Walking on Jura: Corryvrecken

View out over the Northern tip of the island

Final post on the walks I did during my recent trip to Jura.  You can see all my Jura posts here.  There is a bit of dearth of info on the web on walks on Jura so aiming to make this a bit of a reference point for others - hoping it will be useful!

The best written guide I found is this one;

And of course you'll want the right OS map.  All set with this and assuming that you're based in Craighouse (the main settlement) you've got a great couple of days ahead of you.  

This walk is all about getting to see the famous Corryvrecken whirlpool.  Be warned, this is a real yomp of a day - 30km+ over nearly eight hours.  Not technical or difficult (you're just on the one road), just a long old day.  

The end of a long day!

For this walk you really do need to use the bus (NB, the bus service has been re-tendered - it's now run by Garelochhead Coaches not Alex Dunnachie as per the Argyll and Bute website - the link I give here is the right one!).  I caught the 0803 from Craighouse and got off at Ardlussa which is as far North as the bus goes (not not the end of the line - it then loops a bit back South to Inverlussa before turning around for the return trip).  The bus drivers are very friendly so will drop you off at the right place if you ask.  So you'll suddenly be in the middle of no-where at about 8.45am - brilliant!

The route is incredibly simple, just keep following the road in front of you through some farm buildings, it slowly works its way up through the island, progressively becoming a track then a rough path.  You'll pass a kind of pull-in car park on the right with a sign urging car drivers not to progress further.  If you're driving rather than getting there on foot please do heed this warning - you won't be able to see it, but about a mile up the road there's a chain across the road.  And this ain't the place to be doing a three-point turn or reversing back...

Eventually you'll come across a little white and grey house in the distance;

Barnhill

This is Barnhill - where Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four - there's a great booklet available to buy in the Hotel foyer that tells the story of his time on the island.  The house is a private holiday let so you can't really get close but the views from up above are fantastic as you can see.  

Press on and you'll eventually come to the most northerly settlement on the island - Kinuachdrachd which apparently offers bunkhouse accommodation.  Your main purpose of being here is to make sure that you take the right route to the whirlpool however.  

¡No pasarán!

Press on up past this sign and you'll soon see another smaller one partly hidden by the grass promising that the whirlpool is just (I think I'm remembering this right) a mile up the hill.  I think it's further than that in any case.  

You can't really go wrong at this point, just keep heading forward, the ground gets a bit boggy but nothing too much to worry about.  You'll eventually be rewarded by this view;

"Whirlpool"

As you can see, there's not much sign of the whirlpool - it's very tidal and I was there at the wrong time - I knew this but the bus times restricted me a bit.  Ask at the hotel for the best times to visit.  There are some videos on YouTube of the swirly goodness - here and here.  

I took my own little videos which (I think) have a sense of where the water would start spinning in a couple of hours - there are little darts and eddies that are slowly swirling around.  In the photo above you can see a real stillness in the water which is where the action happens.  

And once you've had your lunch and rested up a bit, it's time to start to think about the trip back.  Very straightforward, just retrace your steps - it's pretty much a wash in terms of ascends vs descends so you'll not be much faster or slower in either direction.  The bus back will pick you up where you were dropped off just after 4.45pm.  But if you miss it or are very early and don't want to wait, then you can easily hitch a lift - I was offered three in the ten minutes I was waiting there.  

What other walks can you say that you've seen a whirlpool and the house where a world-class piece of literature was written and still be back in time for dinner? 

Walking on Jura: Paps

Following on from this post and intended as a resource for future visitors to the Isle of Jura, I'm sharing some details of the walks that I did on Jura this summer.  There is a bit of dearth of info on the web on walks on Jura so aiming to make this a bit of a reference point for others - hoping it will be useful!

This post is for a trip up the legendary Paps of Jura.  

Again, the best written guide for walking on the island I found is this one;

And of course you'll want the right OS map.  All set with this and assuming that you're based in Craighouse (the main settlement) you've got so many great options.  

You can see in my photo above two and a half of the Paps - I climbed the one in the middle - Beinn Shiantaidh (Holy / Sacred Mountain) which is the second highest (not that I'm counting!) on the island at 757m.  The hill to the right is Corra Bheinn which is a useful reference point for you throughout the walk.  

Much as this walk, head on up out of the village on the main road - going North.  You can either walk (it's about a 5km initial trudge), use the intermittent (albeit very reliable) bus service (NB, the bus service has been re-tendered - it's now run by Garelochhead Coaches not Alex Dunnachie as per the Argyll and Bute website - the link I give here is the right one!) or try to hitch a lift.  I just walked.  

You'll reach 'Three Arch Bridge', the road bend up to the left for about 1/2 a mile.  You then see a signpost to the left of the road indicating 'Evans Walk'.  Here you have to busk it a little bit - the path isn't anywhere as near as clear on the ground as it is on the map.  Basically, head NW as well as you can using the local landmarks especially the old crofters fence (it crosses the path at NR545741¹.  Keep going until about NR539747 when the path start to head pretty much due North.  At this point you leave the main path (not that you'll notice much difference!) and strike out alone!  

You need to kind of loop South-ish around the base of Corra Bheinn and then go West-ish and North-ish up to the series of little lakes - called Lochanan Tana on the map.  I'm being deliberately vague here as there's no right or wrong way, just keep heading towards the huge mountain in front of you and keep thinking, "Am I really going to climb that?!".  I had my lunch about this point and rested up - had been going since about 8 so felt like a reasonable time to stop.  

This view from the top of the climb shows the little lochs to give you a sense of what I'm talking about

Go left/South of the little Lochs and you'll see a kind of path / river-bed start to snake up the mountain.  Use this if it's dry enough until it starts to go off too far West.  This is where you start to really busk it.  

You basically start scrambling hand over hand up the scree - jumping onto the little patches of heather for stability where you can.  This is hard work.  Really hard work.  You have to cover something like 400m of ascent like this so take you time.  You're looking at at least an hour of climbing.  I found my walking poles very useful at this point to lever myself up the side of the mountain.  There's no obvious route, just keep going up and on and you'll eventually reach the top.  There's something of a false summit but just keep going and you'll see the man-made cairn of rocks at the top clearly enough.  

Then you get to enjoy this frankly incredible view and an amazing sense of achievement - it might not be the highest mountain in Scotland (not by a long way) but it's got to be one of the most demanding to complete.  

Catch your breath, take a drink of water and start to think about how you're going to get down.  

I originally intended to pretty much retrace my steps, but I met up on the top a guy from Northern Ireland who I buddied up with for the rest of the day and we together descended pretty much directly South aiming for the Corran River below.  If anything, the descent is harder than the climb - the pressure on your knees (and bum if you end up falling...!) on the slippery scree is tough and you certainly won't be much quicker coming down than you were going up.  Keep pressing on and you'll eventually reach the river.  

This very midge-y so take some repellent but also revel in the fact that you're now pretty much on the flat - head more or less East keeping the river on your left (you can cross at many locations) and you'll get to the road at Three Arch Bridge which you'll have seen this morning.  Have a little dip in the river, certainly if it was as hot as the day I did this take a long drink of  water (it's perfectly safe) and start to think about how you'll cover the 5km or so back to Craighouse.  You'll deserve a whisky that night...

I hope this helps some walkers if they're considering a trip up the Paps.  It's not easy but definitely worth it.  Leave me a comment or email at alex [at] alexball dot co dot uk if you've got any questions.  

^{1. This is a Grid Reference for the OS map - see an explanation here ↩}

Lake District

Given how much of a keen walker I am, it's always been a bit of a source of shame that I've never been to the English Lake District.  Well, I managed to rectify that omission this week just gone.  When a good friend said he was getting together a few of us to go the Lakes I jumped at the chance - especially when someone else does most of the organising!  

We stayed at a cottage in Chapel Stile in the Southern Lakes, not too far from Ambleside rented through Wheelwrights who appear to have cornered the market in holiday cottages in this area!  It was a good location and the cottage was lovely - a little bit dated in some of the decoration but big and with an excellent kitchen.  I only banged my head on the low beams once too...

The weather was a little variable but we managed to get to do some great walks - including about 90% of Crinkle Crags (got lost in the mist on the tops so called it off early) plus a trip along the Langdale Valley and out to Ambleside and also Grasmere and Keswick.  

Things that are probably commonplace for people who've been before, but new to me and that I recommend;

- Grasmere Gingerbread.  Simply yum and makes the visit to Wordsworth's grave especially fragrant!
- Sticklebarn.  Great pub with fab food run by the National Trust.  
- Bluebird Bitter.  From the award-winning Coniston Brewing Company - very tasty, especially when sampled at the excellent Britannia Inn.  
- And I even managed to get a little run in as part of my training for the Nottingham Half Marathon

I loved the fact that even a little stroll along the valley floor was stunningly beautiful and a little hike up would soon become almost alpine - I'll be back soon I think!

Walking on Jura: West Coast

I thought I'd do a post on one of the walks I did during my recent trip to Jura.  There is a bit of dearth of info on the web on walks on Jura so aiming to make this a bit of a reference point for others - hoping it will be useful!

The best written guide I found is this one;

And of course you'll want the right OS map.  All set with this and assuming that you're based in Craighouse (the main settlement) you've got a great couple of days ahead of you.  

Head on up out of the village on the main road - going North.  You can either walk (it's about a 5km initial trudge), use the intermittent (albeit very reliable) bus service (NB, the bus service has been re-tendered - it's now run by Garelochhead Coaches not Alex Dunnachie as per the Argyll and Bute website - the link I give here is the right one!) or try to hitch a lift.  I just walked.  

You'll reach 'Three Arch Bridge', the road bend up to the left for about 1/2 a mile.  You then see a signpost to the left of the road indicating 'Evans Walk'

This is where it gets a bit funky.  

The path is very clearly marked on the map.  On the ground it's not quite so clear...

As long as you keep going broadly NW you'll be ok but be warned, the ground can be very boggy - I went in up to my knees at one point.  Use the rivers that you cross (perfectly fine to drink by the way) and the old crofters' fence (marked on the map and a rusty red colour on the ground) to guide out your way.  You pass to the right of the two mountains in the photo above (the one on the left is one of the Paps: Beinn Shiantaidh) and then pick up a river: Abhainn Loch na Fudarlaich, at which point it gets much easier.  The path is pretty clear at this stage and you can navigate by a number of waterfalls and movements of the river.  As long as you keep the river to your right you can't really go wrong.  You'll undoubtedly come off the path at some point, especially near the end, but other than meaning that you have to fight your way through a load of shoulder high ferns there's no real problem.  

Eventually you start to be able to see the sea the other side which is the photo at the top of this post.  Keep pressing on and you'll start to come down into the bay of Glenbatrick.  

This is where the reward comes.  

The (holiday) house here is owned by the Astor family and a more perfect hideaway I can't imagine.  Local legend has it that Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies were spirited away and hidden here at the peak of the Profumo Affair.  

As you can see, I wild camped here - I recommend this even though it means humping all your stuff along.  It's a good three and a half hours one way from the Evans Walk sign (ignore the informational panel by it that suggests a three hour round trip) so you'd be looking a long old yomp to do it there and back in one day - especially if you walk from Craighouse like I did.  Settle down, have a bite to eat, pitch your tent and revel in the freedom and beauty of the surroundings.  Listen to the sound of the sea on the beach and the wind over the mountains.  Bliss. 

Top Tips; Leave early so you're not rushing.  Wear sunscreen (the sun is on the back of your neck all day).  Drink in the scenery and the isolation - not many places left in the UK are this wild.  Bring a nip of Jura Whisky to toast your success on arrival.  

Burning a Million Quid

(or, "Why I Love Jura For Many More Reasons Than The KLF").  

This post is partly a way of me getting my thoughts straight about a trip that I've been meaning to take for about ten years.  It's partly inspired by the reminiscences in this post and also by the amazing trip that an acquaintance is making that you can see here.  

I've been a bit obsessed by the Isle of Jura off the West Coast of Scotland for about fifteen years since I read about how George Orwell (still my favourite writer) lived there whilst writing Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Never one to do things by half I travelled there as part of a trip to Islay and Colonsay in-between leaving University and starting work.  Anyone who is foolish enough to give me the chance or who was unfortunate to meet me on the training course I was on last week will know that I will drone on about how beautiful and amazing the Western Isles are for hours.  

Sadly when I went back in 2004 I was strictly analogue in my photography so only have paper copies of my photos - so will link to a few images from other people to show how beautiful this place is;

You can also read a bit more about the island a various trips there at Peter Edward's excellent blog, 'Writes of Way'.  

I love the fact that the island used to accommodate 3000 people and is now where less than 200 people call home.  

I love the fact that Orwell called it "extremely un-get-at-able".  

I love the fact that the island's bus service is also the Royal Mail delivery service.  

I love the fact that the three main mountains on the island, the Paps of Jura, are named for their supposed resemblance to a woman's breasts

I love the fact that the Gulf of Corryvreckan nearly took Orwell's life and is also supposed to be the inspiration for the whirlpool in Homer's Odyssey.  

I love the fact that the Gulf Stream strikes the southern base of the island making it temperate enough to support a tropical garden with orchids and palm trees

I love the whole place and when I left the island after an amazing four days back in 2004 I promised myself, "I'll be back".  Since then, well, life has got in the way but I've vowed that this year is the year that I will go.  It's a bit of trek to get there so needs some planning.  

My current plan is something like the following;

Thursday Night: Travel down to London (all will become clear shortly) and take the Caledonian Sleeper to Glasgow.  (I've obviously been influenced by my sleeper train action in America but there is a certain efficiency about travelling down to London to then go North, as odd as that sounds).  

Friday Morning: Either - bus to Kennacraig OR hire a car and drive.  I'm still in two minds about this - I like the idea of not having to worry about a car and driving in Glasgow always terrifies me (not surprisingly really given there is a motorway right through the city centre) but the coach is a right faff.  Then - ferry from Kennacraig to Port Askaig.  Then - mini-ferry from Port Askaig to Feolin.  Then - either walk/hitch or drive to Craighouse.  

I'm then planning to spend just under a week on the island, wild camping, walking and generally enjoying the fact that you can often turn a complete circle and see no sign of civilisation at all.  

A lot of the walks in this book look really enticing, including a trip down the totally uninhabited West coast.  A great account of a trip like this here.  

I'm a bit frustrated as it looks like the only official campsite on Jura is closed for refurbishment.  The message is a bit ambiguous so I need to check it out properly.  The alternatives are booking a couple of nights of accommodation in the hotel to get me settled or just wild camping throughout.  Need to do some more thinking about that.  

I'm also intending to scale at least one of the Paps of Jura - just need to hope for some good weather.  

Road Trip

I had planned to have a bit of a slower time for my last full day in Arkansas, but ended up driving nearly 250 miles instead which was unexpected.  But then lots of this trip has been quite unexpected!

My original plan was to get out of the City and check out the Ozark National Forest.  You can see from that website that information on actual walks and trails is a bit sketchy so I decided to go to one of the Ranger Stations where I was promised maps and guides.  Two hours later I rocked up at the designated place and was met by two very nice rangers.  Who didn't really have any info that could help me.  They were keen for me to take the below map...

...which I'd already downloaded and didn't really give me quite the detail I needed to do a decent walk...  It's a times like this that you feel really grateful that we have Ordnance Survey in the UK.  I finally managed to winkle out enough information to attempt a walk.  It was nice enough and I persevered for a couple of hours but the trail was pretty indistinct and after Yosemite (perhaps I've been spoiled a bit!) the scenery was a bit unspectacular.  

So, having read about the Thorncrown Chapel which didn't look that far away (ha!) I hopped back into the car and went to check that out.  I was very glad that I did despite the 90 minute drive - it's an unexpected delight pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  I only had about 15 minutes as they were closing up for the day but managed to grab some photos of it.  The chapel really is very peaceful and a great addition to the landscape - not being religious it's hard for me to understand what it must be like to worship there but as a lover of the outdoors it's a spectacular piece of architecture.  

Finally back at the hotel I had a glamorous evening of washing my clothes in preparation for the final week of my trip: Atlanta, Nashville, DC to navigate before I get home.  Oh, and a Presidential election...

Parks and Recreations

(The title is apparently a US TV show about local government which I haven't managed to catch yet but is supposed to be good - and was appropriate enough for my day today). 

(Actually, scratch that, I've just watched an episode on Hulu - it's very good!)

Today I had my final meeting with the team at Bentonville City Council - with the Director of Parks and Recreation (see what I did there?).  An early start but well worth it to see parts of the City I've not seen yet on a combined drive and walk along the network of trails and seeing the city's extensive parks.  The City has had enough foresight to buy up distressed property when it comes on the market to enable it to be converted to park space and there are a range of different uses - including a dedicated dog park for "off leash" dog exercise. 

A couple of shots;

After this interesting start to the day I want to the WalMart museum at the original store - for a relatively small space there was a huge amount of information and history crammed in.  I did feel a little brainwashed at the end of it, but certainly shows a different side to the business and the man who founded it.  And it's very well curated and put together. 

Finally, the day took me to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  For the initiated (like me), this is a world class art museum built by renowned architect Moshe Safdie and funded entirely by Alice Walton, including a $1.4bn (yes, billion) endowment to enable free entry in perpetuity.  It's an extraordinary space built with great sensitivity to its location and a great collection as I hope some of the pictures below show -  a real sign of the commitment that the Walton family show to the locality that they come from and still live in.  

The location of the museum in such a perceived "backwards" place hasn't necessarily gone down well with the art elite on the East and West coast, as seen in this video from the LA Times.  

Kind of reminds me of the controversy in 2005 when the Royal Ascot horseracing meeting moved from their usual location to be at York racecourse for a year whilst its home course in Berkshire was being redeveloped.  This was great for me as it meant that I got to go to a race meet I wouldn't ever usually see but there were all sorts of comments like, "isn't it a long way away".  I distinctly remember John Humphreys on Radio 4 responding in unusually nuanced and subtle way, "well, it's not a long way away if you live in Leeds".  (I realise that that will be totally lost on my American readers - sorry).  Putting this new art gallery in Arkansas doesn't mean that it's "out of the way" if you live in, say, Fayetteville or Memphis or Oklahoma City... 

Anyway, enough provincial chip-on-shoulder ranting, it's been another great day, need to plan tomorrow's fun now!

Three Miles up Four Mile Road

What a difference a day makes!  I woke up to the sounds of rain on the canvas roof of my tent cabin which I was expecting but on getting up and about I wasn't expecting to see snow on the tops of the mountains that yesterday were totally clear.  And I knew that the more elevated and exposed roads could close very quickly but on seeing the information board in the National Parks Service hut it appeared that that moment had come.  I was careful to make sure that my exit route out of the park was the road that never closes but it's still a sobering moment to see the other main road suddenly shut for the winter - and that can mean until March!  

I had a slightly later start than yesterday and wandered over in the rain to Yosemite Village itself.  There were some interesting explanatory boards along the way which talked about the history of the village itself and also the terrible way the original settlers treated the landscape - one of the meadows was effectively used as a dumping ground and was only finally cleared of rubbish in 1993!  There is also a good museum and shop plus the official National Park Service hut.  And I'd forgotten that Ansel Adams made his name of course in Yosemite so there is a really good exhibition of this work that can also be bought as prints.  If only I didn't have to think about my luggage allowance for upcoming flights! 

Enough procrastinating and with the rain looking like it was easing off I set off along my path for the day - seeing how far along to Glacier Point on the Four Mile Road I could get.  The name is misleading - the route is now 4.8miles and means almost as much climbing as yesterday so I wasn't too sure how far I'd get because of either fatigue or weather.  The path was actually very good for the majority of the way - in fact it was almost overdeveloped: I'm a bit conflicted about using tarmac to lay paths in what are essentially wildernesses - yes it enables more people to experience the beauty but runs a big risk of over development and ruining the thing that it's designed to serve.  

I made it probably until about a mile shy of Glacier Point - the weather was getting worse and worse and there was a lot of snow underfoot.  When the mist started to come down I knocked it on the head!  A shame but given the weather conditions I'm not sure how much I'd have been able to see anyway.  Just a couple of shots;

This is the view from about halfway on the walk - very attractive but in a different way to yesterday!

This is the point at which I decided to turn back - the snow was getting deeper and deeper and the rain was coming down and I was cold.  I think that's a fair choice!

I'm hoping that the bar here in Curry Village will be showing the third Presidential Debate tonight - or I'll have to try to do some live streaming on the not very fast WiFi. 

Half Dome

16.2 miles. 
4800 feet / 1500 metres of ascent. 
Just over 9 hours total. 

Wow.  I'm only in Yosemite for three days and I have been checking the forecast since about August.  As it typically my luck it looks like Monday and Tuesday will be a bit ropey so decided to go for it and do my 'big climb' on the first day.  Half Dome totally dominates the surroundings so it was always going to be at the top of the list. 

I got up at the ungodly hour of 6.45, shoved down a dubious buffet breakfast and hit the road - a mile trek to the official start of the walk.  I'll not try to do a blow-by-blow account of the trip but suffice to say it was pretty punishing.  The 'official' time is for around 12 hours so was pleased to get it done in around three-quarters of that, but I'm certainly paying for it now - am self-medicating with beer for the sore knees and feet.  

I did the Yorkshire Three Peaks this summer just gone and that was longer in a linear sense (26 miles) and about the same in terms of ascent (1600 metres) - the difference here was the heat (it was at least 25C at some points I'm sure) and the total relentless nature of it - there was no respite from the climbs and the shorter distance made it very punishing.  

Hopefully a series of photos will give some sense of the day - with some commentary under each one.  

Starting off so early most of the valley walls are in shade - which was nice from a temperature point-of-view and also because you could watch the sun move slowly across the face of the rock and reveal the colours and shading that was hidden in the darkness.  This is a shot of the challenge from quite early on in the day - I kept pinching myself and saying, "am I really going to climb that?". 

Lots of the walk was through wooded areas which was cool - some huge trees that obviously had been around for many decades - even when they're scarred with fire otherwise struggling.  There were also lots of wildlife in evidence - particularly squirrels and a curious bird that looked like a blackbird or a jay but sparkling sections of blue. 

This is one of the views from the highest point that I got to.  A photograph really doesn't do it justice - as far as the eye could see was mountains, valleys, trees, granite and sky.  The sky!  

I didn't fancy the final 400m up the final summit, especially as the ropes were officially 'down' so it would have been a hand-over-hand job to get up there on quite slippery granite.  There was a group of proper climbers there and they said that the view wasn't any better on top compared with the 'saddle' - so that reassured me!  I was very happy to be satisfied with what I'd done!


Yosemite (or at least, Curry Village where I'm staying) is a curious place.  When I got here on Saturday afternoon my heart sank a bit - it was all very Butlins: an ice rink, cinema, terrible food etc.  But then I went into a very well stocked mountaineering shop and got authentically surly service (that's always the way in those kind of specialist shops).  But overall my impression was of a very busy and noisy place with lots of unruly kids running about everywhere.  And I was totally convinced that there was a bear snuffling around behind my canvas tent cabin at various points in the night but this morning I realised it was the enormous biker guy snoring...  

I set off so early this morning that I didn't get a sense of what everyone else was up to, but coming back in this evening passing the car-park on the way to my cabin there were about 15 cars left in a carpark at least ten times that size which was full 12 hours before...  So I think it'll be quieter at least for the next couple of days!  Having a bit of a think about what to do for the next two days - weather looks a bit iffy so might do some smaller stuff with shelter built in...

Land of 10,000 Lakes and Sub-Zero Temperatures

A quick update on my first day-and-a-half in Minneapolis.  (As an aside, of there's one things I'm going to learn from this trip it's how to spell the names of various places I've always struggled with - witness my Connecticut, Cincinnati and Massachusetts skills...!)

I'm going to stop going on about the weather soon, but let's just say I went from t-shirt weather in Chicago (25C) to wearing four layers and a hat and gloves (6C) in the space of three days.   Brr.  

My Servas host picked me up from the station late Saturday afternoon and give me a little tour of St Paul and the surrounding area - and filled me in on the differences and the rivalry between the 'Twin Cities' of St Paul and Minneapolis.  

On Sunday we did a tour of a cave system in St Paul that used to be where the Chicago gangsters would hide out - apparently the local police had a deal that they could take refuge in the city as long as they didn't commit any crimes within the city limits!  The inside of the cave system reminded me of The Trip in Nottingham which was slightly odd but it was a very interesting tour.  We then went to see one of the thousands of lakes in Minnesota - Lake of the Isles - which was great to walk around on a crisp Autumn day, lots of people out on their bikes and walking dogs. 

Frustratingly a lot of the museums etc that I want to see in the Twin Cities are closed on a Monday so I planned out my own schedule based around staying indoors as much as possible - Lilian you'll be pleased to hear that I'm planning to maximise the tram system and also the Skyway!