29 December 'Into the Lost Valley of the Incas', Ness Glen Again

Allan, Davie, Davie C, Ian, Jimmy, Robert & Ronnie

The ‘big freeze’ broke on Christmas Eve and a slow thaw has been working since. This though, left us with heavily overcast skies, occasional rain and a dampness in the air that made it feel cold no matter what the thermometer said. And the thermometer said three Celsius when we gathered for the last walk of the year, another old favourite, the Ness Glen via Dalcairnie Linn. Still, the air was calm and there was a hint of blue showing in patches through the grey clag so we had hopes for a good day.
Seven of us - the less infirm, the less hung-over and the less henpecked - met, not at our usual place at Loch Doon but at The Promised Land on the outskirts of Dalmellington. We would make the walk different by starting at a different place.
Davie, Jimmy and Robert led us off. Well, ‘led us off’ might give the wrong impression. They strode away along the path while the rest of us were still changing into boots and jackets. When we looked up they were two hundred metres down the side of the Muck and disappearing into the distance. Would this be a portent of things to come? But there was no need to worry for, decent souls that they are they waited for us at the Scout Centenary garden. Now that we were together, we would stay that way for a bit.
We came to the Straiton road. Before Davie could put the lead on Holly, Jimmy and Robert crossed the road and took to a path that would keep us off it so Holly could run free for a while yet. This would have been a great idea if half the path hadn’t been washed away leaving us with deep, crumbly gullies to negotiate. And there was no way round them for the saughs were thick here. Jimmy’s ears were abused. Would this be a portent of things to come? But the path levelled off and half a mile later decanted us onto the road again.
The Straiton road was crossed as was the Doon – ‘That’s the river doon there’ said a wag. Ah, the auld yins are the best. – and we found ourselves on the road for Dalcairnie. The goosander was spotted on Bogton Loch and we stopped to see what a goosander was. Well, when I say ‘we’ stopped, I mean most of us did. Allan and Robert walked on. By the time Davie C’s binoculars had done the round and we all knew what a goosander was, the front two were well out of sight. We found them examining the young sheep at Dalcairnie Farm.

By now Robert’s tongue was hanging out for the lack of coffee and when we reached Dalcairnie Linn he decided that this was the perfect place. ‘Well, don’t we always stop here?’ said he and promptly sat down. We joined him. The falls, impressive as the usually are, had a special impressiveness today. The ‘big freeze’ had frozen the falls into a thirty foot high curtain of ice draping the far end of the cauldron and falling to a jumble of ice boulders on the bottom. Likewise, the pool at the bottom was solid with ice. But the recent thaw has set the burn flowing again and brown peaty water now stained the ice where it flowed. The overcast conditions had softened the light turning the walls of the cauldron black, contrasting with the white of the ice. ‘It’s like something you would find in Iceland or in Lord of the Rings’ said an imaginative one. And we enjoyed our coffee stop in Lord of the Rings land.

Most of us enjoyed the stop and were prepared to stay for a wee while but Jimmy was keen to push on and was already back up on the road pacing. So we left the linn behind us and made our way up to join Jimmy on the road.
The tarmac finishes at the Linn but we followed the track up towards Barbeth. On the high ground beyond Barbeth a herd stood on his quad bike on a high knoll whistling while his dog worked the sheep. Being as we are sociable fellows we stopped for a blether. Again, ‘we’ meant everybody except Davie, with Holly on lead, and Robert who walked on. (Portent of things to come?) By the time we had ascertained that the ‘snaw wisnae as bad as last winter’ – it wasn’t as deep and the sheep could reach the grass underneath – and that the dog was about two and a half years old and was the one he used in trials, the wayward two were well out of sight, down towards the Craigengillan woods. We found them standing on the tarmac of Craigengillan drive.
The walking had been good and easy up to then but in front of Craigengillan we found our first real icy obstacle. We had had some ice on the way down from Barbeth but nothing to what lay at Craigengillan. Sizeable areas of wet ice covered the track giving no traction to Vibram soles. Robert was very nearly on his backside before he realised he was on it and again before he could get off. The rest took this as a warning and took to the narrow grass verge between the ice and the rhododendrons that crowded onto it. And this continued all the way down the track to the bank of the Doon.
Now we could enter the ravine of the Ness Glen. This gorge has been described many times in these scribblings but today it was something special, something that needs to be recorded. Only in the summer months and only for a few short hours of the day does the sun enter the gorge. No sun shone in the outer world today and the diffuse grey light found its way into the defile of the Ness Glen, casting no deep shadows. As we walked further into it the roaring of the waters increased, resounding from the vertical rock walls, walls that were green with mosses and liverworts. Ferns of different kinds both large and small grew amongst the moss. Trees, crusted with grey lichens clung to vertical rock where they had no right to exist. Sixty feet above our heads more trees, filigreed against the grey sky, stretched over the gorge trying to touch their own kind on the other side. The black water of the river was flecked with white in the smoother sections and running milky white in the rapids. ‘It’s like entering the lost valley of the Incas’ said Ronnie, stretching our imaginations a bit, but not too much in our present surroundings. Giant boulders standing out of the river were capped with fantastical slabs of water-sculpted ice. In our imaginations these metamorphosed into fantastical birds and beasts. ‘The lost valley of the Incas’ reiterated Ronnie. And this lost valley was to continue for the next three quarters of a mile or so.

But the fantastical ‘lost valley of the Incas’ was lost on Davie and Robert who were pushing well ahead up the gorge. (Some folk have nae imagination, Ronnie.) Wet ice flowed across the path between the rock and the river hindering our progress. Some care and what little diversion that the narrow ledge offered, was used to get us over and around the worst of these. And as the gorge began to level and widen out near the top, we found the fast pair waiting by the footbridge that takes a path up the east side to the Loch Doon road. Now, we have never been across this bridge as a group and we had no intention of crossing it today. We have always followed the glen to its end and fully intended to do so again.
Twenty metres beyond the bridge we encountered a patch of ice, a real patch of ice, a broad, wet, treacherous patch of ice, a patch of ice that completely blocked our path. Whilst the intrepid would have gone on – Davie was already half way round it on the river side – the more sensible amongst us saw danger and were for turning back to the bridge. We turned back to the bridge.
The path rose quickly up the gully side and gave us a different view of the upper end of the gorge; not a better view, just a different one. And it took us across a frozen boggy area to the tarmac of the Loch Doon Road just fifty metres from the end of the dam. We crossed the dam, found a picnic table and sat down for lunch.
The light on Loch Doon was superb. The heavy sky turned the water steely grey fringed with lighter grey ice. Away to the south one of those blue patches of sky allowed the sun to shine on the Rhinns of Kells whitening the hill-fog on Coran of Portmark and reflecting the same in the loch. We suspected snow under this hill-fog and we were to be proved right for, as the sun increased its brightness, the fog rolled away to reveal white patches on the hill. Then the cloud closed and the hill returned to greyness. Nearer to hand, another break in the sky lit the western side of the loch, burning off the clag from Craiglee and showing the colours of the winter moor. The cameras were in action again. WLFTSTR.
We didn’t go back into ‘the lost valley’ after lunch. Davie had promised us a look at ‘Fort Apache’, the wooden stockade built by the local scouts and army cadets. So he led us through the woods along the top of the gorge. So much for promises! When we reached a point where we might have gone to see the ‘fort’, Davie said, pointing ‘That’s it. It’s no’ worth gaun ower tae see for it’s a’ locked up’ Then he promptly walked on. Talk about disappointed. Still some of us managed to sneak up and have a closer look. By the time the sneakers examined the stockade, Robert and Davie had led us down off the gorge lip and back to the river again. We waited at the Craigengillan Bridge for the wayward to rejoin us.
We have never seen the Gaw Burn as big as today; the ford was a full six to seven inches deep. The hydrophobes picked their way carefully over boulders but the brave just hitched up their breeks and strode manfully through the flood. Whichever method was chosen all arrived safely at the other side.
Now it was just gentle stroll under Bellsbank and along the Craigengillan main drive to the cars. Or was it? All those portents now came to fruition for that’s when the pace picked up. Jimmy, Ronnie and Robert, silly auld farts, decided to race it out to the end and left the rest of us ploughing on behind. Who won the race the scribe wouldn’t like to say - modesty forbids - but whoever it was arrived just a minute or so in front of the rest of us.

What a superb start to the year this was. And to finish of the super day, we took FRT in the Dalmellington Inn.

PS. See if you can spot a common factor in those charging on ahead today.
1. Leading off at the start – Davie, Jimmy and Robert
2. Walking ahead to Dalcairnie – Allan and Robert
3. Down from Barbeth – Davie and Robert
4. Through the gorge – Davie and Robert
5. Back to Craigengillan – Allan, Davie and Robert
6. Racing back to the cars – Jimmy, Ronnie and Robert
Who says the wee man’s competitive?