Wilderness with style
The ancient forests and Munros of the Cairngorms offer the perfect wilderness escape. Add pack ponies, a teepee and a woodburning stove, and you’ve got the trip of a lifetime.
Escape to the Cairngorms with pack ponies, teepees and hot (!) showers
Maybe it was just tiredness. But something felt different. The headlights of passing cars streaked past making the journey home seem more like travelling in a time capsule than a Honda CR-V. Four days in the wilds of the Cairngorms on a ‘hiking with horses’ camping expedition, living under canvas, drinking straight from streams, making fire, climbing Munros, surviving plunging night temperatures... It had been like stepping back in time, and it had somehow connected me with a more primitive and contented part of myself.
For two million years – around 90% of human history – we evolved and adapted to a hunting and gathering lifestyle. Making fire, collecting water, with a deep understanding of what the landscape around us provided. We travelled in small communities, depending on each other, but rarely running into other tribes. So, it was no coincidence that as I gathered water from the sparkling clean stream amongst the Scots pine of the ancient Rothiemurchus Forest in the grassy moorland at the base of Britain’s highest mountain plateau, I felt something click into place. This is what my body and mind had evolved to do for all but the last few hundred years of human history. In the speeding development of industry, farming and technology, we’ve not only become distant from the natural resources we rely on, but also distant from ourselves and our communities.
In this lost world of Caledonian pine forest – one of the largest surviving areas of ancient woodland in Europe, with its lochs, rivers, glens, mountains and wild landscapes – it all seemed so simple. In our band of four brothers (and sisters), eating, drinking, caring for the horses, our concerns seemed in such stark contrast to our increasingly complex world, full of rules, news, screens and algorithms that negate the need to use your brain. It felt so much better for another human to be teaching me about the landscape around me than Google. Days spent in front of my computer were
replaced with endless activity and the pursuit of mountains. And after almost a year of Covid-related isolation from real human contact, conversations around the teepee base camp got deep and meaningful.
The camp
We had taken a journey from Aviemore, the outdoor capital of the Cairngorms, around the tree-rimmed Loch an Eilein. A wide tourist track became an evernarrower path until we were leaping streams and weaving an untrodden way through the forest to a grassy clearing 5 miles from civilisation. The base camp was picture perfect.
Highland ponies were bred and trained to work alongside stalkers, and are still used today by some estates to access the most rough and remote parts of the Highlands that are inaccessible even by quad bikes. Maggie and Foxy, our sturdy equine companions, had swapped their traditional role of carrying deer on their backs for a load of base camp luxuries, including a teepee, toilet, wood burner and even an outdoor shower. It’s true, I confess, our journey back in time came with some home comforts. It sounded like an ideal combination to me!
We created a ‘corral’ from portable electric fencing for the ponies to graze next to our teepee, and before long we’d collected water from the mountain-fed stream, the log burner was fired up and dinner was on the stove. Smoke twisted up from the chimney as the stars began to break through the evening sky. In the distance the still snow-capped peaks of tomorrow’s route to the Munro of Sgor Gaoith were just about visible above the trees. As darkness fell, outside of the warm glow of the teepee the temperature plummeted well beyond freezing, but inside was cheek-glowingly warm.
There’s something safe and dependable about the presence of horses too. Their grassy breath, their steady nature. That night I could hear their slow munch of hay and the lazy thud of their hooves, knowing they were on guard and any alert would be conveyed to us by their reaction.
Day 1 slipped seamlessly and sleeplessly into day 2. I had made the mistake of positioning my bed too close to the teepee wall, and the unseasonal sub-zero temperatures that had frozen the horses’ water buckets with an inch of ice by morning had also frozen my water bladder and face wipes solid! Even with
my luxuriously thick down sleeping bag pulled tight around my face with just the tiniest of breathing holes, I still had to put on every layer through the night to keep warm. The woodburner had a few remaining embers, although I slept too far away to benefit. I planned on more intimate positioning with it for the next night!
The mountains
With the woodburner cranked up, I emerged from my cocoon. The sky was mesmerisingly blue, and the warmth of the sun was starting to melt away the frost. The ponies were hard as nails; used to living out year-round in the harshest of conditions, they seemed unfazed by the icing on their whiskers. Today was mountain day and it was impossible to feel tired in such a beautiful place. Despite having no sleep I was buzzing with energy.
After a breakfast of hot porridge and tea we set off, leaving the horses behind with Sarah the horse lady, heatherbashing to a tumbling stream where we collected water for the day. We joined a narrow trod through the forest, where centuries-old Scots pine painted a picture of a world left behind, where wildlife still thrived. A quarter of the UK’s threatened species survive in the Cairngorms – red squirrels, wildcats, golden eagles, ospreys, pine martens, ptarmigans, capercaillie and otters are all found here. Conservation and rewilding is high on the agenda. Unlike England and Wales, much of this National Park is still owned by private estates, and many of these are committed to regeneration of habitat since the extensive felling that occurred in the last two world wars. Our mountain leader, Andrew, has worked as a guide in the area for over 20 years, and has seen the change with his own eyes. He pointed out the expanding footprint of the forest, having self-seeded and spread higher up the mountainsides, gradually returning the bare slopes back to a more natural state.
As we popped out above the treeline and rounded the shoulder of Creag Follais, the ridge to the summit of Sgor Gaoith came into view. Rising to 1118m the ridge looks east over cliffs and corries that crash violently down into the dark and uninviting depths of Loch Eanaich below, and then across to the savage west faces of Braeriach, Carn Toul and the giants of the subarctic Cairngorm plateau that make up five of the six highest mountains in Scotland.
Our route south along the ridge was relatively gradual, allowing us to admire the views. In summer the grassy slopes of Sgor Gaoith’s west side are deceitfully benign, hiding the dangers of the shattered cliffs just metres away. For us, spring snow still covered the higher tops, creating huge imposing cornices against the blue skies, adding to the theatrics. Just as the wooded valleys below seemed like a different planet to the high white one we were now inhabiting, it was a reminder of the inhospitable place it can become – where some of the most severe and changeable weather in the UK is experienced and snow can persist all year round.
The spectacle wasn’t just provided by the stunning landscape. As we stood at over 1000m a vast V-shaped flock of geese crossed the skyline, the arrow shifting and changing constantly as they made their migration back to their breeding grounds in the Arctic regions for summer. Our route down took an old stalkers’ track, where we spied resident ptarmigan; true mountain birds, living only in the highest mountains of Scotland, who change their plumage from white to earthy for camouflage through the warmer seasons. Bright red sphagnum moss lined the way, unnaturally colourful in its surroundings.
Before long we were back down in the lichen-covered forest, weaving a new way back to camp. Ten miles and seven hours on the hill. It had been a good day, and from the look of the smoking chimney of the teepee, the woodburner and the kettle were on!
“CENTURIES-OLD SCOTS PINE PAINTED A PICTURE OF A WORLD LEFT BEHIND”