I July Arran – Goat Fell

Arran of the many stags,

The sea reaches to its shoulder;

Wanton deer upon its peaks,

Mellow blaeberries on its heaths,

Over its fair shapely crags

Gambolling of dappled fawns leaping.

It is delightful when fine weather comes,

Delightful at all times is Arran.

Translated from the medieval Gaelic of an anonymous Irish poet

Somebody in our group has offended the weather gods for, for the second week running, they chose to cover our walking area with cloud and leave the rest of the country in glorious summer sunshine. But, no matter what the weather gods did, they couldn't dampen our spirits today, for we were for Arran once again, this time for an ascent of the highest of the island’s peaks, Goat Fell. They did try, though. As the ferry approached the island, the cloud thickened and the fog was thrown down like a wet blanket on the high peaks, flat-topping them around the two thousand contour. And this was how way it was to be for the rest of the day. But the Ooters laugh in the face of the weather gods and a little fog wasn’t going to put us off. (Your scribe just made that last bit up. Some of us were nearly at the point of cancelling the climb and having a low level walk instead when there appeared to be a brightening in the sky and the decision was made.)
Nearly all of us were in light spirits as we sat in the bus that would take us to our starting point at Corrie. The exception was Jimmy who had overindulged last night and was trying hard to retain the contents of his stomach on the twisty coast road. But we reached Corrie without real incident and started on the walk around eleven fifteen.
Much has been discussed in the Ooters about hill paths being sanitised but this was ridiculous. A tarmac road lifted us up behind the village, up behind ‘The Croft’ at High Corrie and up to a reservoir some five hundred feet above the sea. Then a forest type track continued the easy walking. This was climbing at its easiest. Even when we left the track, the path we took was well constructed and though steeper, it still provided easy walking.
We climbed with this well constructed path, between the burn valley and the forested area, among stands of mature bracken fronds. Even before we left the tarmac, the clegs were biting the naturalist. In the bracken, they redoubled their efforts. Exclamations of ‘Ooyah!’ and Ohyah!’ and words that should not be put in print, punctuated the conversation. Nature lover and pseudo-Buddhist he might be but the clegs that bit himnever lived to bite anybody else, swatted to death with a loud slap on bare skin. The way we saw it was that if they were biting him they were leaving us alone. And they never lived to bite us.
By the time we’d heard the eighth or ninth ‘Ooyah!’ we had left the bracken behind, climbed a style in the dee r fence and come onto a heathery slope. As the first spots of rain hit and the slope began to steepen, we halted for a breather and a drinks stop. We were spoilt for choice on the sweetie front today: Paul opened with his offer of Liquorice Allsorts, Rex countered with Jelly Babies and Johnny chipped in with Wine Gums. We were to be chewing most of the day.

The rain came to nothing and didn’t even occasion a happing up, so we sat longer than we might otherwise have done. We looked seaward to watch a new naval vessel, battleship grey and sleek, being put through its paces on the Clyde testing range. Only Allan gazed inland to where the rocky peaks disappeared into the cloud. What he thought of the prospect, he kept to himself but we could imagine his thoughts. So, to keep Allan happy, we moved on up the steep path through the heather to the lip of the corrie.
The slope eased on the floor of the corrie and the path split, the main one to climb onto the east ridge of Goat Fell and the minor to cross the floor of the corrie heading for North Goat Fell. It was the latter we took.
The walking on the corrie floor was easy. A slight breeze had sprung up to keep the clegs away, much to the relief of one person, and now the temperature was comfortable for climbing. It’s a good thing that the temperature had dropped to a reasonable level for the path steepened as it made the final climb on to the high ridge, and into the fog, was warm. We were split into two groups on this climb – the fit to the front and Allan, Johnny and Ronnie bringing up the rear. Despite frequent halts to allow the slow to catch up, we arrived on the crest of the ridge in that order.
Lunch was called. In the lea of some boulders, we sat to eat. The breeze was now fresh and the smirry fog was cooling. Waterproofs were donned for the first time today.
Only once did the fog break to reveal the floor of Glen Sannox a couple of thousand feet below but the rest of the world remained hidden in a secret whiteness. And it was into this whiteness that we went after lunch.
The Stachach ridge of Goat Fell is spectacular and is one of the best ridge walks in the country, offering superb views of rocky ridges and distant islands. But, apart from the granite tors rising above us in to the whiteness and the steep, grass slope falling away to our left, we could see nothing of its grandeur today. Only one of us fancied the crest of the ridge, over the stacks, the circumspect opting for the path under them. Hence the steep grass slope on our left. So, we all took the path to the east side of the ridge, dropping down rocks and clambering up over bouldery crags again. Once more we were split into two groups, Allan, Jimmy and Ronnie in the rear this time.
Only the first four saw it. The spectral image of a many-pointed stag solidified out of the fog, watching and listening to us invading its secret world. Then, without a sound, it turned and vanished into the whiteness once more leaving only photos as evidence of its existence. We keep the photos to show the disbelievers.

The summit of Goat Fell came quickly. We came up through a boulder-field, rounded a group of large boulders and there it was, complete with its trig point, viewfinder and those who had slogged up the ‘tourist’ path. The viewfinder indicated a height of 2866ft much to Davie’s delight and Jimmy’s disgust for they had argued the point on the way up and Davie had just been proved right. Again! Not quite Munro height but with 2850ft of climbing from Corrie, it is much more of an achievement than many Munros are. Some rejoiced in a job well done, some reflected on many previous ascents and some were just relieved to sit for a bit and stare into the fog for there was nothing to see beyond a few metres.
A quick drink and a few photographs for the record and we started the descent. We had already spoken of sanitising the mountain with paths, destroying the feeling of wildness. But here was a path sympathetically built into the boulder-field and blending superbly into the landscape. And it is necessary for the number of people taking this ‘tourist’ path every year must run into the thousands. Erosion is a major problem so the path is necessary. It was a path that dropped us quickly down the summit boulder-field to the broad east ridge of the mountain.
Somewhere along this ridge, before the split in the path, we came out of the cloud and saw the sun shine on Brodick and its bay. And it wasn’t long before we too were in the sunshine. The day was turned warm, the down-slope was gentle, and the walking relaxed. We sauntered down the tourist path watching Brodick and the trees of the castle policies getting ever closer.
We stopped at the bridge over the castle inflow for the day was warm and we weren’t in a particular hurry. We were in the sun but when we looked back, the peak was still swathed in thick, grey cloud. We were glad that it hadn’t lifted just as we left.
At the lower level, the air was again still and humid, ideal conditions for insect flight. When we came into the trees of the castle forest, the clegs bit again. This time they left few of us alone and there was a general ‘ooyah’ing as they fed their bloodthirsty appetites. Rex and Jimmy walked on trying hard to ignore biting insects and that was the last we were to see of these two for a while.
The rest of us strolled down the path, through the young plantation, into the more mature woodland and the shade of the trees, down through the castle policies and down to sea level at the old home farm. The farm and sawmill has a new use now, as a centre of commerce. A perfume factory, a brewery, a leather shop and a pub all share the old farm buildings. A shout came as we passed the pub. It was the fast pair with pint in hand. We had no option but to join them for it would have been bad manners to let them drink on their own, wouldn’t it? We sat in the sun and took a relaxing pint.
But our treasurer would only allow one pint here citing strains on the group finances so we were forced to rise and finish the walk. An unhurried stroll across the golf course, where Holly was warned not to lift any wee white ball she might see lying around, and along the shore brought us back to Brodick around five thirty.
We took FRT in the afternoon sunshine on the lawn of Mac’s Bar looking back over the bay to the high peaks still covered in clag. The fog did clear briefly but just long enough for the Goat Fell virgins to see where they had been, before it closed in again.

PS. The Arran beer must be cheap for our fiver contribution to the fund bought us three pints, a packet of crisps and a pokey of chips. Well done to the treasurer for elastic funding.

Delightful at all times is Arran.