Second Man on the Rope E-Book

Ian R Mitchell

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

What are the rules of etiquette in a bothy full of strangers?How cold, exactly, can a Scottish summer get?And how many cans of beer can a man carry whilst fording a swollen river? Second Man on the Rope tackles all these questions and more, a celebrating Scotland's mountains come sun, sleet or snow, through the stories of a great climbing partnership. Ranging from the Cairngorms to Glencoe, from Nevis to Knoydart and from the Cuillin to the Cobbler, this book weaves the story of a friendship amongst witty – and often alarming – tales of mountaineering mishaps. These richly entertaining tales will delight all who love the Scottish hills – be they mountaineers, day-outers, Munro-baggers (like the author) or merely armchair ramblers. Written with a wealth of knowledge, this mountaineering classic is a warm and witty celebration of friendship, forged over many years, between the author and his 'first man' – Davie. Together they form one of the great double acts of climbing literature. They face with humour and fortitude all that the mountains can pit against them – winter avalanches, raging rivers, rats in bothies and Brummies in baseball boots.

Leseprobe

IAN R MITCHELL taught history in further education for over twenty years, and has subsequently devoted himself to full-time writing for almost two decades. He is a widely-respected writer on both urban culture and history and the culture and history of mountaineering. He has written about his home town in Aberdeen Beyond the Granite, and published several works on his adoptive city of Glasgow, most recently A Glasgow Mosaic and Walking Through Glasgow’s Industrial Past. He is author, with Dave Brown, of the classic Mountain Days and Bothy Nights – continuously in print for a quarter of a century – and A View from the Ridge, which won the Boardman-Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. From his solo pen has come Scotland’s Mountains before the Mountaineers and (with George Rodway) the acclaimed biography of Aberdonian mountaineer Alexander Kellas, Prelude to Everest. Ian has featured his work at literary events such as Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival as well as at mountain gatherings including the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in Canada.

First published 1992

New edition 2016

ISBN: 978-1-910324-72-1

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Typeset in 11 point Sabon

© Ian R Mitchell 2016

Contents

Preface: Mountain Days in Thatcherzeit

CHAPTER 1 Rover’s Return

CHAPTER 2 Lagan Behind

CHAPTER 3 A Hourn Escape

CHAPTER 4 A Torrid Affair

CHAPTER 5 The End of Something

CHAPTER 6 Coldsville

CHAPTER 7 Cockaleekie

CHAPTER 8 Fire and Ice

CHAPTER 9 The Ridge and the Midge

CHAPTER 10 Special Offer

CHAPTER 11 The Ascent of Nymphet Crack

CHAPTER 12 Before a Fall

CHAPTER 13 Trench Warfare

CHAPTER 14 Hohenweg

CHAPTER 15 The Young Team

CHAPTER 16 Forcan Terrible

CHAPTER 17 Rats’ Feet on Broken Past

CHAPTER 18 Keeping Cuillin Difficulty

CHAPTER 19 Crossing the River

CHAPTER 20 Crowberry Curfew

CHAPTER 21 A Short Walk With Our Publisher

CHAPTER 22 Completing: The End of an Auld Sang

This book is dedicated to Davie,in the hope that someday he might forgive me for writing it.

Preface

Mountain Days in Thatcherzeit

IT MAY SEEM pretentious to reintroduce this book of demotic tales of Scottish mountaineering seen from a worm’s eye perspective with a reference to Kierkegaard, but his statement that we live life forwards but understand it backwards applies to these humble tales, offered once again to the indulgence of the reader. The book was published almost a quarter of a century ago, and despite selling well suffered the occasional fate of other books that had been well-received, but whose publisher went bust – or in the current instance was taken over by a larger concern uninterested in reprinting niche publications like this one.

On a rereading the author felt that these stories still had a capacity to amuse – and inform – the reader, and that they captured aspects of the spirit of the underbelly of Scottish mountaineering back in the 1980s, a topic that much literature of the genre, concerned with significant climbing achievements and big mountaineering expeditions, overlooks. As with Mountain Days and Bothy Nights and A View from the Ridge, the books I had previously written with Dave Brown, who features as my accomplice in these tales, the broad range of hillwalkers and mountaineers will hopefully find their experience resonates somewhat with our own.

The two books I wrote with Dave were very much in the ‘looking backward’ format, describing events that had taken place long – often decades – before they were committed to paper, consisting mainly of stories that were located in the 1960s. Second Man on the Rope, however, was published just after the events in its last chapter took place, and it was intended as a contemporary account of moderate Scottish mountaineering in the 1980s. If our previous works were historical documents, of an admittedly modest sort, this present work has become – with the passage of so much time – one such also. The bothies we used have become much less visited as that aspect of mountaineering culture has declined, and the rock climbs we did have become even less frequented.

In a era of bouldering, sport climbing, YouTube clips, lucrative sponsorship deals and all else that now is prominent in the mountain world, the mountain culture of Second Man today seems far away, as far away from 2016 as our other books were from the period they in turn described when initially published. Though this was not intended, Second Man covers exactly the Thatcher Era, from the first chapter set in 1979 to the last, which took place in 1991. As in many other ways in broader society, in mountaineering the 1980s were a transitional decade, from the world in which Dave and I spent our apprenticeships to that of today. It was a decade when the commercialisation of mountaineering took giant and irreversible strides forward towards being a part of the world of commodity relations rather than a partial escape from it. What was published in Second Man as contemporary observation has become historical comment for many and nostalgia for those of a certain age.

The reader needs also to be informed that Dave and I have continued fighting the good, though unavailing, fight in the last twenty-five years, from Sutherland to Switzerland and from the Cairngorms to the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona. (That’s one for ye!) Maybe some day our more recent tales will be told. But for the moment hopefully you will enjoy a re-acquaintance, or a fresh encounter, with these.

Ian R Mitchell, April 2016

1

Rover’s Return

IT WAS THE first time I had been away with Davie. After several unsuccessful starts, I seemed to have found someone in Glasgow whose passion for the hills matched mine. But could I pass muster with my new companion? I already knew him as an associate of the fearful Glasgow Creag Dhu; he had climbed with many of the best men of his generation; he had been to the Himalayas, the Alps and the Rockies. A curriculum vitae which cast my own modest achievements in a very large shadow – as he had already pointed out to me. More than once.

‘Ye must realise,’ he said, ‘that I’ve been tae yer secret howff before. This is no the first time.’

I already knew Davie well enough to realise that Big Euan and myself were about to hear the full, unexpurgated version of his first visit to the hidey hole that I had not revisited during my decade’s exile in Glasgow. I was glad Davie knew of it. It relieved me of the responsibility of wondering whether I was breaking the obscure and convoluted rules governing Slugain Howff’s secrecy, by taking him to it. And Davie himself could be regarded as taking Big Euan.

‘It was Sandy that took me. An Aberdonian. He’d been a gamie on the estate o’ Invercauld. He was a queer bugger, typical Aberdonian,’ he said, looking at me. ‘Really mean.’

I knew I would have to buy the drinks at the Fife Arms in Braemar, to avoid being tarred with the same brush. Davie was driving us in that direction from Glasgow.

‘He used tae take wan spoon o’ sugar at haim, and two if he was visiting yer hoose.’

‘Maybe he was takkin a lane o’ ye Davie?’ I suggested.

‘No, no,’ he came back, irked at the suggestion that his perspicacity could be wanting. ‘He used tae leave his wife in the car tae save money when he went tae the pub. I saw her sittin there when I went oot.’

This did seem difficult to gainsay, so I tried to change the topic.

‘Tell us aboot the trip tae the howff.’

‘Well, we met some o’ his auld workmates in the pub, and we got well oiled; ye should hae seen them, strappin lads wi Glenmorangie tartan faces. So it wis late when we got tae the howff, after gettin chucked oot at midnight, and the lang walk. And maybe we were a bit noisy comin in and frying up the square sassidges, and finishing wir cairry-oot. But that wis nae excuse for the lot that wis there already for jist glowerin at us and refusing tae be friendly, like. Ye know me, I’m aye prepared tae be accommodating and welcoming.’

I knew Davie, or was getting to know him. Knew that behind that body language that might have made the unknowing think they were about to be challenged to a ‘fair go’, lurked a genuinely tender and sensitive soul, seeking communion. I suggested that possibly, in the wee sma oors, and also the worse for drink, his desire to be friendly might not have been apparent to an innocent onlooker.

‘Ah, bit wait,’ he cried, obviously with his trump card to come. ‘In the morning we wernae noisy. But that crowd o’ tight-arsed Aberdonians just got up and left, withoot a word!’

He mentioned names; some I knew, others only by repute. I had lost contact with the Aberdeen scene, but felt somehow still obliged to defend them.

‘Maybe they were gyan onywye?’

No, he rejected this; it was just the pure ill-nature and parochialism of warped east-coasters, faced with friendly men of the west.

‘I wouldnae be sae polite now, if I got yon kind o’ reception again,’ muttered Davie, working himself up into a street-fighting posture and frame of mind in the driver’s seat. But he soon faced a real conflict, from another and unexpected quarter.

We drove past the NO ENTRY sign at the lnvercauld gates, took the back road past the lodge, and parked at a locked gate a couple of miles on. I suggested haste to avoid detection, but Euan and Davie were dilatory in packing up to go. And we paid the price. Without looking, I could picture what was coming up behind us, from the heavy scrunch on the track. The gamie stood there, fearsome in tweed and windburn, glowering at us. We waited for him to speak.

‘Aye, and fit wid you loons be daein wi that car. Can ye no read? Did ye get permission tae come up here?’

A trick question, trying to trap us.

‘Naw, fair doose. We didnae,’ said Davie.

‘And far wid yeeze be gyan?’ he asked.

I decided to see if I could talk us out of a humiliating drive back, and walk back up from the road.

‘We’re gyan tae the howff, I’ve nae been there for ten year, used tae ging there a’ the time. Kent the lads that built it’ (that was stretching it a bit, but what the hell). ‘We used tae be able tae drive up richt tae the gate…’

He was obviously a bit mollified by the reference to the howff. By a curious paradox, though the lnvercauld gamies were zealously proprietorial, the select users of the howff were tolerated and its existence allowed to go unchecked.

‘And it was Sandy that used to work here, that took me tae the howff,’ ventured Davie.

‘Sandy, ye ken Sandy?’ But then he stiffened. ‘But there’s oer much vandalism noo, we cannae let ye leave the car here.’

‘Listen,’ I ventured, ‘dae we look like vandals? And if onything happens, ye’ve got the car here.’

Davie looked as if he was about to protest at his four wheels being used as ransom, when the gamie indicated that he was won over.

‘A’ richt, a’ richt. Hide it in the wid doon by.’ He pointed to some trees where a side track led. We thanked him profusely, and cached the vehicle.

‘Ye see Davie,’ I commented, ‘ye’ve jist tae ken foo tae treat east coasters.’

But I was struck for words when he replied, ‘Aye, it wis me mentioning Sandy that won him oer.’

After a walk in the fine evening light, we were soon entering the tiny door of the howff – the ‘secret howff’ of Beinn a’ Bhuird where I had spent many weekends a decade previously. I had come back to Slugain Howff for nostalgia. Davie and Euan had come to climb; so there was a divergence the next day, when we emerged from the dwarf’s house, built into its sheltering rock, quite obscured from chance gaze.

‘C’mon,’ encouraged Davie, ‘come wi us tae Garbh Choire. Ye’ll manage Squareface, and we’ve two ropes.’

Davie’s optimism was based on my modest clutch of Cairngorm climbs, dating from over a decade previously. Lack of partners and loss of interest had led to no additions since then.

‘I’ll come wi ye, but I’ll nae climb. I’ll ging on tae Beinn a’ Chaorainn and see ye back at the Howff.’

‘Beinn a’ Chaorainn! I used tae tak the Tufties fae Glenmore Lodge tae yon daft hill. That’s no fit for a real man’s outing.’

I had to suffer a little more baiting before my spectator’s role was accepted. We trudged the long miles past Clach a’ Chleirich and on to Garbh Choire, descending to the foot of the Sneck, and then on to Mitre Ridge, where the pair took their stance at the bottom of the Crofton-Cumming route. Once more I rejected participation, moving instead up the hill to watch their progress up the Ridge. That was the day I decided to purchase a camera, cursing the lost photo opportunities.

The Mitre Ridge, as those who have seen it will be aware, is a magnificent sweep of rock, 650 feet high, crowned by jaggy towers. The west wall is virtually vertical, and on it the classic they had chosen was described as ‘continuously difficult and exposed’. I watched as Euan led off and climbed to a shelf, and then over a hanging flake to the first belay, where he was silhouetted above the black rock against the blue sky. I had never climbed that confidently, I thought. Davie followed, in a more muscular style, and led through; then traversed to the second belay, where he appeared to be standing on air. I moved up the hill, taking myself farther from them, to follow. I lost them occasionally as they dipped between the Ridge and its subsidiary, but always they would reappear against the fine sky, moving very quickly. They were soon standing together on a large platform near the top of the Mitre. Then one of them (I was too far to discern whom) moved onto what seemed a holdless wall, and gained the summit.

We met at the north top for lunch; they were exultant.

‘Yon Bell’s variation. That’s something,’ enthused Davie, adding, ‘Ye missed yersel there. Squareface is still an option, if ye want?’

Tempted, I declined, leaving them to descend again while I crossed the barren boulder fields of Beinn a’ Bhuird, and then bounced across the springy, easy turf of the Moine Bhealaidh to my top; where I dozed in the thin sunlight, dreaming, watching the deer, listening to the black cock calling.

Dreaming.

In the howff, when I arrived back, a Squareface obituary was going on. I had passed Coire na Ciche on the return, and looked, tried to remember what it was I had done there. Not a great deal, and most of the time I had been traumatised. The Sickle sounded familiar…

‘Exposed and steep, but a bit short,’ Euan was saying. ‘And quite easy. Not a patch on Crofton-Cumming.’

‘Aye,’ Davie looked up, ‘ye’d hae managed it nae bother. We’ll get ye back on the rock yet!’

‘Aye, mebbe,’ I smiled.

‘And it’s important tae keep climbin these fine auld routes. The modren thinking is dismissive, looking for wee daft short impossible climbs in quarries and things. The traditions must be kept up!’

‘But that’s just fit Sandy was daeing wi the sugar, Davie,’ I ventured.

‘Eh? Ye’re bletherin, man. But that reminds me, we’d better get doon quick the morra. Yon gamie might nick wir petrol cap or something. I widnae pit it past an Aberdonian tae nick yer windscreen wipers.’

So I had to atone for all the real and imaginary sins of my compatriots by buying the drink on the way home as well.

2

Lagan Behind

AND DAVIE DID get me back on the rocks before too long. I was fortunate; he was getting to that stage where he was running out of partners, and had to make do with what was on offer. His old Creag Dhu pals had dispersed, and he was still without acolytes.

I had been trudging through Knoydart, in the rain. From Glen Dessary I had taken the old hill track to Sourlies, hoping it would clear. Then I had crossed the unseen hills to Inverie and given up. Davie and the Young Doctor were at Sligachan, so I decided to join them, hoping my luck and the weather would change. A hop on the wee boat to Mallaig, a skip on the ferry to Armadale, and a jump on the bus to Sligachan, and I was looking for Davie’s tent.

These were the last days of free camping at Sligachan, before boulders were rolled and ground dug up to force use of the Hotel’s camp site. Free camping at Glen Brittle had already gone, much to Davie’s chagrin. He approached the issue of access from an economic, rather than a moral standpoint.

‘Thirty bob tae pit up yer tent, it’s daylight robbery!’

I found the tent. They were not there, so I headed for the bar.

They had had a good day; some route down by the Cioch, and they were celebrating. Davie commented: ‘There’s a fine auld gentlemen’s route nearby, that nobody does now, on the next buttress. Steeple and Barlow’s Direct Route. And they’re rights o’ way, these auld routes. If nobody uses them, they get closed.’

He paused, and fixed me steely eyed.

‘We’re for it the morra. Ye can coont yersel in, if ye like.’

I realised it was more of an instruction than a question. On it could depend my occupation of a corner of his tent the next day.

We drove down to Brittle in reassuringly bad weather. Mist pressed on the roof of the car, and we could see little as we trudged up through freezing precipitation into Coire Lagan. We passed below the Cioch, invisible above, to the foot of the Eastern Buttress. Davie was downcast as he stared at the dripping rocks. The Young Doctor suggested making the most of it, and having a stroll to the top of Sgurr Sgumain, just to stretch the legs. With much muttering and cursing we stumbled up the Sgumain stoneshoot in the enveloping mist, gaining the Bealach Coire a’ Ghrunnda where we stalled for an early lunch. Silently.

I have seen it again, but never like that. One minute there was a blank sheet of mist. Then suddenly an uplift warm breeze tugged at it, and subsided. Then it whipped up again, and tore some fleeting rents. Minutes later we were sitting marooned by mist on one of an archipelago of peaks. A Cuillin atoll floated above Coire Lagan filled with a white evanescent sea of cloud. Sgurr Alasdair, Sgurr Mhic Choinnich, Sgurr Dearg, islands in the cloud-sea. No one had spoken while this happened. My thoughts turned to a celestial boat, which one could sail to the peaks in turn. Then Davie broke the silence.

‘It’s still misty below, and it’ll still be cauld and weet. What aboot the Coire Lagan round? The passes are clagged in, but the peaks are clear, and should dry oot. We can get a good day after a’.’

A hurried packing preceded continuation. Soon we were over Sgumain, and descended to the Bad Step of Sgurr Alasdair. We were in the half-mist again, and to me it looked intimidating. I took courage and stated, ‘I’d like a rope for this’.

While Davie muttered, the Young Doctor shot off and disappeared, his umbilical cord hanging behind him and seeming to have a life of its own. After he had wrapped the rope twice round the mountain he called on me to follow. The next step required even greater courage on my part than asking for the rope.

‘Davie, I’ve forgotten hoo tae tie knots.’

A brief explosion of amazement gave way to a weary resignation.

‘Tae think! Tae think! I’ve climbed wi some o’ the best men o’ my generation. And tae think… Noo listen. The wee rabbit comes oot o’ the hole, and goes behind the tree…’

He showed me once again how to tie on, accompanied by the animal metaphor. I was not sure if I had done it right, but was afraid to ask for a check, and shot off upwards.

On reaching Sgurr Alasdair, it cleared farther. Below us we could see Loch Coire a’ Ghrunnda, and ahead of us the tide of the mist had gone out, and connected the archipelago ahead into a long peninsula. The rock was drying out swiftly. We scrambled quickly to the bealach below Sgurr Mhic Choinnich. Soon we were on top of the tiny summit, then working our way down the narrow arete to the foot of An Stac. But much as I had enjoyed my day’s scrambling, I had had enough by the time we reached the Pinnacle of Sgurr Dearg. So I rested and took photographs of Davie and the Doctor silhouetted against the monolith, while I ate the last of my food…

Returning, Davie exulted, ‘That was a great day. Victory snatched fae the jaws o’ defeat. And ye’ve felt the rugosities o’ the rock again!’

It was late, and a long time since we had eaten. So we were ravenous when we entered the bar. We envisaged a long night ahead, eating, drinking and watching the World Cup semi-finals. The game had already started and France were beating West Germany 3-1 when we ordered our pints, and the alcohol hit empty stomachs. The barman came back and I caught his attention, asking for the menu. He was about to speak, when he looked and saw my companions. Davie was looking strangely sheepish, avoiding the barman’s eyes.

‘The food’s off,’ the barman said, and walked away.

I was stunned.

‘Fit dae ye mak o’ that, Davie?’

‘I had a run in wi’ him a few years ago. I stole his lassie at a dance. He’s never forgiven me. Just let it gae bye.’

‘Let it gae bye! I’m tae starve jist because you couldnae keep yer willie under control twenty year ago! Ye must be jokin!’

I was ready to do battle, with whom I was not sure. But Davie and the Doctor calmed me down, and we ate nuts and crisps, while West Germany equalised, and then went on to win. As we waltzed back unsteadily to the tent at midnight, Davie said, ‘Aye, ye’d be getting intae awful trouble, withoot me tae look after ye.’

To what was he referring?

When we got back to try at Direct Route again, there were no free camp sites anywhere; so we went to Glen Brittle, being the nearest. It was eight years later and we were with the Young Team. As they unloaded their luminous lycra strips, they were stunned to see Davie, intent on his comfort, removing both a folding chair and a camp bed from his car.

‘No point in being uncomfortable,’ he ventured.

Benny and Kenny were intent on Cioch West, with possibly Integrity to follow (or at least, Benny was). So we left them at the traffic jam below the Cioch and headed on to the foot of Direct Route on the neighbouring buttress, where Davie assured us we would be alone.

‘First done in 1912…’ he read from his guidebook.

‘Has it been deen since?’ I asked.

He ignored me and continued, ‘…this is the kind o’ route description I like, “The route follows the most obvious line to the top”. Nane o’ yer instructions where tae pit yer left tae, and hoo mony inches between holds.’