LONDON NO MORE
When he gave up the smoke to market Lochaber’s fresh-air walks, Aberdonian Chris O’Brien had no regrets
‘There’s more to do in a short distance here than anywhere else in Scotland’
If it wasn’t for the railway station at Corrour, Beinn na Lap would be one of the most remote Munros. Sitting quietly above Loch Ossian, it’s a favourite with hillwalkers looking to experience a little of Scotland’s wilderness. Getting the train there can be a funny experience if you’ve never done it before. You get on at Fort William and have to ask them which doors they will open at Corrour because only one set does. It’s a bit like entering another dimension.
Corrour is the station famously featured in the film Trainspotting when Renton and pals take a trip into the great outdoors. I usually belt out Ewan McGregor’s famous rant if there’s nobody about. It’s too tempting when you see the platform in front of you.
With a starting height of 400m and a walk of less than three miles to Beinn na Lap summit, you can be back at the station in as little as three hours, making it one of the easier Munros. There are views from the summit you don’t get anywhere else in Lochaber. The sense of isola-
tion is awesome. Having said that, the last time I went up I came across a herd of 70 deer on the way down. But I didn’t mind sharing the mountain with them.
It’s worth stopping overnight at the Loch Ossian SYHA, set high on Rannoch Moor, which is about as remote as you can get. The reason so many people go there is that it’s completely cut off from Wi-Fi and phone reception, and can only be reached on foot.
But Beinn na Lap isn’t the only mountain to tackle from Corrour. A walk from the platform takes you into the heart of the Alders, big hills providing a long and strenuous day out. There’s the horseshoe walk around the Road to the Isles which leads back to Loch Rannoch, and a selection of Munros and smaller hills around Loch Treig. That’s the joy of this area. There’s more to do in a short distance than anywhere else in Scotland.
We moved to Lochaber two years ago after the grind of the daily commute in London stopped being worth it. I’d been a marketing consultant working with clients from the gambling and diamond industries. The way I put it is that I had a bit of a crisis of conscience. I got to the point where I really wanted to do something that mattered to me.
I’m from Aberdeen, but my mother has lived in Fort William for 20 years. It’s no surprise that the town is known as the Outdoor Capital of the UK as visitors can pick up a footpath a short distance from the station and head into the rolling hills of Lochaber and on to Ben Nevis. The more we spent time in the area, the more we loved it. I love walking and there are so many varieties of walks and hills to explore.
I noticed a job as destination manager for Fort William and Lochaber, working for Loch-
aber Chamber of Commerce, just as I was reaching that crossroads in my life. So I put in my application and things moved very quickly. One week I was braving the cosmopolitan commute with millions of other Londoners, the next we were unpacking our things in Lochaber.
In some ways it was a big change, but in others it felt like coming home. We’d been holidaying in Lochaber for 15 years and knew it was where we wanted to end up. We’re about to have our first child and it’s so amazing to know he or she will grow up here. We can see the summit of Ben Nevis from our garden.
There’s a walk we like to do with friends in the Pap of Glencoe. I really like the Glencoe climb. It’s a scramble to the top, but when you get there the views down to Loch Leven are exceptional. You’ve done this great climb that’s taken maybe only a couple of hours. Then you come down and head over Ballachulish Bridge and go to the Loch Leven Hotel. It has a gin distillery on site and a brilliant restaurant. We usually have something to eat there then retreat into its bar area where there’s all the gin you can imagine and an ancient Nintendo games system with Super Mario Kart. Most of our walks up the Pap of Glencoe finish with races on Mario Kart or games of Duck Hunt. It’s a geek paradise.
We’ve also got The Jacobite, the only steam-powered train still running on the mainline in Britain. From May to October it runs from Fort William to Mallaig and uses carriages like those in the Harry Potter films.
There’s a brilliant company called No Fuss Events that puts on a big mountain race called Macavalanche. Participants go up Glencoe, take the chairlift and then a second one; then there’s a mass start point with a couple of hundred bikes. Everyone just tries to cycle down the mountain as fast as possible. It’s brilliant.
So there was never any doubt we’d made the right decision to move. Having said that, I think some people move out of the city for an easier life. It’s not so in my case. I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder. But it’s a good kind of work, the kind that comes from caring about something.
To do my job properly, you have to have a bit of a passion for the outdoors. You have to be prepared to get out and get your hands dirty, be willing to fall down some hills. You have to understand what it’s like to get to the summit of a mountain, or to enjoy isolation or amazing wildlife. If you haven’t got real appreciation for such things you are going to find this job difficult.
‘It’s a scramble to get to the top, but when you get there the views are exceptional’