The other day a friend asked me if I preferred exploring the mountains by boot or by bike. Despite years in the outdoors, it was a
question I hadn’t really thought about very deeply. I was just vaguely aware of
pros and cons on both sides. But last weekend’s trip to the Cairngorms to cycle
a route I’d previously walked, gave me the chance to ponder the idea more deeply.
As early morning sun filtered through the trees and cast
long shadows on Loch Morlich’s sandy shores, I made breakfast in the lee of an
old pine. It was a rare moment to enjoy peace and solitude in a place overrun
by people at the height of the holiday season. Roll on winter, I say. I rinsed
the coffee dregs from my mug in the water of the loch as the mallards remained
curled up asleep by the water’s edge, looking like a row of curling stones. The
sun was already climbing and the day was warming as I cycled out along the bike
trail that descends to Aviemore, the Old Logging Way.
It’s a beautiful trail to walk as you keep company all the
way with the trees but it’s an exhilarating trail to cycle. It twists and turns
through the forests, never technical and always taking you gently downhill, as
your tires crunch over loose gravel or a winter frost. It's a perfect
descent because you do still have to pedal so you experience a deep satisfaction from travelling at speed under your own power. That exhilaration
is something you can only experience on a bicycle.
The disadvantage of the Old Logging Way is that it speeds
you to Aviemore. You can mostly avoid Aviemore on this route by sticking with
the river and picking a way through charmless, modern bungalows that look like
a new-town housing estate rather than the gateway to a national park.
Or you can go into Aviemore and on a hot summer’s day marvel at over-baked,
obese Brits stuffing their faces with chips and ice-cream.
The second part of my route was very different as I left the
grand, old pines of the Caledonian forest and picked up the Speyside Way. I
biked the gently undulating trail through summer birch woods whose tuppenny-sized
leaves fluttered in the breeze. In the open glades the view stretched to
the Cairngorms across moorland in the purple flush of late summer heather. In
no time I was in Boat of Garten. A short hop on the bike. But I remembered that a few years back I walked this stretch of the Speyside
Way. I stopped often to get my nose close to the trailside wildflowers and
wandered into the woods to examine the huge ant hills. Thousands of ants busily
shifted pine needles here and twigs over there, like cranes moving containers
around a cargo terminal. Both look chaotic but you know there must be some
underlying plan. I noticed neither of these from the saddle. You cover more distance on a bike but you see things at a
more superficial level.
It was time now to start the route back to Loch Morlich,
through the Scots pines of Abernethy Forest and over the Ryvoan Pass. I
zipped along the single track road that skirts Loch Garten, famous for its
nesting ospreys. Despite the huge numbers of people that visit, Loch Garten
still seems to me like a secret place. Mostly I go there in the quiet mid winter when the solstice sun barely penetrates the dense stands of tall
pines that guard the water. Beyond the loch I left tarmac and bumped along rough track as I started to climb
steeply. The old forest here is simply sublime. Gnarled, granny pines rise from
a rich understory of heather, blaeberry and juniper. They are interspersed with
younger trees whose closely-packed, straight trunks, some thick and some thin,
looked like a giant barcode. In summer
the air is alive with the buzz of insects and the twitter of birds. It’s a
place to savour and absorb and breathe deeply in. But today I didn’t as I was
enjoying too much the onward momentum of the
bicycle. The bike is fast but often it's too fast.
I recalled walking this way many years ago. Then I ambled
slowly through the forests with tent, food and everything else I needed on my
back. There’s a real joy to walking like this. It’s pure and simple and,
unencumbered by bicycle, you can access tricky routes and out-of-the-way
places. It was in one of those off-the-beaten-track spots that I became aware of a strange gargling and clicking noise
behind me. I turned around to see, just a few metres away, a male capercaillie in
full display with neck and tail feathers fluffed out and head held so high it
must have reached above my waist. As I walked slowly on, I became aware of bits
of the forest raining down on me from above. I looked up to see a cluster of
crossbills, as colourful as parrots, busily breaking open pine cones. I didn’t
cover many miles on that walk but I experienced the places I passed through more
intimately than I did by flashing through on the bike.
At the top of Ryvoan pass there is a single-roomed bothy,
the remaining gable of end of a once bigger croft, whose sole window looks out across the moor. Beyond here the route
descended on a more technical, rocky trail and I had to concentrate on the bike
and the few metres of track ahead. I barely raised my eyes to take in the
landscape. And that’s the thing with a bike. It can be fun and liberating but
it can also be annoying and sometimes get in the way of your enjoyment of the
outdoors. When walking, there is nothing between you and simple pleasure. I
cycled on through Ryvoan and back to my starting point at the top of the Old
Logging Way.
The last time I was home in Scotland during a really snowy
winter, I cross-country skied here around the forests and foothills of the
Cairngorms. In the last light of a short winter’s day, I skied down the Old
Logging Way all the way back to Aviemore.
Cross-country skiing is quite similar to walking in pace and depth of experience
but then you also get the bicycle-like exhilaration from a bit of downhill
speed.
So I can't choose between bike and boot and perhaps it's in skiing that I get the best of both.
Fact File
Start/finish: Glenmore (or Aviemore at the train station)
Map: OS Landranger 36
Route: The Old Logging Way starts opposite Glenmore Shop. Follow it all the way to Aviemore. Once you cross the Spey stay on that quiet back street and eventually pick up National Cycle Route 7 signs - they'll take you to Boat of Garten on the Speyside Way. At Boat of Garten turn right on the main street and follow the road over the Spey and to its junction with the B970. Turn left then right for RSPB Loch Garten. After the osprey centre take the first right and follow this road around to the dirt track for Forest Lodge - it's the biggest track that leaves the road on the right and has a two-way split at its junction with the road. At Forest Lodge follow the sign for Ryvoan. The track splits - both splits join again later but I prefer the right split that climbs to Rynettin as the open views are good. Once it rejons the other route, follow this track back to Glenmore.
Tip: Boat of Garten is always worth a stop - steam train, cute old station, cute outdoor shop in a shed, beautiful sculpture of a horse pulling whisky barrels and look out for old local postcards recreated in metal and embedded in the pavement - all this beside the station.