CAKE WALKERS
With a sister too junior and parents too senior, this young Aberdonian hiker’s solution was Aberdeen Young Walkers
A s children we were taken up small hills around Banchory by my parents. But the age gap between my sister and I meant that doing anything more challenging was difficult. She was eight years old and I was 12 with much longer legs. So my real introduction to walking in Aberdeenshire was through my maths teacher. I remember it clearly because I’ve been keeping a diary of my Munros since then. It was September of my first year at secondary school in 2001.
This teacher would take small groups of students on trips. On that occasion it was with fellow first-years and we went for the weekend to
walk Glas Maol and Creag Leacach. I have a very vivid memory of realising how much fun you could have outdoors. Our teacher was so enthusiastic about the hills and wanted to give something of them to us.
I saw him last Christmas when I was at my parents’ house in Banchory. He volunteers with a path maintenance group in the village’s main woods. My dad has mentioned to him that I’m leading walks now, so hopefully he knows how formative it all was for me.
I became involved with Ramblers Scotland after moving home from university. I’d been doing a bit of walking with my parents but got an urge to go faster. My New Year’s resolution two years ago was to find a walking group with young people in it. It sounds terrible, but every time I’d joined one before, the members had been much older.
So I had a Google and discovered Meet Up ( www.meetup.com), a site that Ramblers Scotland uses to let members know about its various walks. Amazingly, it was on the lookout for young people in the Aberdeenshire area interested in establishing a group. I went to the first meeting and was persuaded to be a walk leader.
Aberdeen Young Walkers was born from that, really.
Many of the group were in the same boat as I was. They liked to walk but none of their friends did. Some had moved from other places and wanted to know where to go. Since then the group has really grown. We have members from across the world. We have five leaders and 50 or 60 walkers – although they don’t tend to come along all at once. I try to make it once a month. Sometimes I can manage more, sometimes less.
I was made redundant earlier this year so I’m trying to work out what to do next. I’m not really sure yet, so it’s nice to have the walking while I figure things out.
We normally walk somewhere between 15 and 20km so it’s five to six hours worth. We stop for elevenses, then first lunch and second lunch, afternoon snack, and then afternoon tea once we’re done. It’s all very civilised! Our place to go at the end is one of a chain of cafes called The Bothy to enjoy tea and cake. There’s one in Braemar and one in Ballater so both are brilliantly located for us. They are attached
‘The beauty of this area is that you never have to do the same walk twice’
‘Safety? People can egg each other on, so I’ve got to be the one who occasionally says No’
to outdoor shops so they are extremely forgiving of our muddy boots trudging in.
I think the beauty of Aberdeenshire is that you don’t have to do the same walk twice, but I’ve certainly got a soft spot for Lochnagar up to Glen Muick. It’s probably one of the walks I have done more than any other. You get up quite high quite quickly. It has quite an interesting top with a big, flat plateau. It does have a slightly annoying 4km walk along a Land Rover track at the end, but you can’t have everything.
I’m also a fan of Glen Clova, further south. There are some nice straightforward walks from there and it’s beautiful. It goes into the Angus Glen so feels very different in terms of the nature of the place. There are a couple of Munros you can do from there, Mayar and Driesh, and smaller hills too. I had a fantastic walk there at the start of the year after snow had fallen unexpectedly the night before. We went up and it was just incredible. The terrain was such that ice picks and crampons weren’t a necessity. If I’d thought we needed more equipment, I would have turned back. But the snow was very soft and we didn’t need them. In winter, if there is snow on the ground, we generally take smaller groups and plan shorter days.
People are liable for their own safety, but I do feel a sense of responsibility. One disadvantage of a group is that people can sometimes egg each other on. So I’ve got to be the one who occasionally says ‘No!’, which can be quite tricky. I’ve made the call to terminate a walk early because I didn’t think conditions were right. We were up in Lochnagar in thick fog and the plan had been to carry on and do four further Munros, but there are sections without a path and it frankly wasn’t easy. By the time we got to the top, the group was already feeling less than cheerful so I made the decision to go back.
That was my hardest day mentally, though not physically. That would be the day I finished the Lochnagar walk earlier this year. It was 30km with 1,000 metres of ascent.
I consider many of the Aberdeen Young Walkers good friends now. We do social things with our sister group, Tayside Young Walkers, including a weekend away together in Glencoe in April. A bunch of us went to a beer festival in the Black Isle and we’re planning to do it again in September. My flatmates in Aberdeen take the mick out of me something chronic!