An OS map extract
of the Glen Gairn area
Following the tracks of our ancestors
Brenda Clough • October 3, 2020
An old summer sheiling in Glen Gairn, Aberdeenshire
The high hills and glens in Scotland are now often viewed as empty and desolate places, the home of sheep, grouse, deer and eagles. Human use is limited to forestry, deer stalking, grouse shooting and of course hill walking and mountain biking with occasional skiing in the winter months.
But this was not always the case and a few centuries ago the mountains were inhabited by people, in the lower hills all year round and during the summer in the valleys of the higher mountains. These people have left their mark, whether in the form of hut circles as on our local Moulin Moor or as the remnants of more permanent structures such as summer sheilings.
One lovely day in August we headed from Invercauld, near Braemar, along an estate road into lonely Glen Gairn in the eastern half of the Cairngorms. As you drop down on the estate track over the bealach between Carn Liath and Culardoch there is a very attractive new bothy with a grass roof. We were heading for a bridge to cross the River Gairn below that bothy but on arriving discovered it was no longer there so decided to head down river to the bridge near Loch Builg. We then turned back up the river on the north bank and were rewarded with views of numerous ruins of old shielings between the bridge and Allt Phouple.
The areas of these buildings can clearly be seen on Pastmap
where they are described as post medieval remains of longhouses. These were upland settlements, occupied in the summer months (26 May to 26 August), and played an important role in the transhumance economy until the beginning of the 19th Century. Usually it was the women and children of the family that stayed in the summer settlement looking after the cattle. The path we then followed back over the Gairn and up over the bealach itself would have been one of the routes used by the inhabitants to drive their cattle to market.
All of this was of course before the Highland Clearances when many landowners evicted their impoverished tenants to make way for, at that time, the far more profitable use of the land for sheep farming. However, when you visit these sheilings imagine what the life would have been like in these small cold and damp houses with lots of ticks and flies around, just the cold water in the burns for your washing, and no modern comforts for three months.
A new bothy in
Glen Gairn, Aberdeenshire
Richard & Brenda on the summit of Tour de Moyen in Switzerland As we wind down Perthshire Treks over the coming winter, we have had time to look back over the last 6 years and all the lovely people we have walked with and the great adventures we have had. One of our very first adventures was for a lovely group of women from the Netherlands organised through Schottland op Maat . They came to Pitlochry on one of the wettest weekends of the year! Plans were quickly changed from the proposed walk up Schiehallion to a walk along the Rob Roy Way followed by a walk around Pitlochry the following day – and they were amazed at the waterfalls – they don’t have many in the Netherlands! The same year saw Richard do his fastest ascent ever of Ben Vrackie with a young Russian couple who were into marathon running and we also provided some self-guided walking for a corporate group from Baillie Gifford . This first year, as it turned out, was fairly typical with some clients booking directly with us and others via travel agents or travel curators.
What’s it like to be a walking guide? Well, this year will be my 10th and final year as a walking guide, so this blog post looks back at my longer than expected second career.
If you're living or staying in Pitlochry or Aberfeldy, you can use a local bus to help you do a wonderful walk between the two towns. Find out more in our latest blog.
As I write this blog, a cold northerly wind has set in across the UK. A change in the wind direction so that it is coming from the Arctic is one of those weather patterns that is very noticeable for many reasons. Find out more in this blog post.
An overgrown path in Perthshire - just one of the obstacles on the TGO Challenge Life is a challenge but some people enjoy physical challenges in the outdoors. These challenges can be very rewarding and you can feel a great sense of achievement in their completion which can spur you on to do more and set yourself new targets. People are very different in what type of challenges they want to do and this can vary from just completing your first Munro (a mountain in Scotland over 3000 feet), walking the Skye ridge in 24 hours, doing a more organised challenge such as the TGO (The Great Outdoors challenge) or competing in an extreme triathlon. Much depends on whether you like to set your own individual goals or prefer the stimulus of a bigger group and whether you are competitive or not competitive.
Some winter walking in the North York Moors National Park, with some cold and snowy days and some warmer days!
A description of a walk on the moors above Bruar and Calvine, taking in a well-preserved stretch of a General Wade military road.
A visit to the Cairngorms in October 2021 allowed a close-up view of the "cap cloud" that can form in the Cairngorms - and the strong winds it generates!
A report on two wild camping trips near Glenshee and in the Letterewe wilderness in spring 2021.
