Lochnagar Coire edge © Roger Owen
I have a lot of history with that majestic, iconic mountain called Lochnagar. I first climbed it in 1972 when a student at Stirling University while doing the White Mounth round of 5 Munros and in the intervening 52 years I've probably made the ascent 45 times. It has never failed to enthrall me with its cliffs and crags and that gem of a coire loch nestled below them.
Lochnagar was the first outing of Stonehaven Mountaineering and Hillwalking Club, of which I am a founder and also a committee member for the last 46 years. It was back in February 1978 and the club has made, more or less, an annual pilgrimage back there ever since. Gosh, the adventures we've had there! One I can remember very clearly, even after a few decades, is climbing Crumbling Cranny in the winter. One climber's guide describes it like this: "..a gully on the right wall of the left hand branch of the Black Spout. Steep snow leads to the cornice which is usually very awkward, sometimes requires tunnelling". Well on this occasion it did require tunnelling and I was in the lead. As I battled through the soft snow and realised my footing was very insecure, I asked who had the rope only to find it was the last person in the party way below me! I floundered on and as my head emerged onto the plateau one of our club members who had taken the normal route was standing watching my struggles. I asked him to stand on my ice axe and then with more confidence heaved myself over the snowy edge. That was a never-to be-forgotten experience!
Another was back in the 80's when I was just learning to cross-country ski and I had much more ambition than skill. We had a Norwegian member in those days and he persuaded me to try a traverse of Lochnagar on skis. Of course, Bjorn was born with skis on his feet and glided effortlessly down Jacob´s Ladder while I banged into boulder after boulder!
Believe it or not, Lochnagar was also one of my places of work. In the 80´s I worked for the local River Purification Board when we realised acid rain was a big issue. I was given a Landrover and sent on a massive survey of Cairngorms rivers to see how acidified they had become. One of the most acidified of all was the Glas Allt, flowing off the southern flank of the mountain into Loch Muick at Glas Allt Shiel. Very few of the normal river-bed insect inhabitants survived there. On the other hand, the Allt Darrarie which you cross just after leaving the Spittal of Glen Muick car park, was hardly affected.
Lochnagar Coire edge © Roger Owen
We realised this difference was down to geology. Prince Philip got to hear of this and the next thing I knew I was being advised by him where to survey in the estate. Having passed on my huge thanks for his interest I carried on as before but regularly sent him the survey results.
But my surveys in Balmoral were to lead to a massive national story. One of my sites was the outlet to the Dubh Loch and my survey involved putting a net in the burn and kicking up the substrate to see what was living there. To my consternation I netted a mortar bomb, a rusty cylinder with fins and red band around the nose. Briefly I contemplated carrying it down to Ballater police station - very briefly before sense told me it might dry out on the way. This station being closed I reported it at Stonehaven Police Station where I lived. Utter pandemonium ensued until they realised it was not on the beach there. Next day a sergeant and constable trekked up to the Dubh Loch and found the bomb where I had hidden it. An army bomb disposal team blew it up a couple of days later. But having mentioned this story to the Mearns Leader it leapt to all the big nationals and reporters were jamming our home phone number while I was away so my wife eventually refused to answer it.
The result was that the Daily Mirror showed a photograph of Princess Diana and a headline saying I'd found the bomb next to Charles' and Diana's favourite picnic spot, which just goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you read in a newspaper!
From Lochnagar, on a perfectly clear winter's day, you can see The Cheviot, 108 miles away as the crow flies sitting on the English border, and at the same time all the way to Morven in Caithness some 80 miles to the north. That's a lot of Scotland and I have seen that view from this lofty 1177m summit and I never tire of it. Sadly this magnificent scene eluded Queen Victoria the one time she stood up there.
Some things have changed a lot in my half century of ascents, especially the paths. Like a lot of Scotland's Munros the pressure from hillwalkers' feet has caused a lot of erosion so the main paths have worn badly, been repaired and eroded again. The main route by Jacob's Ladder now has an amazingly constructed set of boulder steps and higher up there is a huge, wide path along the plateau which didn't exist in the 70's and 80's. On my most recent ascent in July this year I was taken aback by a mountain biker pushing his bike up Jacob's Ladder - and sure enough it is shown as a route on Trailforks! In the winter, of course, the mountain can be an arctic wilderness with no paths to be seen and the mountain becomes a very serious proposition which I've also relished. I love the place in all its seasons.
The steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar continue to enthrall me even after many decades of climbing it and I expect my spirit to roam there long after I'm gone.
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