My audacious Ben Alder adventure

Introduction

In My Two Most Heroic Deeds I recount how I came into my getting into ‘maverick’ solo hiking in the Scottish Highlands, in 1979 as a complete newbie. Consider that page to be Part 1, and this account to be Part 2 of, er, whatever they're part of.

That commenced a series of annual spring visits to that region and hiking extensively on and around mountains within reasonable reach of my Fort William base (Kinlochewe on the final occasion, in 2000).

I describe my approach as ‘maverick’ because it was more than just going solo. As explained on the above-linked page, I intuitively (some would say ‘arrogantly’) worked out my own solutions, my own itineraries — coinciding with established ways only where my own reasoning and accumulating experience told me it was best for me to do it that way. For example, I never walked, or ever wanted to, ‘the West Highland Way’, yet a number of my classic routes included portions of it, but not because those were WHW but simply because they were parts of my own delectable routes.

Just part of a distant view

My first trip to Fort William — 12 days in April 1979 — rewarded me with some iconic inner-barrier busting experiences as I started to learn from real experience what I could and couldn't sensibly do when hiking on the mountains — the star of that trip undoubtedly being my fourth walking day (Easter Monday), which was the only fine and mostly sunny day of the whole 12 days. That's when I took a chance with an ascent of Ben Nevis (UK's highest mountain, at 1344m above sea level) via the so-called Tourist Track.

At that stage my mindset was superficially comically timid, for that was part of my ultimately hugely fruitful strategy of not being ‘taught’ by any means at all beforehand and just gaining deep learning by working things out progressively for myself as I planned, walked and observed, and carefully reasoned from those observations, and made projections from that reasoning for further horizon-widening and an as-yet not quite tangible ‘something’ that was like an elusively invisible beacon-target beyond mountains, beyond anything perceivable as achievable, that was leading me on…

At that stage I had no specific ambitions for doing anything very challenging, for it was a matter of progressively finding out what my sensible limits really were, bearing in mind my various physical weaknesses — and that was not something anyone else could usefully lay down for me. However, that magnificent Ben Nevis barrier-breaking experience, where I started off adamant that I'd not go further where there was lying snow, but then happily crossed small snowpatches, and then… To my wondering astonishment, with a little encouragement from a lovely couple of fellow walkers who'd just come up via a real climbing route, I broke my snow-cover taboo altogether, which did wonders for my opening-up to previously unthought-of options.

For my second Fort William visit, in April 1980, I was quite reasonably prepared gear-wise, with ice-axe, workable hiking boots, better waterproofs, and so on. With rather better weather that time, I soon broke my rock scrambling taboo, albeit keeping clear of anything really serious that way. Often with more extensive views that time, I was picking-up from the ‘atmosphere’ of the different mountain groups, recognising individual distant mountains from different high spots. As I was doing so, increasingly I was feeling a strange ‘something’ like a calling from a long-past homeland from that deeply atmospheric and in a way brooding expanse of Rannoch Moor. Not a part I'd want to walk on much, I was sure, but there definitely was that ‘something’ about it that connected with me.

In that direction I recognised from the map prominent far-distant mountains — Schiehallion, Ben Lawers, and, further west, Ben Alder whaleback and its neighbours, always with the distinctive Bealach Dubh pass showing between them.

Was I hankering after going on them? — Nah, don't be silly! Too distant (I didn't have my own transport, and in any case, approach to Ben Alder from any direction was lengthy, and arguably that from Corrour station could be the easiest and quickest of them all), and indeed for various reasons they surely wouldn't anyway be the sort of walks that I was really after — cragginess, high narrow ridges and all that. Schiehallion, for example, rather isolated, very simple, and very popular (people yack-yack-yacking, and all that), and then on the other extreme, Ben Alder, just too remote and, from the Fort William side, not even an interesting mountain to go up, and with minimal time on the mountain, and a silly amount of boggy-Dartmoor type of terrain to get there and back to the railway at Corrour or Rannoch.

A strange music intervenes

Certain of my hikes, although not venturing into the body of Rannoch Moor, did encroach into the margin of that great expanse, or nearly so. What was rapidly starting to haunt me was the music improvising in my mind, of a particular gripping, intense nature, full of some sort of unfulfilled deep longings, which seemed to resonate with that same expanse, so I was walking along with this strange music weaving itself into all my views and visual impressions there. A distinguishing feature was a low held tone, seemingly in low cello pitch range, which might make one think of bagpipes, but this was deeper, gentler, and underpinned the harmonies of what felt like some sort of ancient dramas or legends being played-out, but with a sense of urgency in the whole show that seemed to be insisting on my following it up.

Maybe sometime in the future I'd become able to reproduce some of this in compelling music compositions, so in the long run, whatever its source, it felt compellingly important for me to infuse myself with this music and seek to understand it and its source(s), to deliver some sort of musical ‘transmission’ for the people of our time.

That drew me to venture on a not-too-challenging sort-of ‘Ben Alder walk without Ben Alder’, starting out from Corrour station as though for Ben Alder, but within a matter of minutes branching off for a nearer and less high group of hills (Carn Dearg and Sgor Ghaibhre), whose gentle walking terrain made them a beautiful easy and quite short walk, with wonderful distant panorama all round — and finishing at Rannoch station for late afternoon train back to Fort William.

On repeats of that walk I extended the ridge walk over Beinn Pharlagain, with no really significant increase of the time factor, and still plenty of time to linger and even have a nap. How that music always flowed through me on those walks!  I'd look across from Sgor Ghaibhre to Ben Alder, and in good conditions it looked silly-close, almost as though I just had to jump from ‘here’ to that broad hulk to get there! The whole space seemed to be humming with that dynamo-like low held tone in the music, which then seemed to be urging Come to Ben Alder! Come to Ben Alder and hear what I have to tell!

This was silly — I was starting to just wonder if it might after all be practical for me to walk to Ben Alder and down to Rannoch station in a day after all.

For safety (okay, let's say, for least danger), my default assumption had to be that it was not a workable or worthwhile proposition. — But at least, no harm in examining the situation, looking at how I'd been coping on the pretty challenging mountain walks I'd already been doing there in the Highlands, and the long and challenging remote Dartmoor walks I frequently did back at home. That way I could perhaps see how my proven ability matched up to the Ben Alder challenge without the landscape simply swallowing me whole for my ‘arrogant stupidity’ (as many would no doubt regard it!).

I had to consider not just what I'd managed, but overall speed of myself on different terrain types, consistency of timings for repeats of a major route (often unbelievably consistent), and consider the probability level of getting an injury (bearing in mind my rather weak ankles and knees, and definitely weak arms and grip with my hands, and not very brilliant balance). A walk-stopping injury could be the end of me out there, on my own with no workable escape route, and with no means to summon help apart from a whistle or of course my (fairly Stentorian) calls for help, probably with no-one much around to hear me. I clearly needed to take into account the frequency of walk-impeding (or stopping) injuries I'd sustained, related to different types of terrain.

Fortunately I'd been keeping a journal of my hikes, complete with timings, so I did have good data to go by. It did indeed appear to be possible for me to cover the Ben Alder route, and with sufficient time margin to be sure of catching the evening train back to Fort William. But ‘possible’ didn't in itself mean sensible to do, considering the risks involved.

A further walk of the Carn Dearg – Sgor Ghaibhre – Beinn Pharlagain route in May 1990 in particularly fine conditions greeted me with that music yet again, with its underlying held tone, which now was quietly urging Come on, come to Ben Alder and listen! I have something for you to to hear, which means something….

I tentatively decided, then, that if a guaranteed fine enough day presented itself late in my next Fort William stay, subject to careful assessment at the time, I would have a go at that crazy route, with all sorts of cautions and caveats built-in. It would have to be seen as an experiment and adventure, not an end-gaining exercise — important!

Dress rehearsal, then performance that nearly didn't happen!

I arrived at my Fort William base this time, in May 1991, with two route cards to leave with my hosts just in case I did those particular walks. Never before had I done such a thing, for flexibility of my route (necessary for safety) meant that route cards would generally be unreliable and likely cause more problems than they would prevent. Standard procedure was for me to tell my hosts simply what mountain group or general route I expected to be walking on, and where I expected to come out on the road — the latter in case I was delayed by a long hitch-hiking wait, as normally I'd hitch-hike back. This time I had two possible serious hike challenges that did warrant a route card, considering their remoteness.

First, was a 20-mile route also starting from Corrour station, but going over the mountain group on the other side of the Bealach Dubh from Ben Alder, and eventually coming out on the road from Dalwhinnie to Fort William road. That was nearing the length of the Ben Alder route, but was a ‘proper’ mountain walk, with four discrete summits and ‘wow’ views, with hardly any boggy moorland to negotiate, and comes out on a road where I could hitch-hike back to base. It would thus have a fair amount more ascent than the Ben Alder one, and there was a reasonably low col I could pass through if necessary, to skip Beinn a' Chlachair, the final summit, if needs really be.

Here is my journal entry for the penultimate ‘biggie’, with a few adaptations, though lacking the full styling and visual clarity of the original copy in MS Word…

Yes, that one worked out, with no problems. The deep defile I had to cross for Beinn a' Chlachair meant a rather punishing long steep pull up the latter, but every bit worthwhile, and, after a summit eating stop, I joyfully romped down various snowpatches to speed the easy descent (and of course for the sheer fun of doing that). That in itself was a wonderful major walk, well worth repeating on future Highlands visits.

Come the last day of my stay, 27 May 1991, with a suitable weather forecast, that was my final chance to attempt Ben Alder that time round. As I'd done for the ‘dress rehearsal’ walk, I'd arranged with my host for a very early breakfast and a taxi hire down to Fort William station, this time loaded with packed lunch and second lunch, for it was clear that this would be physically challenging for me. For this walk, in case it worked out, the second 'lunch’ was full-size. — important, for I'd always had an inefficient digestion / metabolism and readily started getting hypoglycaemic if not eating plenty on a mountain day.

Actually, it was a funny thing, but because of the need to keep to as fast a speed as I could sensibly manage without causing premature fatigue and likely injuries, my mind was naturally focused more on the practical details of where I was and what I was doing, for my own very survival, and so much less focused on the inner music this time, even though it was present in the background and became more prominent here and there. In any case this whole experience did in some way seem to put a meaningful ‘seal’ on what I'd already absorbed from my other Rannoch Moor walks.

I was able to walk with good speed in the approach, because I was on an estate track for the length of Loch Ossian, so I really hoofed it then. Thereafter, it was peat-hag terrain beside the Uisge Labhair stream, but an informal track through all that enabled me to wind about a bit to mostly avoid the fatiguing ups and downs across the hags.

Here's my journal account — sadly far too brief to do justice (in subsequent years my journal entries became more detailed), but at least it gives a small idea. I retrospectively added to the almost nonexistent Comments section, using some notes I'd written at the time in a report on that walk, to email to a friend, but that still misses a whole lot. Note how on the night immediately preceding this adventure, I was feeling close to abandoning the whole crazy notion on account of the risks I understood I'd be taking.

The extensiveness of the Ben Alder plateau was a wonder to behold, and also made it an unforgiving place to be in any cold wind, and super-challenging for navigation in the cloud, especially with its broad spurs in northerly directions. However, I wasn't in the cloud, and the little wall by the trig point gave shelter from the chilling breeze for my early lunch stop. Apart from the rather tricky steep descent into the Bealach Breabag pass, for me this mountain was pretty easy walking, with no challenging gradients, the descent towards Benalder Cottage close to Loch Ericht being mostly grassy, as I remember — of course with rocks and indeed some slabs to avoid.

There's no space here sensibly to recount the various beautiful and atmospheric points along the way, but in general terms, the going was rough boggy moorland for a while, following rather inland the shoreline of Loch Ericht's southern end. There followed a much-needed eating stop by the Cam Chriochan bridge, beyond which I parted company with the loch and was now faced with a few miles of rough boggy moorland to cross.

However, to my surprise, my going was almost at once eased by a broad unofficial tractor ‘track’ on that terrain leading obliquely across the hard-going section to the other side, along the base of Beinn Pharlagain's slopes. Very soon once I was on that vague track, I had to stop to take a photo that in some way had the feeling of ‘saying it all’ about that walk-off.  I had to get down low (maybe I even knelt), but there was this elongate small pool in a drainage streamlet winding its way through this boggy expanse, and from this viewpoint, there was the south end of Ben Alder, perfectly mirrored in that pool, with the water surface glassy in its stillness. The photo came out fine, and felt in some way to be iconic. (Why isn't it shown here? — I explain a little further below…)

I did get a bit of hard-going very tussocky tall grass once on the far side of that boggy area, but then I was on the major track heading for the Loch Rannoch to Rannoch station road. At a particular point I branched off right to cross a stream and cut off a big corner, and then it was a brief road plod to the station, elated at what I'd come-off with — not just the route but the accuracy of my timing estimates —, but deeply frustrated that during my best-part-of-hour wait there I had no-one (at least, appropriate) with whom to share about what this naughty monkey had just done.

Follow-up — the anguish of having to give up hiking — but then…

In my May 1992 Fort William visit, the year following those two corker hikes, I gave other routes my attention, but also was getting some physical issues making things a bit more difficult, though still got a fair number of my classic routes walked.

However, as the year went on, neck pain became an increasing issue, especially on any day following a major hike. My execrable GP of that time abruptly told me to stand up, now bend your head this way, now that way — No, there's nothing wrong with your neck: just wear and tear. You'll just have to live with it!

I tried a physiotherapist, and at least she pooh-poohed the doctor's totally unhelpful and unprofessional response, and talked of correcting my posture, and recommended McKenzie exercises and use of a neck roll for when sitting or lying. That, however, seemed if anything, to be compounding the problem.

An NHS physiotherapist talked of muscular tension being the real problem (which at least made sense, and indeed was the real trouble), and gave me a few brief sessions of traction, which, as I expected, made no lasting difference.

I managed to get a locum doctor at the practice to refer me for a neck X-ray, and the report ominously declared Advanced cervical spondylosis. I was getting scared. — Indeed getting more so by the day, for by then I could feel and hear neck vertebrae slopping around on each other (even with some definite rubbing of bone against bone) even as I was walking about town and frantically holding a ‘correct’ head / neck posture all the more tightly as I attempted to bring those vertebrae to heel.

It was nearly Christmas, and, after another hike that left me with my ‘killing’ neck pain again the following day, I reluctantly decided that that last hike had to be my last. I was clearly on the verge of being really crippled by this issue.

At that point, in town I encountered an acquaintance who I'd not seen for a while, who routinely asked how I was, and I announced my reluctant decision and the reason for it. — Upon which he perked-up and said I know what you want: the Alexander Technique!

He explained very briefly about it, saying he uses it himself as a piano teacher, and it's the real answer. He told me of a centre in Exeter where there were two AT teachers, and suggested I have a look for books about it, to help me decide whether to fork out for lessons.

That immediately stood out as something different from the usual crass unsolicited advice I got from people over all sorts of matters, because a year or so ago I'd been to an osteopath about my already developing neck trouble, and he himself had recommended the AT as the most effective solution, but at that time I had no money for a course of lessons in that, so had set that idea aside and then forgotten about it. As it happened, at this point I'd just recently got a £2,000 legal settlement over a commissioned Dartmoor natural history book that I'd produced all the copy for, but which then got scuppered by the publisher's owners closing down that aspect of their business.

I did browse for an AT book that really gave basic understanding of that method, and found one that stood out from the others, which latter were really more aimed at persuading people to have AT lessons rather than giving one a proper understanding that one could use at home. Within the day I went to that centre to book a course of lessons, because that book made complete sense of why I was having neck trouble, and why it was getting still worse because of (not in spite of) my attempts to hold ‘correct posture’. (!)

It was a few weeks before I could have my first lesson, but, me being me, I immediately set-to applying what I'd learnt from the book, as far as I could without guidance from an AT teacher, and did indeed notice a telling change occurring even though neck pain elimination was some way off. I very soon started hiking again, after no more than a few missed opportunity days. At first I was still getting a fair amount of neck pain afterwards, but even then I had a deep-sourced understanding that real positive change was occurring, and, importantly, I was less troubled by what pain there was, so no longer needed to be put off from hiking.

Within weeks the neck pain was reduced and neck function (co-ordination and alignment) was clearly getting better, and my hikes were no longer aggravating the neck. Indeed, the AT gave me a much better, more efficient mode of walking, which made the hikes altogether less hard-going.

Naturally, the weasel-thought started coming up: I'll be at Fort William again this May after all; let's walk the Ben Alder route again, even including Beinn Bheoil, as a token of triumph over what had caused me to transiently give up hiking altogether!

Repeat performances, maybe?

…And did it happen? — Yes, indeed, on 26 May 1993 (at age 51), including Beinn Bheoil, which added only about 1.5 mile to the route, but really didn't seem to have such interesting views, so I wouldn't include it again, not being a ‘Munro-bagger’ (an idiotic ‘sheep’ pursuit!). However, that in no way spoiled the great walk!

I note also from my journal, that on my outward journey to Fort William that year, that was the first time I'd chosen to abandon the West Highland Line part of the rail journey in favour of taking a local train to Balloch (by south end of Loch Lomond), and walking across to the main road and hitch-hiking the remaining part to Fort William, arriving there well in advance of scheduled arrival time of my would-be train there.

No doubt the positive effects of the AT had included my getting more adventurous about the transport, and generally becoming (still) less inclined to get stuck in ruts.  In fact I chose that same hitch-hiking option from then onwards, up to my final visit there. I so much enjoyed that additional sense of freedom and adventure, even though I also missed the West Highland Railway ride because that was a beautiful route in itself, which departs from the road route for a wonderful excursion through Rannoch Moor.

In addition, I walked the Ben Alder route again on 24 May 1994, this time without Beinn Bheoil. I wasn't going to include details of that here, but then decided to because from 1994 onwards I wrote more descriptively in my journal entries, so the following makes up for the terse and very deficient one for my first Ben Alder walk.

Yes, hearing that mysterious bird sound, and for so long, so it was firmly imprinted in my mind, was a priceless final gift to me from that memorable walk.

Where all those internal barrier dissolutions were leading…

It was just the following year that at last I was able to break out into composing proper ‘opus-number’ music works, and by the end of the year I was finishing-off my Symphony 4 (Highland Wilderness), whose hauntingly atmospheric final movement contains an episode using instrumental impersonations of that strange snipe sound, which latter at that time was still unidentified.

I strongly recommend a thorough read of the notes about the symphony on that page, because they go into an explanation of the source(s) of that strange Rannoch Moor music, which I used in that symphony, even though the cuckoos that commence the symphony are from the Western Highlands, not Rannoch Moor, where latter I don't remember ever hearing a cuckoo. (Hint: just maybe something to do with ghosts, of all things…?)

Here's a hint of the atmosphere of the final movement of that symphony — the movement's prelude, adapted as a standalone work by means of my suddenly terminating it with a thick, elemental and emotive chord, leaving that quiet underpinning held low tone hanging over the abyss. At that point in the symphony that chord doesn't occur, but the main ‘action’ starts. — Rannoch Moor Prelude…

If, however, you want to hear the deeply affecting snipe-drumming impersonation episode, you'd need to listen to the whole movement — or much better of course, the whole symphony.

My ultimate achievement — the ‘pinnacle of all pinnacles’?

No, not music, nor mountains (those were mere sideshows, but all having been important steps along the way)! Yes, there was something much bigger that I was eventually to stumble into, thanks to all those earlier stages — the ‘pinnacle of all pinnacles’, which virtually everyone was (and largely still is) too dysfunctional even to consider as a possibility.

See Project ‘Fix the Human Condition’. That is why both internal directives and force of circumstances were repeatedly pointing me in directions to powerfully cultivate my independence of mind, self-reliance and self-command, and freedom from all belief, orthodoxies and traces of ‘sheepism’.

My solo mountaingoing was thus a major step in my preparation for possibly succeeding in a life task of unprecedented and crucial importance for all Humanity throughout all of ‘Existence’.

That was not just a matter of being enabled to keep clear of acquiescence in people's, and Society's, pressures to conform to their limiting mindsets, but also to withstand the destruction attempts* that were expected to come my way, as indeed they did, and to be able to examine the mechanisms of those destruction attempts, and pass all new insights through to deeper consciousness (DC) in the most helpful conceptual form, so that DC itself could then at long last go about rectifying the related misconfigurations in consciousness at the deepest and universal level.

Now that those misconfigurations have allegedly been fixed, all new planetary civilizations would be different beyond the limited imaginations of almost everyone here on Earth, being based in rationality and objectivity rather than beliefs and straitjacketing traditions. They would therefore be without wars*, and with reasonable population control and respect for the environment, so prolonging their period of sustainability on their respective planets before they eventually need to leave, and would excel in all genuinely beneficial aspects of creativity.

I and certain companions-to-be on our next planet look forward to some tremendous joyful mountain hikes there, no longer haunted by ‘ghosts of the past’! No-one would reincarnate on Earth again, which latter needs a very long rest — hundreds of millions of years, to allow plate tectonics to renew usable natural resources.

Meanwhile, as they say —