From my old archive a river adventure.

A flash of lightning rents the rapidly darkening sky, followed seconds later by a crash of booming rolling thunder as masses of superheated air slam together in the heavens. The rain is torrential making the surface of the river come alive with ten thousand dancing sprites. Sitting in the canoes as our little caravan paddles down the river we curse our luck that we have driven 800 miles and found the very same rain we had hoped to leave in the UK. Still it’s exciting, I love the primeval nature of a thunderstorm; the raw energy, power, and way it displays the forces of nature so vividly over man, yet also makes me feel more connected to a landscape when I’m sat in the middle of it.

They go this way up right?

Today is the fist day on the river for our team of seven, for a couple of hours now we’ve been getting used to our canoes and vainly struggling to paddle them in a straight line. The plan is to spend six days paddling down the Dordogne River between the small french towns of Argentat and Vitrac, a distance of 110km, each night camping by the river and enjoying the local cheese, wine, and plenty of banter. Like all good plans we jump straight in at the deep end with day one as the biggest day with 27km to cover before we reach landfall in Beaulieu. The company we have hired the boats from offer both self supported and luggage relay, we have opted for the latter although this does limit us to staying in official campsites rather than wild camping on the riverbank.

The rivers meanders it’s was through green woodlands interspersed with fields of rape and grass. The paddling itself is nothing technical, mostly flat water with the occasional small rapids to negotiate which add a bit of spice the journey, and a bit of water to the interior of the canoe. 

Just about getting the hang of this straight line thing.

The storm is short but violent, once the rain slows the water is brilliantly clear and we spot fish darting about trying to keep within the shadow of the canoe. The sun remembers it’s in the south of France begins to burn off the cloud, and the river begins to steam in the humidity, swallows appear from the trees darting and skimming just above the water buzzing the boat like miniature dogfighting aeroplanes as they feed on the insects that hover just above the surface. Brilliant cobalt blue dragon flies hover along side us on incredibly delicate gossamer thin wings. 

After a little practice the canoes turn out to be easy to steer, the paddler in the from seat concentrating on delivering the power whilst the rear seat also deals with the steering with some basic rudder skills. For much of the time the river flows through treelined country, and because France is much more sparsely populated than the UK the trip has a much more wild feel than I think any river in the UK (even Scotland) would. We break the day and journey up by rafting up the boats together for a brew or a swim,  it’s incredibly tranquil and relaxing, just drifting along with the current feet trailing in the water.

A bit of drama is saved till the end of the day when paddling into Beaulieu we have to negotiate a small canoe slide just before the pull out. When Gina and Chris come down the shoot they get caught by the stopper at the base which spins them through 90 degrees into the bank and then bounces them out into mid stream. Unfortunately before they can get the canoe straightened the current takes it into the support for a bridge over the river causing the boat to flip over and we have our first and fortunately only capsize of the trip.

Downhill from here!

I attempt to spring into rescue mode by completely failing to paddle upstream against the current and nearly capsize my own boat which I now realise is dangerously full of rain water. Fortunately the others are much more organised in effecting a rescue, getting the guys and their boat to the shore and helping get it drained.

Once at the campsite we then realise we have made a serious mistake, our luggage hasn’t yet arrived and were sat in wet clothes having not thought to take a spare set with up on the boats (because it’s hot in the south of France in summer, No?). Copious amounts of tea, and strongly alcoholic coffee go some way to improving the situation, although we are very happy when about an hour later our kit arrives and we can jump in the showers and warm ourselves up properly.

4 season mountain tent is the south of France in Summer

The best day of the trip was when the river passed through a steep gorge. Geologists claim to comprehend deep time; I don’t believe them. Deep time is the early period of the Earth’s life and were talking billions of years ago here; is the human brain is truly capable of comprehending 5 million years, never mind 500 million let alone 5 billion? I think not, its so unfathomably outside the frame of reference of our lives so as to be almost meaningless. The gorge through which we paddled offered a glimpse into the fathomless age of the earth, a hint of the almost unimaginable time required to build and then tear down mountains, quite fascinating and deeply beautiful. 

We are in limestone country, layer upon layer of white and grey rock is piled up around us, through  which the river has calved its remorseless way. I’m not a geologist but try and understand the basics given it’s the controlling force in the landscapes that I love, the sculptor who created the places where I climb, paddle, and ride.

The spectacular limestone cliffs which line the river tower up to fifty meters above the water which has sculpted caves, pinnacles, prows, and curves in to the cliff face. Topped with trees, and climbing plants, long drapes of vines hang down the faces and the nooks and ledges provide a home for birds, and insects.

Given the scale of the cliffs it’s hard to imagine that they were formed under an ancient tropical sea from billions of dead coral plants laid down over countless generations which were slowly converted into limestone. We are already dealing with a staggering amount of time just to lay down 50m worth of limestone but its only part of the story in creating this landscape. Plate tectonics carried the young rock across the surface of the planet, and then inch by inch lifted them up from the seabed into the sun and atmosphere. Then slowly rain goes to work with its chisel,  the drops of water are very slightly acidic from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, capable of dissolving minute quantities of rock which over time allows the water to devour the rock into the myriad of shapes we see today. 

It’s a neat closing of a circle the coral life of the past now provides the ledges and cracks in which the life of today flourishes. Indeed I think most limestone here is less than 300 million years old which hardly qualifies as deep time, but more like yesterday compared to some of the rock in north west Scotland, the Lewisian Gneiss which is over 3 billion years old. 

There is more evidence if time everywhere you look on the river; when the cliffs retreat the riverbank is a steep embankment of cobbles and pebbles which the water has cut through to a depth of three meters in places. Every single pebble and cobble has been carried into this valley from a some distant mountain range by ancient rivers and countless floods and storms as the river changed its course over the valley floor for thousands of years. To deep time however the life of a river is nothing, little more than transient tears on the face of the planet, superficial and gone in a blink of an eye.

Once you start thinking of deep time it is easier to comprehend the “Gia” theory of the planet as one giant living interconnected organism of infinitely beautiful depth and complexity where all life depends on and nurtures all other. An almost eternal organism with plate tectonics and mantle convection the giant circulatory system driven by the heat of the heartbeat of the core. Science and the way it can tell stories about our world is a beautiful thing.

All these thoughts are drifting through my brain as we drift slowly down the river; there are others as well of a slightly less epic nature! With so much rock about Dom and I get very excited about the potential for climbing. The walls are all steep to overhanging and look hard, probably 7a and above and quite fingery in style. None of the cliffs show any sign of development. The French are really lucky to have such a wealth of rock, so much that they leave huge sweeps of it undeveloped. 

Having come all this way we have to touch rock; unfortunately we don’t find anywhere that is suitable for proper deep water soloing as the river is just too shallow. But there are plenty of easy long traverses just above river level which keep us occupied as we drift slowly along with the current. The river gives you plenty of time to sit and think be it about a billion years of earths history or where the next beer is going to come from. 

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.