My new Trailstar tarp has arrived, begging to be taken out, and this weekend is the only chance I’ll get till June. Alas, the forecast is for two days of steady rain. But then, what better weather to test a shelter in, right? 🙂

Surveying the maps for somewhere not too far and yet sufficiently high up above farm land (tis the lambing season), I settled on Loch an Daimh. My plan is to head out north of the loch following the high line all the way to Creag Mhor, and then back again south of it; at about 32km with 1800m of ascent, it seems like a sensible two day outing given the anticipated weather.

It’s an area I don’t know too well; in fact I thought I have not been up these hills before, but there in the munro book list penciled next to their entries is ’29/4/2000’ — just a few days shy of 25 years ago. I have no recollection of that outing at all, it’s only when I arrive in the carpark below the dam that I remember being here, on a day of low cloud and nay views.

Not unlike today: below 10C and raining. I shoulder the bag, and, after taking a picture of the dam after just a couple of minutes of walking, head into the cloud.

This weekend is about more than testing a tent. 2024 has not been the best year for me health wise, culminating in debilitating pain in my right hip and lower back, even after short undemanding walks. After initial resignation that this was probably it, my age catching up with me earlier than I hoped for, I went to see a physiotherapist in January.

I am glad I did; things have really come together in the three months since, and, while I am not running again (yet), in the last month I have been back in the hills at the weekends with Linda, doing reasonably long hikes. The one question that remains to be answered is whether I can do so again carrying a heavy bag. Lot hinges on this, not least because the 17kg I am carrying today is about the same as the weight of my camera bag when out with the large format camera.

The cloud base is about 650m and I am soon in the clag. From now on for the rest of the weekend visibility will rarely be more than fifty yards, often much less. I lose the munroist’s path up Meall Buidhe quickly enough somewhere in the bog, and in any case I am heading up to the summit of Meall a’ Phuill first anyway. The compass comes out, and stays out until noon the next day when I pick up the well trodden path down from Stuchd An Lochain on the descent to the car.

I walk a bit around the summit of Meall Buidhe; my original plan was to head out to Garbh Mheall, but visibility is only a few yards just now, and I decide to give it a miss, no chance of seeing Rannoch Moor today. Another solo walker reaching the summit not long after me, the only person I’ll see until the final descend from the other munro tomorrow afternoon.

Beyond this point there are no paths to speak of. Most of the munro baggers who come here take the boring option (in Cameron McNeish’s words), and head back to the car, then up again the other side for the other hill to tick it off their list. What a waste of a drive! But it means largely untrodden ground beyond the two summits, faint impression of a line in the grass near the Corbett summits, too faint to follow in this visibility, occasional marks left behind by stalkers’ argocats.

I don’t think I have ever walked a whole day on a bearing before, any my navigation is a bit rusty. But I settle into a flow that works well in this terrain and doesn’t hamper my progress: I follow a bearing using a compass, and since I am mostly just going up and down on an ill defined ‘ridge’, I use the altimeter on my ancient Suunto X-Lander instead of step counting or timing. And, as required, time from time I pull out my phone and confirm or adjust my location using its GPS.

This requires no significant mental effort, always good when on complex ground when one has to pay attention to what’s under foot, and I don’t have to be super accurate with the bearings, very good when negotiating peat hags. But also I don’t have to worry about the phone battery, and I don’t have to constantly deal with the problems caused by precipitation on the phone screen, such as spurious multi touch gestures (I am sure I said this before, but capacitive screens and rain don’t mix).

Around the mid day I find a flat spot to pitch the Trailstar — time for lentil soup, oatcakes and coffee out of the rain and wind. This is one of the reasons I wanted it.

I drop below the cloud for a bit in the low area between Creag Riabhach and Carn Daimh. For now I have been walking on a bearing for around six hours and it’s nice to be able to see something for a change. The low sun filtered through cloud produces light that has a particular golden quality to it.

In front of me lays the Scotland of romantic painters: crags, deer, peat bog and hags, the cliche rolling mist.

It’s moments like these that make it all worth the effort; and deer shit everywhere I look.

I could do with a drink, but made the mistake of not bringing a water filter. There are not many upland areas in Scotland where I hesitate to drink directly from a stream, but this one of them. This is deer country at its worst, and the shit is, literally, everywhere; I should have known better, having run into a similar problem a few years back not too far east of here.

There is a perfect, flat, camping spot here, but it’s too early, I have planed to walk until half five and it’s only four o’clock just now — time to head back into the cloud. But rather than continuing toward Creag Mhor as originally planned I start for the slopes of (the other) Meall Buidhe; it’s more of a subconscious decision than very deliberate one, I don’t have enough energy to get all the way on the Creag today, and I should not be still heading out tomorrow, lest this turns into too much of an epic.

The streams on the NW side of the hill are the first decent water sources I have seen all day, originating in springs in the hillside, and they satisfy my thirst. But the hill is steep, and I am knackered, I won’t make it to the top today.

I find a flattish sheltered spot just big enough for the Trailstar next to a stream somewhere around 800m contour line. Wind is southerly and meant to shift to SW over night, so I pitch accordingly, get out of my Hilltrek waterproofs, and put on Buffalo trousers and a shirt, which keep me cosy while cooking inside: it’s homemade chili for tea, my camping staple. I brought the trangia this time, and simmer it long enough for the beans to rehydrate fully, might just a well eat well out here.

A message to Linda on the InReach saying had a ‘great day’ (which is true), then I get an updated forecast. There is no noticeable change, the numbers are the same I saw back home. The one thing that is different is the verbal description: whereas the German Meteo app I use at home describes 0.3mm of rain / hour as ‘light precipitation’ the forecast Garmin deliver labels it ‘heavy rain’ — I know who I side with, suspecting the Germans, as reliable as their forecasting is, don’t know much about what rain looks like.

Time to get into the sleeping bag. As I am organising myself, I realise the dew has settled on everything around me; it should not come as a surprise, but being used to a fully enclosed tent, it does.

The ground is bit lumpy, but an inflatable mat covers a multitude of imperfections. I am thinking I should have brought a kindle to read, but then when I next look at my watch it’s after midnight. The mat has slid down the slight slope on the tyvek I am using as a ground sheet, and me of the mat for a good measure — this is the downside of the inflatable, it’s rather slippery.

Occasional readjustment of the mat aside, I sleep well until about 4am. At this point there is a particularly heavy bout of rain, and I can feel definite mist falling down on me — I am pretty sure the kinetic energy of the rain drops has just exceeded the 3m hydrostatic head of the silpoly material; there is always a tradeoff for low weight (3m hydrostatic head is really not very much, the Akto I normally use has 5m on the flysheet and 15m on the floor). Fortunately this heavy rain doesn’t last very long, and I go back to sleep for a bit. I start cooking my porridge just before five, aiming to leave around six.

I am minded to keep the buffalo stuff on today, at this height it’s cold enough for it, but when I pack the Hilltrek trousers into the bag I realise there is not enough space left for the rest of my stuff! Getting back into the previous day’s clothes is always the low point of outings like these, and today is no different.

To be completely honest, the Hilltrek Cotton Analogy clothing, that I have become a great fan of since getting my first set back in 2016, is not ideal for two sodden back to back camping days like this. It’s not so much that, like Paramo, it suffers from wet out, it kept me dry enough yesterday. But when it’s left bundled wet overnight, the analogy liner soaks through; it’s not much of a problem if the next day starts dry because once on it dries out pretty quickly, but when it’s raining steadily like today, you get the wet out from the word go.

Buffalo mitts on, I am moving again before half six, back on a bearing; I soon wish I walked a bit further yesterday for the other side of Meall Buidhe summit I spot multiple excellent, completely flat camping spots! Maybe next time.

There is a bit of navigation to be done down to the bealach NW of the 796m point and conditions are utterly miserable. But there is a line of ancient metal fenceposts that follow my intended bearing exactly, so I can put the compass away for a bit. By the time I negotiate the peat bog at the bottom, it’s after ten, time for ‘lunch’. But today I can’t be bothered pitching the Trailstar and making soup, I am keen to get this over with, so just have some oatcakes, a chunk of cheese, and onwards and upwards.

The big bealach SW of Sron a’ Choire Chnapanich is a maze of peat bog and hags. It’s slow going and I can feel hypothermia setting in, so stop a half way along to get the Trangia out to make coffee; the sodden merino base layer comes off, and I put on the Buffalo shirt instead, under the jacket. In more typical circumstance this would be far too much clothes in the present temperature, but I ‘pace myself’ up the steep slog not to overheat (the truth is, I am pretty tired now, and couldn’t go up any faster no matter what).

Coming down the SE shoulder of the Sron, I am again able to follow a line of fence posts down to the bealach and onto the SW shoulder of Meall Odhar. The end of this miserable day is in sight, mentally speaking at least. But the slog onto the Stuchd an Lochain is brutal, strong crosswind not helping, and the 887m point at the end of the ridge before the final descent, a real sting in the tail.

The descent itself is unpleasant, steep, errored, washed out path — had I known it was like this, I’d have went around the loch in the opposite direction so as to go up this bit. But those are all insignificant details that punctuate days in the hills.

Reflecting on the two days as I am changing into dry clothes back at the car seven hours after breaking camp this moring, I am pretty pleased with how the weekend went. I did experience some slight lower back and hip pain early on the first day, but it went away, and there was not a twinge on the second day. So that’s the big question settled to my satisfaction.

The Trailstar, I can see why so many people love it, the minimalism of it, the spaciousness. But I also see the trade offs, the draftiness, the dew. I expect I am going to have lots of fun with it, but I can’t see selling the Akto because of it; different tools.