WALK IN WILDERNESS
OCTOBER Ladhar Bhei■■ Knoydart
Did you know that Scotland has a Big 5 of wildlife? They are, in no particular order, the red deer, the golden eagle, the harbour seal, the red squirrel and the otter. All of them can be found in Knoydart, that rugged peninsular on Scotland’s west coast that’s as easy to reach by boat as by land – probably easier. If you catch the catamaran that skips out of Mallaig to Inverie Bay, you might even see one before you set foot on Knoydart; Annabelle the seal is a regular inquisitive visitor to Mallaig harbour. Once on Knoydart, it’s useful to have a goal in mind and summiting Ladhar Bheinn is perhaps the most rewarding. Standing proud in the centre of Knoydart, offering unrivalled views of the kingdom it commands, this spectacular ridge-summited Munro is so remote that the would-be bagger is obliged to travel through a fair amount of Knoydart to reach it. This gives plenty of opportunity for wildlife watching.
Otters scamper across the shores at Inverie at low tide scavenging for food, watched by the patrons of The Old Forge Inn. Red squirrels skip through the canopies of Gleann na Guiserein’s forest and the woodlands between the mountains and the sea, safe from the threat of its grey cousins who have not dared venture into such wild country. A golden eagle can be spotted in any of Knoydart’s remote glens, while the Kilchoan Estate’s resident herd of deer have little fear of humans and it’s common to see them grazing the fields close to the main settlements. You’d be unlucky to miss them, and come October there’s every chance you’ll hear them.
The annual deer rut – a somewhat vulgar sounding term for their breeding season – takes place between September and November. During this time, the deep, throaty sound of bellowing stags can be heard echoing around the glens, along with the clash of antlers as males spar over mating rights. It’s a spectacular scene, but not one to get too close to; a large stag pumped full of testosterone may not be able to differentiate between a rival stag and a curious onlooker.
There are also the animals not on the Big 5 list. If birds of prey are your thing, keep a look out for kestrels, sparrow hawks, barn owls and tawny owls, and white-tailed eagles may be spotted hunting along the coast. Along with the harbour, common and grey seals, dolphins, porpoises, minke whales and basking sharks are regularly spotted out at sea. Foxes, badgers, pine martins, mountain hares, and pipistrelle and long-eared bats are all Knoydart residents, while countless bird species either make Knoydart their home, or are frequent visitors.
And there’s much, much more. In fact, there’s so much wildlife to be found in Knoydart, you might just forget you went there for the mountains.
Many of us are content to wear a poppy and observe a silence for the lives lost in conflict on 11th November at 11am. But every Remembrance Sunday a remarkable thing happens on a Lake District mountain. Hundreds of people gather on Great Gable’s summit to pay their respects at a remembrance service. Organised by the Fell & Rock Climbing Club there is often thought to be up to 1000 people in attendance. And yet, Great Gable, as you’ll probably know, is no easy hill. It’s a gnarly beast. A proper mountain. Nonetheless, on this one mountain, on this one day of the year, people aged 5 to 80 swarm up its rocky flanks in this anomaly of a pilgrimage.
There are many routes up, the most direct being from Seathwaite or Wasdale, and the best being via Sourmilk Gill and down by Taylorgill Force. At the summit is a plaque memorial commemorating the members of the Fell & Rock Climbing Club who fell in WWI. One November many years ago, I headed up onto an icy Great Gable, baffled by the number of cars in Seathwaite, only to be met with a never-ending stream of people coming down, including an elderly lady in a skirt and rambling socks. It was quite a sight. It was only then I learnt of the Great Gable Remembrance Service. Gable is a magnificent mountain to climb at any time of the year, but to stand on its summit for a poignant 2 minutes’ silence in remembrance, with what is often cited to be the best view in the Lake District all around, can’t fail to twinge the emotions of even the most unmoved. And after a year of social isolation, I for one have never craved to be on a mountain with a crowd of other people quite so much.
If you do go to pay your respects, remember to park considerately though. In 2017 the Remembrance Service attracted the attentions of the media for all the wrong reasons when a tractor and trailer was seen to plough through an insufficient gap between several parked cars on the road to Seathwaite, ripping off whole panels and door mirrors!