Where the sun never shines in winter

On Boxing Day I set out for Glen Cannich, where I wanted to spend the day on the south side of Loch Mullardoch – an area which has a remnant of the Caledonian Forest, but which I’ve only partially explored in the past. I had an ambitious goal for the day – to walk along the length of the Mullardoch Estate, to the East Benula South estate further west, where the native pinewood eventually peters out. I hadn’t been to that part of the pinewood before, and I wanted to see if there’s any potential for restoration work there.

It was a cold, clear morning for most of my car journey, with low-hanging clouds forming localised fog in the glens, around the village of Cannich and some lower parts of Glen Cannich. When I reached the road end, at the Mullardoch dam, the sky was completely clear and the sun was shining on the snow-covered peaks on the north side of the glen.  The south side of Glen Cannich west of the dam is generally quite steep, and there’s long, leggy heather (Calluna vulgaris) in most places. From previous experience I knew it was difficult to walk there in those conditions – the heather is thigh-deep on me, and the leaning heather stems are very slippery when wet, constantly causing walkers to slip down the slope. This day, the water level behind the dam was extremely low, exposing a large band of bare earth and rock, so I decided to walk along there, to speed my journey.

However, I quickly discovered it wasn’t easy to make good time there either! It had been freezing overnight, so some of the rocks were covered in an invisible layer of ice, making them very slippery. Others were wet, or covered in slick algal growths, making for equally hazardous walking, so I had to place every footstep very carefully. Many of the rocks were unstable, so it was a constant challenge to keep my balance when the rocks were shifting or tilting underfoot.

With the walking requiring constant concentration and focus, I was happy to find some subjects to photograph along the way, both to give myself a break and also to enjoy the views on what was a stunning day. There were some brightly-coloured lichens growing on many of the rocks, and I came across the skull of a red deer (Cervus elaphus), which still had one antler attached to it. This was obviously quite old as the antler was stained green from algae growing on it.

I wondered why the skull had just the one antler … had the deer died when it had shed one of its antlers in the spring, but not the other? Or had one of the antlers broken off after the deer died and been eaten by a deer itself, or by small rodents, in both cases for the calcium that the bone of the antler contains? I enjoy the puzzles provided by observations like this, although it’s often impossible in such instances to discern what the right answer is!

In places where the shore is steeper, I climbed up into the heather and walked amongst the vegetation, even though the going was difficult. Along the way I came across many standing skeletons of dead Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris). These snags, as they are known, can persist for many decades after a tree dies, as the wood is preserved naturally by its high resin content. The trees were killed by a fire which burned a large area on the south side of Glen Cannich in the 1950s.

In fact, the forest there has had a hard time since the mid-twentieth century.  When the Mullardoch dam, the largest in Scotland, was constructed in 1951, the level of the loch was raised by over 30 feet, and the previous Loch Lungard, further west in the glen, became part of the much enlarged Loch Mullardoch. A lot of old pines were cut down on the south shore, and their stumps are visible still, whenever the water level in the loch is low like this day.

The effects of the fire, combined with the high numbers of deer maintained by the sporting estates in the glen, meant that there was virtually no regeneration, to replace the lost trees, for several decades. Further compounding the loss of native forest, large areas of commercial plantations of non-native conifers were established in the lower part of the glen in the 1960s and 1970s. However, those on Forestry Commission land in the east of the glen have since been cleared and those areas are being restored to natural forest, and the Mullardoch Estate has put up several fences for natural regeneration of the pinewood west of the dam. I walked past some of those exclosures as I headed west, and although there are some young pines and birches growing there, the regeneration is patchy at best. The trees closest to the loch were mostly dead, having been killed by the fire, while those further upslope, where the sun never reaches in winter, had survived – most likely because the ground and vegetation stay wetter there.

In a few places, there were some pines still living near the loch, and they brought a welcome green vitality to what was otherwise a barren and depleted landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By this time it was past midday, and the sun had already passed its high point in the sky for the day. Not that I could see the sun though, as the south shore of the loch was in permanent shadow all day, as it must be for several months in the middle of winter. Boxing Day is just a few days past the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and it was remarkable to see that even on the north shore of the loch, the sun never reached the shoreline, because it stayed so low in the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I realised that I wasn’t going to reach my goal for the day, as it was still a couple of kilometres ahead, and the light was fading already. I walked a bit further, though, to where I could at least see the pinewood that extends on to the East Benula South estate.

My goal for the day had been ambitious, I knew, given that the daylight hours were so short, and the conditions had necessitated that I walk slowly and carefully, so I wasn’t entirely surprised at this outcome! I was enjoying the beauty of the day, though, and I had come much further west along the loch than on any previous occasion, so I’d seen some new parts of the glen and experienced a remote and isolated area.

I had a slightly late lunch, savouring the special quality of the day, before I had to head back towards the dam. As is often the case, as soon as I spent some time in one place I began to notice some smaller features in the landscape, and on this occasion my eye was drawn to a prominent vein of quartz in a rock. This looked like it had fractured relatively recently – almost certainly in the 61 years since the rock was exposed by the rising waters after the dam was closed.

 

 

 

After finishing my lunch, I turned back eastwards again, knowing that I was unlikely to make it all the way back to the dam before it got dark. I’d come prepared for that eventuality though, having brought a head torch with me.

I walked more swiftly than on the way out, but I still stopped a couple of times, to catch my breath, relax my concentration for a few minutes, and take some photographs when I saw something which drew my eye. The going was just as tricky on the irregularly-sized unstable and slippery rocks, and the fading light added an extra challenge, so that walking required complete focus on where I placed my feet with every step.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I walked, I noticed that the full moon had just risen above the horizon in the east. With a clear sky it meant that it didn’t get dark as quickly as it would have done on an overcast, moonless night, and that boosted my confidence for the rest of the way. As the moon rose further , I was treated to some remarkable views of it over some of the pines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent quite a while photographing the moon over the trees, knowing full well that it meant the remainder of my walk back to the dam and my car would be in darkness. However, it was well worth it, as this was a rare opportunity to get some striking images of the combination of moon and pines. I walked the rest of the way, for another 45 minutes, using my head torch, and by necessity going slowly and very carefully.

It was an adventurous end to a remarkable day. Although I hadn’t reached my intended destination, I’d had a rich experience and was particularly struck by the fact that these pinewoods on the south side of Loch Mullardoch never see the sun at all for probably at least three months in mid-winter. The deep shadow I’d walked in all day had made that very apparent, and somehow it was accentuated even more by walking the last part of the way back in the dark – a fitting end to my day out in the Caledonian Forest closest to the winter solstice!