lawrence of cairngorm

In 1973, I was working at the Moray Outward Bound School, which at that time was located just outside Burghead, a small town on the southern shore of the Moray Firth, when I had an experience that still resonates in my memory today. It was September, and my watch (a group of twelve trainees aged between 16 and 20) were about to embark on what would turn out to be the most arduous, physically demanding four weeks of their lives.

Every activity on that course conspired to be the most exciting, the most challenging, that I would experience during my entire Outward Bound career. As a ‘sea school’, Moray included sailing in its activities, but before I joined the staff there, my only prior experience of sailing had been as a watch instructor on the Captain Scott, a three-masted topgallant-sail schooner that sailed out of Plockton, near Kyle of Lochalsh on the west coast of Scotland, where I’d been seconded from the Eskdale Outward Bound School the previous year (although independent, the Captain Scott ran its courses on Outward Bound principles, including land expeditions, which was the main reason I was there).

The sailing at Moray was in two-masted cutters that could just about accommodate an entire watch, but before the first session on this course, the head of seamanship decided that we could split my watch between two cutters because winds were light. However, I’d barely managed to get my cutter out of the harbour when the wind rose to near-gale intensity. The head of seamanship was adamant that he didn’t want to see instructors taking the helm; we could only give instructions. And my first instruction was to take down the mainsail. We spent the remainder of the session with just the mizzen sail and a jib hoisted. At one point, we did sail perilously close to the harbour wall, but we came through that experience unscathed.

The other episode that I remember is a day spent surf canoeing at a beach a few miles east of Burghead. I’d never done any canoeing until I went to work at Eskdale, and that was white-water canoeing down rivers. Surf canoeing requires different skills, which I never really mastered. And it could be scary. When we arrived at the beach, the waves were around 10 feet high, and the idea was to paddle out beyond the breakers, turn and choose a wave to ride. Exhilarating? Certainly, but I must have capsized half a dozen times during the course of the day, including one instance where I was forced to capsize deliberately to avoid an empty canoe that was bearing down on me in a breaking wave as I made my way out to sea to begin another ride.

However, it was the four-day final expedition in the Cairngorms that I strongly suspect the participants still remember today. What follows is an account of that expedition.

The final expedition at Eskdale was the chance for trainees to put into practice what they’d learned earlier during a course on their own, but the Cairngorms are potentially much more dangerous than the Lake District, and it was standard practice at Moray for groups to be accompanied by an instructor. Although Ben Nevis, at 4,409 feet above sea level, is Britain’s highest mountain, there are four peaks in the Cairngorms over 4,000 feet—Ben Macdui (4,295 feet), Braeriach (4,252 feet) Cairn Toul (4,236 feet) and Cairn Gorm (4,084 feet)—together with several summits that are listed in Munro’s Tables, published in 1891, but do not involve at least 500 feet of ascent from the nearest higher peak. There are also a number of satellite peaks that are only slightly lower. This massif therefore has the closest approximation to an arctic-alpine climate of any mountain range in Britain—there was still a small glacier on the slopes of Braeriach as late as the nineteenth century!

I suspect that my intended role in such expeditions was simply to tag along, allow the trainees to make all the decisions and intervene only to avoid dangerous mistakes. You can probably guess my reaction to such a policy: if I’m coming along, then I will set the objectives. And for this expedition, I’d proposed a target of climbing ten ‘munroes’. Now I’ve never read Munroe’s Tables, which lists all the mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet above sea level, but I thought that to be included in the list, a peak had to involve at least 500 feet of ascent from the nearest higher peak. This was my only mistake (see below).

Anyway, we arrived at the White Lady car park, on the western slopes of Cairn Gorm at around 2,700 feet above sea level, early in the morning. Our first objective was Cairn Gorm, which we reached without too much trouble. The terrain between this mountain and Ben Macdui can be described as an undulating plateau, difficult to navigate in misty conditions. And the mist was swirling around, occasionally cutting visibility down to a few yards and at other times lifting just enough to indicate the way ahead. And I did have some idea of the way to go, having been this way a couple of times earlier in the summer. Our ultimate objective was a small lochan at about 3,700 feet above sea level on the slopes of Ben Macdui, where we would camp on the first night.

As I was preparing my dinner at the campsite, I noticed two things: first, that the mist was slowly sinking into the valleys; and second, that it would be a full moon. A change of plan. I called the trainees together and told them to be ready to move out at 1am instead of the dawn start originally envisaged. They could leave the tents where they were, just carrying enough food and equipment to be able to handle an emergency.

I managed to sleep for a few hours, and when I crawled out of my tent at about 12.30am, I was staggered by what I could see: a luminescent carpet of white through which black shapes protruded, like islands of the unknown in a sea of knowledge. It was so bright that you could read a map without the aid of a torch. And so we set off towards our first objective, Beinn Mheadhoinn.

This peak is more than 3,800 feet high, and unless you’re familiar with Gaelic, I can guarantee that you will have no idea how it is pronounced. And this is an appropriate time to introduce the eponymous hero of the story. Lawrence, who was typical of many Outward Bound trainees, overweight and unused to hard physical exercise. He had a sense of humour though, always ready with a wisecrack to disguise the difficulties that he encountered during the course.

If you’ve ever been walking with a large group, you will be familiar with the hotshots who tear off ahead, stop for a rest then set off again immediately the back markers have caught up. Lawrence found this profoundly demoralizing and complained bitterly, not without justification. He hardly ever got a chance to rest.

And we had a long day ahead. But first our descent into the luminescent fog. Illumination was replaced by a kind of grey darkness, but we eventually stopped going downhill and started to climb again. When we emerged into the light, it was from a different perspective that took some getting used to. We rested a while at the summit.

Our next objective was Beinn a’Chaorainn (3,553 feet) to the east. I thought that this would be a good vantage point from which to watch the sun rise, so I was in no hurry to continue. However, Beinn a’Bhuird (3,927 feet) couldn’t wait for ever. This mountain dominates the east and looks a daunting prospect. Not only did we have to climb it now, we would have to reclimb quite a bit of it from the other side after visiting Beinn Avon (3,842 feet).

And all the time, we had been getting further and further from our campsite. The way back was going to be long and arduous. Lawrence had been struggling for hours, but there was worse to come. At around 6pm, after 17 hours on the move, we found ourselves at 1,700 feet above sea level, faced with a climb up to our campsite at 3,700 feet. I didn’t think Lawrence could make it.

What should I do? I can still remember verbatim what I said to the trainees:

“Right! Lawrence goes first, I go second, and nobody passes me.”

You can guess which word I emphasized.

I talked to Lawrence for the entire climb, and he didn’t stop or even hesitate once. His pace was indeed painfully slow—I’d have been more comfortable walking at more than twice that speed—but I had to get the guy back to the campsite. I could worry about day #3 once I’d done that.

It used to be common practice for a policeman to be seconded as a temporary instructor for a single Outward Bound course, presumably so that they might learn something, and as the most experienced mountain instructor at Moray, I usually had the temp assigned as my assistant. Why not split the watch into two groups of six? I would supervise the hotshots, while my assistant could keep an eye on the slower trainees.

The first objective on day #3 was Carn a’Mhaim (3,402 feet), an isolated mountain that is straightforward to negotiate, but then our route crossed the Lairig Ghru, a huge trench that bisects the Cairngorm plateau. We crossed at 1,400 feet above sea level, with Cairn Toul and Braeriach on the distant horizon above 4,000 feet.

There was another objective: the campsite. The Wells of Dee is the ultimate source of the River Dee, a ‘babbling brook’ running past a well-kept ‘lawn’ with room for eight tents. I’d camped here, on the highest campsite in the British Isles at just under 4,000 feet above sea level, on the previous course. The only part of the ascent that I remember is when we emerged onto the plateau and I identified the Devil’s Point. It looked like an easy detour, but it didn’t meet my mistaken criterion for inclusion in Munroe’s Tables.

That was my mistake. There was another: I noticed a peak in the Beinn a’Chaorainn area that looked easy but didn’t meet the criterion either. That would have cut down the exertions of day #2 (no need to tick off Beinn Avon).

So how did Lawrence do on day #3? As I expected, when not being constantly pressured by the hotshots, he could handle the situation—at his own pace. The ‘slow’ group were no more than 10–12 minutes behind after an entire day. And that with loaded rucksacks.

The final day of the expedition started in the middle of the night. I was woken up by the side of my tent flapping wetly in my face. However, there isn’t much you can do in such circumstances. The overall structural integrity of the tent remained intact. Wait for daybreak.

I referred earlier to the putative role of the instructor on these expeditions. If I’d left it to the trainees to decide what to do, I’m sure that they would have opted for retreat from what was an extremely exposed location in suddenly extreme weather. Safety first. When I worked in Outward Bound, I didn’t think like that.

We still had one more ‘munroe’ to climb to reach the target. Sgor Gaoith (3,668 feet) is the highest summit on a north–south ridge that lies a few miles to the west of our wild campsite. The terrain in between is featureless peat bog. And on this occasion, visibility was less than 20 yards. And there were no paths.

I instructed the trainees to form a single straight line, which I directed left or right from my vantage point at the back. The only time in my life that I’ve had to navigate solely by compass bearings for such a long distance, with no physical features to offer guidance. And we eventually hit the col in the aforementioned ridge that I’d been aiming for.

The tenth ‘munroe’ seemed almost like an anticlimax. Over the top and down the other side, where we picked up the school’s transport. I’ve never seen any of the participants in this adventure since the course ended, but I’ve often wondered whether it’s a story that they have told their friends. Perhaps you’ve heard the story. Heard it first-hand. And didn’t think it was true.