloway running up into south Ayrshire in the west and Cairnsmore of Fleet in the south-east. And in between, a wild landscape of rough mountains and nebulous lochs. To the north Merrick heaved his bulk in front of us and this is where we turned our steps now.
Davie, Rex and Jimmy led the way off Benyellary top and a cracking pace they set. Down and along the Nieve of the Spit we went, to where the ridge narrows. No let up in the pace. Round the corner of the drystane dyke we went. Still no let up. Slanting up the long grassy south flank of Merrick we went. And the pace was kept high. We were catching the English folk fast but there was no let up in the pace. We must have climbed that hill in world record pace for old blokes.
We arrived at the summit cairn of Merrick at the same time as the English couple - and at the same time as the fog. Another cumulo-nimbus had drifted in and was now blanketing our top. And it threatened to rain again. We huddled inside what shelter the hollowed out cairn could afford, donned the waterproofs, grabbed a bite to eat and awaited the deluge again. The English couple joined us while the Swiss pair sat some twenty yards away under an umbrella and staring into the fog at where Loch Doon should have been. It looked like it was going to be another viewless day on Merrick.
But the rain came to nothing and the fog began to break up. Were we to be lucky this time? We certainly were. The fog broke gradually revealing tantalising vignettes of a landscape beyond. Then it went altogether, the sun reappeared and a whole panorama of hills, lochs and forests opened up to us then. To the west, across the defile of the Black Gairy, the low-lying, forest-clad Moors stretched northward into Ayrshire; in the immediate north, Kirriereoch blocked any distant vista but Troon and the Ayrshire coast could be seen to the right of it; below us, in the north-east, the spruces of the south Ayrshire forest surrounded Lochs Macaterick and Riecawr and Loch Doon was exactly where the Swiss thought it was; in the east, the Rhinns of Kells, in its entirety, filled the skyline. ‘It looks a long way from one end to the other’, said one, recalling the superb long day we had traversing this ridge back in October 2007.
Johnny took advantage of the break to change shirts, much to the delight of the English woman. ‘That’s the second semi-naked man I’ve seen today’, said she with at twinkle in her eye. Johnny was delighted that he still has this effect on women. So delighted was he that he presented the pair with an Ooters blog card, presumably so that they can admire his hat again.
The English couple took their leave of us. They were for back down the ‘tourist’ path while we were to abandon paths of any description and take a direct line for Loch Enoch. Jimmy had warned us about the terrain and now we could see why. High granite outcrops broke the surface with low, boggy areas between. It would be easy to get separated in such terrain. But we stuck together (well, as together as the leading pair allowed) and stumbled on ever downward, even clambering down a cliff at one point, to find ourselves on a beach of granite sand beside the loch. At sixteen hundred and fifty feet, Loch Enoch is the second highest Loch in Scotland.
Since most of us were newcomers to the area, Jimmy insisted that we had to see the Grey Man of the Merrick. You might think that, as we were on the descent, all our climbing was behind us. Not so. We now had a hundred feet of steep, boggy slope to climb. That’s when the first grumbling started. Jimmy was being accused of all manner of sadism. If his ears weren’t burning, they should have been. Then the ground level out and we found ourselves at the rock ‘face’ of the Grey Man. Was it worth the effort? That was remains a point of debate.
Rex and Jimmy led us away from the Grey Man to find a pad on the Rigg of Loch Enoch. This was easier going now and the accusations of sadomasochism were beginning to subside. The path continued high and we strode along the rig conscious of the approaching cloud once more.
Rex and Jimmy still led the way for Jimmy knew where he was going and Rex had his GPS set. Anyway, we could see the path round Loch Neldricken lying below us. We followed some distance behind, confident in our leaders. Suddenly the guiding twosome left the path and took to a slope of lank grasses and many tall, green ‘doogals’. It dawned on us then that the experts were lost.
Down through the doogals we followed with the leaders some distance in front and moving away. It’s a good job they were out of earshot for the abuse directed at them was severe and plentiful. Though we could see they were heading for the path round the loch it didn’t help ease the pain as we stumbled and staggered down the slope in their wake. However, they had the decency to wait on the path near the Murder Hole for us to catch up. We reached them just as the rain reached us.
Another shower was our guess, a quick wetting and then the sun again. We waterproofed just in time. Now there is rain and there is rain. But this was a monsoon. Large drops of warm water were thrown at us. Then the thunder started. Then the rain became so heavy that it was difficult to see thirty yards through it. And there was no point stopping for a conversation for the incessant drum of rain on jacket hoods made anything less than the thunder almost inaudible. Never had any of our group been out in such rain. And we had some very experienced mountaineers with us. The falling water couldn’t be absorbed by the ground and was running off in all available channels. The path that Jimmy said would be wet anyway, was now a running stream. Sometimes it would be just wet. Other times it lay under six, seven or eight inches of running water. There was no point in trying to find a drier way. The best way was just to plough through it for the rain had already found its way into our boots and feet were squelching already.
There came a wee burn which, at normal times, is barely a break in the stride. Right now it was running deep and washing the top of its bank, threatening to overflow any time. The first two jumped a four foot burn but such was the rain that when the last made the attempt, it was six or seven inches wider, and rising. Had we been ten minutes later, we would have had real problems crossing here, such was the downpour.
And the thunder continued to rumble and echo from the mountain. And the rain continued to come down. Johnny found the next wee burn where there shouldn’t have been one. He found it rather unexpectedly and rather wetly. His problem was not the wet but how to climb the four feet of the slimy bank. He made it though. Allan was next to try his luck, diving sideways into the burn instead of jumping like any sensible body would do. Not that any of them noticed the extra wet for, by this time all of us were thoroughly soaking.
Eventually the rain went but the thunder rolled for a while yet. Somewhere on a drier section of path above the Gairland Burn we sat for a break. Jimmy removed his boots and poured the best part of a pint of water out of each. At least he only squelched a bit now as we walked on.
We came round a corner of the hill and found ourselves high on the side of Glen Trool, on the flank of Buchan hill. ‘It’s now an easy stroll downward’ said the experts. Ha again! We had bracken to go through. Not quite as high as last week but high enough, and wet. We slithered and slipped our way down to the forest road at the Buchan. NOW, it was an easy stroll back.
What a pleasure are dry clothes. We arrived at the cars having experienced the wettest day we have been out in and took pleasure in our dry clothes.
Today was hard and something of a trial but, funnily enough was an experience worth going through. ‘How can one appreciate the heaven of dry clothes without experiencing the hell of thunderstorms in the mountains?’ It remains to be seen when Davie Clunie will dry out for his next outing.
This was the week-end of the Open golf at Turnberry and our usual howf was cordoned off for security reasons so we crossed the hill from Straiton to Dalmellington to take FRT today.
And dark’ning clouds their deluge pour;
That’s when you’ll find the Ooters
Where torrents down the mountain side,
Spread far their waters, deep and wide;-
That’s where you’ll find the Ooters
Only seven of us ventured into the wilds of Galloway today. There might have been eight but one of the old boys has forgotten how to tell the time, so there were just the seven of us. The tardy one was replaced in the ranks by our young guest, Davie Clunie for his first outing since the Deil’s Back Door in April of last year. We reckon his feet must have dried out by this time for he has come back for another go.
The ascent of southern Scotland’s highest peak, Merrick, and the return by Lochs Enoch, Neldricken and Valley was the objective; a long day, so we were gathered at Bruce’s Stone in Glen Trool for a ten o’clock start. The start of the excursion was familiar to all, having been the starting point for the abandoned attempt at the Awful Hand at the end of April and the consequent round of Loch Trool. We were to take the ‘tourist’ path for Merrick.
Indiana led the way. But, remembering his leadership skills from last week, we kept an eye on him today. He led us to the first gate on the ‘tourist’ path. Then, either sense or fear of getting lost overcame him and he called for Allan to lead. We older Ooters have learnt from experience that it is always better to have somebody else to blame but poor Allan has yet to learn this so he cheerfully led us up through the forest to the bothy at Culsharg.
Coffee was called and we sat down outside the bothy for our first of the day. There was nobody in the bothy but there were obvious signs of occupation. The floor has been cleaned up and a new table has been installed. A tent hung over a wire to dry it off, a Mars Bar was stuffed down the inside of a toilet roll and two half drunk bottles of coke sat on the table. But there was no sign of an occupant.
We sat as long as we could for coffee. Two people of our sort of age, a man and a woman, came towards us on the Merrick path. The shy Jimmy approached them to make inquiries. They were a couple from Switzerland on a walking holiday in Scotland. They enjoyed our country very much, apart from the midgies. And we could see why for the wee blasties had just started on us. We lingered not.
Davie made the first move and took us up to the forest road to where a gentle breeze warded off the midgies. Everybody gathered on the road for a breather before attempting the hard bit, up through the forest. We were glad we rested for the path steepened in the forest, the air was warm and the climbing was hot. The wee breeze could not be felt among the trees but we had hopes for it when we cleared the forest. Until then, the sweat continued to pour.
We found the breeze when we cleared the trees on the flank of Benyellary, just the gentlest of stirrings from the west but enough to cool us a bit. We also found the cloud approaching from the same direction; a cumulo-nimbus cloud, tall and white with an ominous dark grey underbelly. We watched as the accompanying shower approached over Bennan. The first spots of rain hit and we donned waterproof jackets. We wondered why Davie pulled on his waterproof trousers as well for it was only a passing shower and not liable to last long. Ha! Davie, like Rudolph the Red, knows rain, dear. For fifteen minutes it came down and came down heavily. And we went up, up toward the drystane dyke on Benyellary.
The ‘shower’ went eventually but not before all, (except Davie, that is) were soaked from the ar hips down.
The rain went and left behind cooler, clearer air. By this time we were well up the drystane dyke on the steep of Benyellary, so we stopped to drip-dry, look at the view and count the lochs (see 07/03/07). Even the two who were well uphill (you may guess which two) stopped to look around. A couple of light aircraft, bi-planes with open cockpits, droned into sight from the west roughly on level with us. We thought by the look of them that they might be left-overs from WW1. The red one in the lead we suggested might be Baron Manfred von Richthofen, Der Rote Baron. ‘In that case’, said somebody, ‘the yellow one chasing it must be Snoopy’. Ian was heard to chant, ‘♫Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more......♪’ At this point we felt the need to climb on.
We met the fast pair on the summit of Benyellary, talking to an English couple. We spent a few minutes on this top while the English folk moved on towards Merrick. Davie and Jimmy took the chance to examine the view, Allan changed into his second shirt, Johnny and Davie C took advantage of the time to rest at the cairn, Rex drank his second coffee and Ian did what Ian does – he ate. We all took the opportunity to remove the waterproofs.
The day was clear and the views superb; as far as Luce Bay and the Mull of Galloway in the south-west, the Moors of Galloway running up into south Ayrshire in the west and Cairnsmore of Fleet in the south-east. And in between, a wild landscape of rough mountains and nebulous lochs. To the north Merrick heaved his bulk in front of us and this is where we turned our steps now.
Davie, Rex and Jimmy led the way off Benyellary top and a cracking pace they set. Down and along the Nieve of the Spit we went, to where the ridge narrows. No let up in the pace. Round the corner of the drystane dyke we went. Still no let up. Slanting up the long grassy south flank of Merrick we went. And the pace was kept high. We were catching the English folk fast but there was no let up in the pace. We must have climbed that hill in world record pace for old blokes.
We arrived at the summit cairn of Merrick at the same time as the English couple - and at the same time as the fog. Another cumulo-nimbus had drifted in and was now blanketing our top. And it threatened to rain again. We huddled inside what shelter the hollowed out cairn could afford, donned the waterproofs, grabbed a bite to eat and awaited the deluge again. The English couple joined us while the Swiss pair sat some twenty yards away under an umbrella and staring into the fog at where Loch Doon should have been. It looked like it was going to be another viewless day on Merrick.
But the rain came to nothing and the fog began to break up. Were we to be lucky this time? We certainly were. The fog broke gradually revealing tantalising vignettes of a landscape beyond. Then it went altogether, the sun reappeared and a whole panorama of hills, lochs and forests opened up to us then. To the west, across the defile of the Black Gairy, the low-lying, forest-clad Moors stretched northward into Ayrshire; in the immediate north, Kirriereoch blocked any distant vista but Troon and the Ayrshire coast could be seen to the right of it; below us, in the north-east, the spruces of the south Ayrshire forest surrounded Lochs Macaterick and Riecawr and Loch Doon was exactly where the Swiss thought it was; in the east, the Rhinns of Kells, in its entirety, filled the skyline. ‘It looks a long way from one end to the other’, said one, recalling the superb long day we had traversing this ridge back in October 2007.
Johnny took advantage of the break to change shirts, much to the delight of the English woman. ‘That’s the second semi-naked man I’ve seen today’, said she with at twinkle in her eye. Johnny was delighted that he still has this effect on women. So delighted was he that he presented the pair with an Ooters blog card, presumably so that they can admire his hat again.
The English couple took their leave of us. They were for back down the ‘tourist’ path while we were to abandon paths of any description and take a direct line for Loch Enoch. Jimmy had warned us about the terrain and now we could see why. High granite outcrops broke the surface with low, boggy areas between. It would be easy to get separated in such terrain. But we stuck together (well, as together as the leading pair allowed) and stumbled on ever downward, even clambering down a cliff at one point, to find ourselves on a beach of granite sand beside the loch. At sixteen hundred and fifty feet, Loch Enoch is the second highest Loch in Scotland.
Since most of us were newcomers to the area, Jimmy insisted that we had to see the Grey Man of the Merrick. You might think that, as we were on the descent, all our climbing was behind us. Not so. We now had a hundred feet of steep, boggy slope to climb. That’s when the first grumbling started. Jimmy was being accused of all manner of sadism. If his ears weren’t burning, they should have been. Then the ground level out and we found ourselves at the rock ‘face’ of the Grey Man. Was it worth the effort? That was remains a point of debate.
Rex and Jimmy led us away from the Grey Man to find a pad on the Rigg of Loch Enoch. This was easier going now and the accusations of sadomasochism were beginning to subside. The path continued high and we strode along the rig conscious of the approaching cloud once more.
Rex and Jimmy still led the way for Jimmy knew where he was going and Rex had his GPS set. Anyway, we could see the path round Loch Neldricken lying below us. We followed some distance behind, confident in our leaders. Suddenly the guiding twosome left the path and took to a slope of lank grasses and many tall, green ‘doogals’. It dawned on us then that the experts were lost.
Down through the doogals we followed with the leaders some distance in front and moving away. It’s a good job they were out of earshot for the abuse directed at them was severe and plentiful. Though we could see they were heading for the path round the loch it didn’t help ease the pain as we stumbled and staggered down the slope in their wake. However, they had the decency to wait on the path near the Murder Hole for us to catch up. We reached them just as the rain reached us.
Another shower was our guess, a quick wetting and then the sun again. We waterproofed just in time. Now there is rain and there is rain. But this was a monsoon. Large drops of warm water were thrown at us. Then the thunder started. Then the rain became so heavy that it was difficult to see thirty yards through it. And there was no point stopping for a conversation for the incessant drum of rain on jacket hoods made anything less than the thunder almost inaudible. Never had any of our group been out in such rain. And we had some very experienced mountaineers with us. The falling water couldn’t be absorbed by the ground and was running off in all available channels. The path that Jimmy said would be wet anyway, was now a running stream. Sometimes it would be just wet. Other times it lay under six, seven or eight inches of running water. There was no point in trying to find a drier way. The best way was just to plough through it for the rain had already found its way into our boots and feet were squelching already.
There came a wee burn which, at normal times, is barely a break in the stride. Right now it was running deep and washing the top of its bank, threatening to overflow any time. The first two jumped a four foot burn but such was the rain that when the last made the attempt, it was six or seven inches wider, and rising. Had we been ten minutes later, we would have had real problems crossing here, such was the downpour.
And the thunder continued to rumble and echo from the mountain. And the rain continued to come down. Johnny found the next wee burn where there shouldn’t have been one. He found it rather unexpectedly and rather wetly. His problem was not the wet but how to climb the four feet of the slimy bank. He made it though. Allan was next to try his luck, diving sideways into the burn instead of jumping like any sensible body would do. Not that any of them noticed the extra wet for, by this time all of us were thoroughly soaking.
Eventually the rain went but the thunder rolled for a while yet. Somewhere on a drier section of path above the Gairland Burn we sat for a break. Jimmy removed his boots and poured the best part of a pint of water out of each. At least he only squelched a bit now as we walked on.
We came round a corner of the hill and found ourselves high on the side of Glen Trool, on the flank of Buchan hill. ‘It’s now an easy stroll downward’ said the experts. Ha again! We had bracken to go through. Not quite as high as last week but high enough, and wet. We slithered and slipped our way down to the forest road at the Buchan. NOW, it was an easy stroll back.
What a pleasure are dry clothes. We arrived at the cars having experienced the wettest day we have been out in and took pleasure in our dry clothes.
Today was hard and something of a trial but, funnily enough was an experience worth going through. ‘How can one appreciate the heaven of dry clothes without experiencing the hell of thunderstorms in the mountains?’ It remains to be seen when Davie Clunie will dry out for his next outing.
This was the week-end of the Open golf at Turnberry and our usual howf was cordoned off for security reasons so we crossed the hill from Straiton to Dalmellington to take FRT today.
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