TGOC 2017: Day 13 – Dunnottar Castle to Montrose, the Challenge dinner and musings

Dawn at the East Coast

Waking moments

My loud beeping wristwatch disturbed me from my slumber at 5am, and I realised I hardly felt rested at all.  For a moment, I contemplated a few extra minutes in bed, but I had set it for a reason – I wanted the sunrise photos, and after walking this far those few extra minutes could wait, especially as the rather grim evening weather had shifted completely and we were now blessed with a beautiful morning.  Wandering around taking photos took a few moments and I lay back in the tent to enjoy the morning light.  I must have dozed off for a good while (probably the red wine) and remember waking to dogs barking nearly three hours later.  Sitting on the grass enjoying the still morning followed,  and I finished breakfast in full view of the morning walkers, with us packing up to leave not long after.  Just in time to avoid a coach load of French tourists, who had appeared for their trip around the castle.

The ritual of all crossings had to come next: something we had put-off last night due to, frankly, being absolutely knackered and not feeling like an extra eighty steps in the rain. We descended the castle steps now, though, down to the rocky beach – taking a moment to relish the experience – and then dipped our toes in the sea.  I didn’t suddenly feel a zen-like sense of relaxation and completion …. probably as the rocks were bloody slippy and I was concentrating on not falling over – but it was the point where we felt we had ‘finished’ properly.

Back to Stonehaven

The path back to Stonehaven past the French tourists (who inconveniently blocked the path) was a total contrast to the same path in the wind and rain of last night.  Yesterday it was all about grit, endurance, ignoring the weather as we arrived after another mammoth day – but today it was about relishing that sense of completion.  We gazed out to sea, watched a lifeboat crew practice manoeuvres in their RIB, and greeted every passing morning runner with a genuine “good morning!”.  We were, in short, sickeningly cheerful.

By the time we arrived in Stonehaven centre the town was just starting to come alive as the morning shoppers turned up.  For a moment we considered staying a little, going to the harbour, but we picked up some supplies and took the next bus to Montrose, with both of us keen on not hanging around and eager to dump our backpacks in the hotel. The coastal route was gorgeous on such a clear day and the top deck was a pleasant experience as we zipped our way through little coastal villages on the forty minute drive to Montrose.

Upon arrival, checking-in came next, obviously we both wanted a shower more than anything, but we had also sent boxes of clean clothes (as in properly clean, not just rinsed in a stream or loch and hung to dry from your backpack for a few hours).  Checking in wasn’t a problem, the manager had the boxes to-hand as well.  We immediately got a brw on, took the backpack off and enjoyed the stillness.  We were somehow given a room with four single beds, so we had absolutely acres of room to spread out – not to mention the extra two packets of shortbread next to the kettle (small victories..)

Time to descend the steps and dip our feet in the sea..

Showering and finally getting a clean shirt on we decided to amble through Montrose.  There was a music festival on that weekend and the stage was already assembled, something which contributed to its’ ‘seaside town’ credentials.  There were some pleasant areas by the promenade already hosting a few car-bound holidaymakers enjoying a few rays.  Considering the dinner at the Park Hotel was a good six hours away, we had decided to leave our packs and head to the beach. If I had to pick one thing Montrose can be famed for, it would definitely be it having a remarkably nice beach – with soft sand, few rocky areas and a lovely beach-front to whittle away hours at, whether you’re a runner or a family looking for a spot to take the kids.  As it was now around noon it was bathed in sunlight and gave us a great place to spend time working on our tan (mostly on one side of our face due to walking west to east) and ambling barefoot along the shore.  We spent several hours doing exactly that, winding down from the 50km+ yesterday, before finally leaving and heading for lunch in the centre and eventually ended up at the Park Hotel, the gathering point for the Challengers.  On our way back we found the camp site, already full of Challengers with a forest of tents, some we recognized and some entirely new, before turning the corner and finding the Park Hotel itself.

Walking in, we had a distinct feeling we were a bit early, though there were some already starting on the beers (technically it was afternoon, but still).  We decided to come back later and relax at our hotel for a while, take another shower (the sun tan lotion needed on the beach sorta made it a neccessity) and chill out.  A few hours later we were back at the Park Hotel, collecting our hard-won certificate and recognising faces from Tarfside, Braemar and even as far back as Dornie.  We joined a group for drinks, with some members of the group already having spent the entire afternoon in the bar by the looks of it, being in that they were walking precariously and seemed pretty sloshed!  The evening dinner came next, an opportunity to meet loads of new people and catch up with those we had already met.  It’s worth mentioning a good portion of the Wednesday finishing ‘group’ were Americans, who were all interesting, friendly people, some who had fantastic stories to tell of their experiences back home and in other parts of the world. During the dinner, we found there were a smattering of people completing or heading towards the ’10 crossings’ mark, which is an impressive feat to get to – and we made our introductions to congratulate them on being stalwarts and sticking with it.

Everyone shares their experiences at the Park and when asked, we recounted our trip to various people and were met with wide eyes each time – even for multiple-time veterans of Scotland we felt they knew we were pushing pretty hard.  But when you talk about distance walked, hours on your feet or anything else you are only getting part of the experience.  For fun on the train back (it is a long way, don’t judge!), we did some googling and worked out we did around 1,200,000 steps between us on our trip, along with using over 100,000 kcals –  that’s the same amount as is contained in 500 pints of beer, or seven Big Mac meals for every day of our challenge.

But those stats, albeit impressive, don’t describe in any way how some days it simply hurt for every single one of those steps, or how many times we needed to dig deep again and again to keep trucking along.  Coming in to this, the distance, the vertical ascent were all impressive ‘markers’ we could use to try and quantify our Challenge, but at the end, it was all about personal traits, how you cope with unexpected adversity and find out whether you have that determination within and how far you can push that.

Part of the reason I wrote this in a ‘diary’ style was to try to include and remember those little details I expected to forget with time – and wanted to emphasize that even despite those painful, difficult experiences, despite the upsets, despite all that…  how it was a superb experience.  Hopefully, reading this, after getting to this post (and enduring my irregular posting) you get a window in to our psyches and how determined we were to finish this in the spirit we had planned it, to push ourselves whilst eeking-out as much as we could from the experience in every way possible.  Alternatively, you could say we were a bit mad, and both answers are probably correct to some extent.

Most Challengers do it once, we were told during our crossing – and those who manage 5, 10 or even upwards of 20 are very few – being as they are afflicted with either chronic forgetfulness or great determination indeed.  ‘Multiple Challenger’ was never a label we expected to ever want when we started this, even though through reading others’ blog posts and talking to people who completed many, this was a fellowship they clearly cherished, with many genuine friends made over the year.

For us, we thought it would be a one-time deal.  We realised during the crossing that the excitement felt when cresting one peak and seeing a whole other host of mountains and a glen lit in full sunshine on the other side was different than a long weekend trip – how day after day of this doesn’t dull the curiosity within for wild spaces, in fact, it does the opposite.  It puts you in to a state of mind where you are receptive to the beauty of those spaces and feel privileged to be able to enjoy them, and at double the previous length of my longest self-supported backpacking trip this was an acute feeling.

Even when planning the route last year we felt the sense of possibility with wild places at every turn, and listening to other Challengers talking with enthusiasm about beautiful mountains and quiet fells was deeply infectious, and in many ways served as inspiration for the future.  Anyone who has sat down and looked at topo maps has likely had the same feeling, of tracing the contours with your fingertip and letting your mind build a picture of the terrain – coming away with a firm desire to see it with your own two eyes.

The Challenge is a superb tool to deal with this addiction to new wild places – a yearly vehicle to almost siphon that addiction out in two-weeks of concentrated hiking every May in a beautiful part of the world; yet behind the activity itself exists the strong social links between people who often started their friendships in the middle of a mountain range somewhere, casting eyes on each other and egging each other on; that social side which shouldn’t be undervalued, as hiking often can be a pretty solitary hobby.

It could easily take two dozen Challenges to explore the places we want to see within Scotland’s wilds, but by that point, I’m convinced it’s the people you stay for.  It’s the mad bastards who amble across mountaintops cheerfully in the middle of a storm, rain running down their face, yet who put their thumbs up when you ask how they are doing.  Those who cheer you up when you meet despite them knowing you’re in a bad way, or the friendly waves of those camped on some quiet mountain-side as you catch sight of each other from a couple of kilometres away.  There is something fantastic about that, you know some of them are suffering, their feet slowly falling apart or their route not going as they had wanted, but you cheer them up and they do the same for you.  It lets you see the best of people when they are tired, often grumpy and in pain, yet still make an effort.

As for one of the big questions, will Gabe and I be coming back to do another Challenge?  Like anything, it isn’t that simple.  Gabe seems quite convinced he won’t be doing another Challenge, yet I am ‘cautiously’ convinced I will do – the caveat being that I don’t know when.  I’m considering the 40th Challenge in 2020, but the ‘where’ needs a bit more fleshing out.  What we can say for certain is we both left Scotland having adored the wild areas, somewhere we haven’t been on more than a half-dozen trips  (although Gabe does tend to like getting the crampons and ice axes out to enjoy the Scottish winter).   We both would love to see more of Glen Affric especially, with our intention to head there for a few days with a static camp to do a few Munros, as well as doing the Cuillin ridge traverse at some point over the next year.

But another Challenge presents us with the elephant in the room, which is the last three days of the Challenge (Glen Dye aside) just weren’t that interesting, and many areas suffer from being full of wind-farms.  Wind farms themselves are not especially bad, they are visually disruptive, sure; but the hidden issue are the kilometres long haulage tracks and the land they have to destroy to gain access to these wild areas, which cover vast areas.  The number of options to plan a Challenge route whilst avoiding the myriad of wind-farms across Scotland is certainly dwindling, with hydro schemes (and their resulting construction areas) limiting those futher.

To illustrate this, one of our favourite days spent at Charr Bothy and Glen Dye, a surprising gem on our trip with plenty of wildlife and gorgeous green hills, is facing the prospect of becoming home to an initial half dozen wind turbines.  As is the land just over the fells we walked over from Tarfside, which already have their heavy machinery access paths built.  There is no silver bullet to stop these developments, and many far more talented bloggers and activists are highlighting how to help preserve the countryside – but from the point of view of a potential Challenger it is important to be aware of this.

The west coast seems, at least at current, more resilient to these sorts of developments, and were we planning another route I’d want to explore the most there first and foremost.  This doesn’t outweigh the many beautiful places to roam to the east of course, and I’d encourage anyone to sign up to cross Scotland if they feel an urge to do it, but just be aware your trip will be much the better if you spend some time and effort trying to pick your way through these areas.  Sometimes it may be necessary to eschewing the path of least resistance for a diversion through a beautiful glen, or a slightly out-of-the-way summit in order to get the most out of your trip.

It’s worth mentioning that during our trip we were raising funds for our Mountain Rescue team (MR), with our final tally at the point of writing over £1,200 raised, with ‘offline’ donations a huge proportion of that.  If anyone is still interested in contributing to our cause, please spend five minutes checking our donation page out, which will continue to run and is open for anyone who wants to contribute.  Despite it being a fair amount of time from May, there are still donations coming in, and any and all contributions are welcome, even the equivalent of a cup of coffee.  Even if you are not able to donate, we have included a little info on what it is MR teams do, how they are funded and there are some pictures of our MR team training and on call-out, so if you are interested, have a read.

Thank you for reading, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing it.  It was hard not to grin whilst writing some of the days, from the absurdity of Gabe’s pulled calf muscle on the first morning, to flu, injury, friends made, painful feet, beautiful fells, massive days, 22-hours of non-stop hiking, too much porridge, an almost missed resupply box, four days of limping …. everything, really.  I’ll leave you with a sequence of pictures from the Wednesday before we left Scotland as we ambled along the beach barefoot, laid on the sand and soaked up the sun – feeling we had given ourselves a Challenge to remember.