Taxus had been on  my to-do list ever since I first became excited about winter climbing  and spent far too much time with my nose buried in guidebooks picking out must do routes. The climb itself is a classic 3* on the Munro of Beinn an Dothaidh, one of the Bridge of Orchy hills, meaning its easy to get to and more importantly escape to the pub from when either you triumph after a good day, or to commiserate when the weather craps out and you need a warm fire and some single malt to set the world to rights.

Grade III is where I feel comfortable winter climbing, I know its not going to be too hard and scary, never steep for too long and generally a route where I can enjoy myself without any brown trouser moments. At grades IV and V I start to get jittery and look to pass the leading on to someone with bigger balls!

Dom and I had selected it as the first route of a road trip round Scotland a couple of winters back, just offering enough of a challenge to keep Dom who is a much better climber than me interested. As a team all our routes need to walk a fine tightrope between, not so easy that Dom gets bored, but not so hard that I get scared!

As we have a camper van for this trip we were able to sleep in the car park by the start of the walk in having made the long drive up from Yorkshire overnight. Despite this boon we overslept and were not first, …or even fifth on the route! It was weekend and under clear cold skies and good snow cover everyone was making hay in the conditions and of course heading to the easy classics.

Dom has no body fat and hardly east anything which means unless he is moving he generates no body heat, I don’t know anyone who gets cold so quickly. Thus, rather than wait for the parties ahead of us we headed up a another route called Haar which was supposed to be (III) but was thin and turned out to be the hardest thing we climbed all week even if the difficulties were only a few meters long.

With that route in the bag we dropped down West Gully a broad grade one that leads to the summit plateau and found the waiting list for Taxus had dropped to one team. So we stood around stood around whilst Dom got cold (thats what happens when you get skinny enough to climb 7c) and I stuffed my face with food.

Eventually we managed to get started, the steep gully was well covered with snow but the teams above us had removed most of it from the climbing line leaving the route well tracked. I led the first pitch pretty easily romping up on good neve and thoroughly enjoying myself as the picks of the axes buried them selves deep in the gully with a satisfying thwack!

Unfortunately although we had given the team ahead a good start I was very shortly right on top of them as they were both still at the first belay. As there were anchored on the left of the gully I decided not to get in their way and headed to the right in the hope of finding an alternate stance and. I would be stretching the truth to call what I found a belay, more appropriate words to describe it would be marginal, and psychological. Dom powered his way up and instructed him not to, under any circumstances to weight on the belay… or even look at it.

From the belay the next five meters or so were steeper and looked to be the crux, the other team had moved about 10 m in the time it had taken Dom to climb the entire first pitch, so things did not look good especially for the man with no body heat if we could not get passed them. Fortunately the gully was wide enough to allow Dom to seek past on the left having asked if it was ok.

We thanked them but i’m not sure what they made of the fact that once Dom was over the ice step he in his words he Ueli Steck’d it past the leader, practically running up something they were taking significant time climbing. The step proved to be the last difficulty on the route an easy snow gully leading to the summit.

Still feeling pretty fresh we then traversed round to Beinn Achaladair, which took longer than expected and were rewarded with a fantastic sunset over Loch Tulla as the sinking sun panted the skies in a riot of orange and liquid gold.

The smell of the pine forest in the damp air is all pervading, fresh and clear to the nose; trees in long regimented ranks march out into the distance close packed like phalanx upon phalanx of soldiers, a wall impenetrable and dark. Trunks arrow straight stand sentinel stand guard above the track, and from above comes the gentle rustle of pine needles in the wind. Ahead the fire road, a river of grey at the bottom of a canyon of green and brown winds it’s way off into the distance before bending round and out of site.

The road vanishes behind, devoured beneath the wheels of the bike which flows gracefully over the packed gravel as pedals beat out and easy rhythmic cadence. Above the trees and higher still the hills of Galloway tower above the forest.

I’d had my eye on biking in Galloway for a while, particularly the Glentrool Tour one of the standout routes in Phil McKane’s Scotland Mountain Biking. A monster on the legs, and clocking in at about 90 km it ranges between Loch Doon in the north of the forest and Minnigaff in the south. Not quite fancying that distance in one bite and not having the time to split it over two days I decide to ride the northern section and chop the loop just below half hight by using a good track between Loch Trool and Loch Dee bringing the distance down to about 70km.

Using the Glentrool car park as a starting point the route follows the road up the valley until the tarmac fades and deteriorates into a good forest road which slowly climbs up the hillside. Arriving at a coll the track drops away and the view opens out to reveal Loch Dee shining in the mist and the great post war forestry plantations of pine in the valley of the Silver Flowe.

Later the route goes passed the now abandoned MBA both of Backhill of Bush, it’s occupied with smoke coming from the chimney and a van parked up outside, symptomatic of the problems with vandals and antisocial behaviour which sadly forced the MBA to stop looking after this bothy.

There are a lot of forest opperations going on at the moment with large areas being harvested and replanted and new roads being constructed to facilitate this.  A few miles past the bothy a new track  not shown on the map leads off into the trees freshly buldosed into the forest. It heads in the direction I want and looks heavily used compared to my chose route but not knowing if it goes all the way through to Loch Doon I stick with the guidebook, although considering the upcoming difficulties it may have been worth a try! 

I follow the guidebook route which is described simply as a short “off-peiste” section through the fire brakes. It soon becomes clear few if any riders have passed this way recently, the brakes are a mass of thick tussocky grass and soft sucking bog, challenging even to walk through with a bike and certainly unrideable. It soon gets worse with a small river crossing followed by the piste de resistance, the fire brake is completely blocked by fallen trees forcing me to push through the thickly packed limbs and mass of dead lower branches. 

I hope the new road does go all the way through the forest, this off road section is just nasty; it’s completely out of character for the ride which apart from this short section is a glorious (if long) route for mountain bikers of almost any ability. Frustratingly taking almost an hour to cover about 1.5km whilst carrying a bike pushed my sense of humour to the limit and could completely put off occasional bikers or beginners from moving from trail centres to somewhere a little wilder.

Back on solid trail and a few kilometres later I emerge from the forest on the shore of Loch Doon, which under overcast skies appears forbidding and barren. Lunch is taken inside the stout walls of  the ruined Loch Doon Castle. As time passed, and I began to think about the castle and its surroundings the more nothing made any sense, something about the castle was wrong; it sits on the side of a hill easily overlooked by surrounding land and with its main door opening straight out into a steep slope. 

Such eccentric positioning, and orientation suggests the builders paid little or no attention to the finer points of siege warfare, which would therefore not have allowed the castle to last very long in the turbulent history of the Borders. Later it transpired all was not what it had seemed, this castle has migrated! The strange positioning is not the result of a particularly mad local laird but the conscientious decision of the Board of Works in the 1930’s who upon raising the water level of the Loch took the castle from it’s old soon submerged island home and reassembled it in it’s current location.

From Loch Doon the ride follows the Forest Drive, closed to traffic at this time of year up through more open woodland of pine, fern, and lochan until it emerges from the forest and back onto tarmac and public roads practically at the high point of the ride. From here it’s a last joyous 20km downhill along quite country roads the gradient taking on the work leaving me with little to do other than enjoy the  great views across to the Merrick. With almost six hours on the bike my legs are beginning to let me know they are in need of a rest and this is the perfect way to finish, all I need now is to fire up the stove back at the car and enjoy a well earned cup of tea. 

Originally published in April 2015 on my old blog.

Having spent the night parked at the Glencoe ski centre whilst the wind whistled and shrieked around the van, things had not sounded very promising for a good day on the hills come morning. With dawn however, the winds had fallen slightly although they were still energetically gusting and rushing between the hills causing clouds to scud and dance around the peaks as we shouldered our packs and began the walk in to Sron na Creise.

A line of telegraph poles marked our route across the floor of the valley as they marched through a landcape of tussocky bog which because of the cold night was thankfully well frozen. The wind was bitterly cold but the early morning sunlight was beginning to cast a warm glowing light on the snow shining below a beautiful blue sky.

Having crossed the windswept col we pulled steeply onto our second Munro of the day and with it the weather changed again. As we reached the summit we broke through just high enough to be clear of the cloud inversion. It was one of those fantastic moments that the hills sometime offer you; like standing on a lonely rock at the edge of the sea, the clouds rolling and boiling around us as the ridges of the surrounding hills broke in and out of view like giant whales surfacing in a stormy sea.

Meall a Bhuiridh is also home to the Glenco ski centre, the lift of which reach almost to the summit. As we descended along the edge of the piste the clouds slowly cleared in front of us revealing the endless stage of Rannoch Moor locked tight in winters grip. A great day.