The Auch Gleann hills have been reclaimed for walkers but not without all the old threats and cliches according to Dave Hewitt.
Saturday's Reclaim the Hills gathering on the Auch Gleann hills near Bridge of Orchy was hectic but effective. Around a dozen of us gathered at the West Highland Way layby a couple of kilometres south of Auch itself, where we were joined by three walkers from the Blackrock Club in Fife who had turned up separately and were unsure what to do.
Strength in numbers is a fine thing, so they tagged along. One of their number later said that, even if they had been alone, they would have (legally) ignored the profusion of unofficial signs hereabouts but would probably have turned back on encountering verbal abuse at Auch.
There was immediate action, with what could be termed a "drive-by shouting". A passing shepherd, rounding up loose ewes on the A82, wound down his window to suggest that it was walkers, not sheep, who should be culled.
Inspired by this delightful overture, the reclaimers turned to the roadside right-of-way sign through to Glen Lyon, which had been covered by a tightly-knotted black bin bag. We immediately cut this off and restored the sign to its rightful status.
A couple of other signs pinned to a stile on the WHW were then removed. One was a typical piece of pseudo-official deceit: an estate sign attached to an existing official sign, such that the whole thing looked to have the backing of the council. The estate sign had been produced by Auch insofar as we could tell (it gave their number 01838 400233) and went into considerable detail about which hills in the Argyll area were accessible or (more often) were not.
Nowhere was there any official backing to this - so down it came. In terms of our planned hills, the sign's message had been "Access to Glen Lyon through Auch Estate closed" (with "closed" triple-underlined). Elsewhere there were unofficial notices saying that all the Auch hills were closed until at least the end of June. Utter rubbish and duly binned.
Off we went, staying bunched together for the approach to Auch, where walkers have been hassled of late. There was another unofficial sign at the point where the Auch Gleann track leaves the WHW and this came down as well. After all, the right-of-way signpost that used to stand here has been spirited away, presumably by the estate, so a precedent had already been set.
As expected, we were only a few metres along the glen track before gruff and near-indecipherable yelling was heard from the house across the river. "The glen's closed, turn back" was the gist of it but we strolled on and a minute or so later, surprise surprise, the farmer came revving up in his Land Rover.
He wouldn't give his name despite repeated requests, so we know him only as a tenant of the Wrexham-based Lord Trevor. And when his edict that we were to leave immediately was countered by our pointing out his lack of an official council/veterinary risk assessment, he reverted to the tired old comment that "It's b**gers like you who spread foot and mouth". Come on, pal, you'll have to do better than that if you want to scare and deter us.
We took his picture (useful backup in such situations) and he reversed away, red-faced in fury. Then, as in some computer game, a second adversary popped up almost immediately. This was a younger man in a red pickup who drove the few metres from his cottage further up the glen. He met us head-on and came out with the usual stuff, plus two interesting comments.
"That's fine," he said with a smirk, "we've got you all on the CCTV back at the bridge anyway." Whether this was pure bluff or whether the estate or (more likely) Railtrack does indeed have cameras wasn't going to cause us to lose much sleep, however. The same could be said of his statement that, "These hills are closed by order of the local tourist office". Oh how we laughed. Quite aside from being pathetic in itself, this was a wonderful circular argument, as it was the estate which had deposited closure leaflets in the Tyndrum tourist office. In other words, they were "closing" the hills on their own "authority".
On we went and that was the end of the actual hassle for the day (apart from weather hassle - we all got utterly drenched in a two-hour shower shortly afterwards). No further Auch residents came racing up the glen after us - these stroppy farmers are territorial souls and on our return five hours later there was no one to be seen/heard. The reclaimers split into three groups for the actual hills, with the main party going to Beinn Mhanach while others tackled Beinn Dorain and Beinn nam Fuaran. We regrouped later to ensure that people didn't have to risk walking the gauntlet of Auch alone at the end.
As so often on "reclaim" events, we met another walker who had taken advantage of the absence of signs to have a trouble-free day on the hill - which is the point of the whole exercise, really and a very satisfying point at that. He said no one had barked at him as he came by Auch, so maybe that's now the end of the trouble. More likely, though, the same palaver will have already started up again and the signs - or at least some of them - will have reappeared. It would be good to hear (Dave.Hewitt@dial.pipex.com) from anyone passing by or walking on any of these hills over the next few days. It could well be that a second (and third) reclamation visit will be needed in due course.
Certainly more and more walkers are realising that unofficial signs can - and should - be ignored. One of our party descended from Beinn Dorain by the normal route to Bridge of Orchy station and met several other parties who said they had walked straight by the Auch signs posted there (and which have also now vanished).
So, a productive day in one of the lingering blackspots. We intend to brief both the Scottish Executive and Argyll and Bute council as to the extent to which their authority is being undermined by vigilante rule (although the council's lack of a proper access officer doesn't help matters), while the good Lord Trevor will also be informed of his tenant's antics.
A few footnotes to all this -
* Numerous rights-of-way signposts have been covered over during the FMD/access crisis, not just in the Auch area. Quite aside from the illegality of this, one wonders what on earth the Scottish Rights of Way and Access Society has been doing this past while. There has been little obvious evidence of them speaking out except from the safety of their own website www.scotways.com and certainly no move to actively restore the status of these routes.
Yet if the society has a raison d'etre it is surely that a right-of-way is a right-of-way is a right-of-way an absolute that can only be closed by act of parliament - which hasn't happened here. The society, although well-intended, has been so toothless that it might as well give up and dissolve itself. After all, for weeks on end it stood by and let Glen Tilt, scene of one of the of greatest of old rights-of-way battles, be portrayed as "closed for lambing", when in reality it was open throughout. Very poor.
* The self-centeredness of estates involved in this kind of malarkey was well shown by a bizarre diversion on the West Highland Way around the natural point of access from the A82 south of Auch. The signs, now removed, attempted to claim that there was no current access from here, and that through-walkers on the WHW must use a diversion.
This, it turned out, shoved folk up on to the open hillside, ie into sheep land and out of the fenced route of the WHW itself. Presumably this was a crude attempt to keep people off the route wholesale (and an attempt in which the WHW administrators have been complicit) but it defies any logical understanding within orthodox risk assessment procedures.
* Part of the trouble hereabouts is that the main road between Tyndrum and Glencoe weaves in and out of various administrative areas (and police regions - we spoke to the helpful polis at Tyndrum before we started and were given the number for the Oban office rather than the much nearer Crianlarich one). Hence Auch falls under the very weak Argyll and Bute council (see the Cruachan/Castles Farm episode a few weeks ago), whereas Tyndrum is in Stirling district.
This latter point is useful however, as the Stirling access officer, Richard Barron, has agreed to look into the situation whereby the tourist office is happily stocking pretend-official leaflets and giving incorrect advice.
* And finally, on an altogether happier note, as we walked the WHW stretch down to Auch we met two women, one of whom, Sharon Flower from West Sussex, had set off from Brighton pier on 25 March and is aiming to reach Cape Wrath on 8 July. She's raising money for the Carers National Association and has a website, should anyone be interested in finding out more and/or sponsoring her. (Please mention Scotland On Line if you do make contact.)
Sharon and her colleague Anne Stevenson - who was accompanying her to Fort William - had made considerable route adjustments because of access hassle but we accompanied them as far as Auch itself, gave them a copy of the Executive guidelines and advised them not to take any nonsense from landowners. With luck, their route problems should decrease dramatically once beyond the Blackmount.
Dave Hewitt
11/6/2001
