Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 1 Caleb’s List Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 2 Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 3 Caleb’s List Climbing the Scottish mountains visible from Arthur’s Seat KELLAN MacINNES Luath Press Limited EDINBURGH www.luath.co.uk Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 4 First published 2012 isbn: 978-1-908373-53-3 The paper used in this book is sourced from renewable forestry and is fsc credited material. Printed and bound by mpg Books Ltd., Cornwall Typeset in 11 point Sabon by 3btype.com Drawings by Kaye Weston The moral right of Kellan MacInnes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A percentage of net sales of this book will be donated to Waverley Care, Scotland’s leading charity supporting people living with hiv and Hepatitis c. © Kellan MacInnes Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 5 Contents Weathering the Storm 7 Acknowledgements 8 chapter one Caleb’s List 9 The Heart of Darkness 13 chapter two Kellan 14 chapter three The Arthurs 23 chapter four Ben Lomond 33 Swimming with the Osprey 43 chapter five Ben Venue 44 chapter six Mountaineer 55 chapter seven Ben Ledi 67 chapter eight Benvane 78 chapter nine CGC 86 chapter ten Dumyat 92 chapter eleven Stob Binnein 103 chapter twelve Ben More 110 chapter thirteen The Battle for Rothiemurchus 121 chapter fourteen Ben Vorlich 125 chapter fifteen Ben Cleuch 134 chapter sixteen The Memory of Fire 149 chapter seventeen Ben Lawers 152 chapter eighteen Meall Garbh 162 chapter nineteen Swimming with the Osprey 171 chapter twenty Ben Chonzie 177 chapter twenty one Schiehallion 189 chapter twenty two Theatrum Orbis Terrarum 203 chapter twenty three Meall Dearg 209 chapter twenty four Beinn Dearg 219 chapter twenty five Ben Vrackie 230 5 Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 6 caleb’s list chapter twenty six Beinn a’Ghlo 239 chapter twenty seven The Magic Stones 252 chapter twenty eight East Lomond 258 chapter twenty nine West Lomond 267 chapter thirty The Age of Lists 276 Epilogue 279 chapter thirty one Lochnagar 280 The City on the Hill 292 chapter thirty two Arthur’s Seat 293 chapter thirty three The Mountain in the City 304 appendix i How to Use this Book 308 appendix ii Who Owns the Arthurs? 311 Bibliography and Further Reading 312 Checklist 319 6 Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 7 Weathering the Storm... sometimes a mountaineering book is born out of human drama, suffering and struggle against the odds. In the chaos and bloodshed of World War Two while serving with the Highland Light Infantry in Egypt in 1942 the legendary Scottish climber WH Murray was captured by Rommel’s 15th Panzer Division. He spent the rest of the war in German Prisoner Of War camps where he wrote the classic Mountaineering in Scotland on sheets of toilet paper kept hidden from his prison guards. When Joe Simpson broke his leg at 19,000 feet on the north ridge of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985 with no hope of rescue he began to crawl down the mountain. The result was Touching the Void. Sometimes a climbing book has its origins in more mundane circum- stances. Hamish’s Mountain Walk was conceived on a hot, stuffy day in the office and Muriel Gray wrote The First Fifty as an antidote to all those climbing books with pictures of men with beards on the cover. Caleb’s List falls somewhere between these two extremes, a book about mountaineering with its roots in the aids crisis of the late 1980s and early ’90s. 7 Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 8 Acknowledgements i would like to thank above all the following people for their help with this book; Kaye Sutherland for the drawings, Sue Collin for her critique of the draft manuscript, Alan Fyfe archivist at the Edinburgh Academy for the photographs and sketch of Caleb… and my partner Scott for under- standing my long nights on the computer. I’d also like to thank Chris Fleet for showing me Timothy Pont’s maps and June Ellner at the University of Aberdeen for giving me access to the copy of Blaeau’s Atlas once owned by Caleb. I am very grateful to the following people for various reasons; Marcia Pointon, Monica Jackson, Martin Moran, Alison Higham, Karin Froebel, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the Ladies Scottish Climbing Club, The Greek Consulate, John Paul Photography, Roy Dennis, Peter Stubbs, Colin Liddell, Bruce McCartney, Jonathan de Ferranti and Mercy Eden. Thanks to Tom Prentice for use of Munros Tables® which is a registered trademark of the Scottish Mountaineering Club. Peter Drummond’s definitive work Scottish Hill Names, Ian Mitchell’s Scotland’s Mountains Before the Mountaineers and Andy Wightman’s pioneering website www.whoownsscotland.org.uk were of great help while I was researching Caleb’s List. Finally thanks to Gavin, Kirsten and Louise at Luath for the expertise, care and patience shown during the publishing of this book and for their commitment to a first time author. 8 Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 9 chapter one Caleb’s List The views from Arthur’s Seat are preferable to dozing inside on a fine day or using wine to stimulate wit. robert burns, 1786 edinburgh. 1898. On the cusp of the modern age. Caleb George Cash – mountaineer, geographer, antiquarian and teacher – stands at the rocky summit of Arthur’s Seat. Sounds drift up from the city below; the chime of church bells striking the hour; a horse and cart rattling down the cobbled streets past the tenements of Dumbiedykes. From the hillside nearby comes the bleating of sheep grazing on The Lang Rig. Caleb breathes in a yeasty smell of beer from the brewery beside the Palace of Holyroodhouse. A hundred years later a reconvened Scottish Parliament will meet where the brewery stands, but for now Edinburgh is quietly comfortable, part of Britain and its empire, sending its young men to fight in foreign wars like the one that will soon break out in South Africa. The sound of a steam whistle. Clouds of white smoke pour from a blackened locomotive hauling a long line of coal wagons up the steep gradient of the Innocent railway to the sidings and engine shed in the Pleasance. At the base of Arthur’s Seat in wooded grounds stands a mansion, St Leonards, its four storey tower topped with pepper pot turrets. Nearby serried rows of glass roofs, Thomas Nelson’s Parkside printing works and on Queen’s drive figures in linen suits and straw boaters stroll by St Margaret’s Loch. Caleb looks across to Calton Hill, its lower slopes encircled by the Georgian sweep of Regent Terrace. On its summit Caleb sees the telescope shaped Nelson Monument next to a half completed Greek temple. Opposite the Royal High School stands the Calton Jail, and where the St James centre squats today are the slate roofs and chimney pots of Georgian tenements in St James Square. The spires of the Scott monument rise above Princes Street but the clock tower of the North British Hotel, a landmark on the city skyline in the century to come, will not be completed until 1902. Cable hauled trams slide across North Bridge. When a cable jams, as frequently happens, 9 Caleb's List_320pp:Layout 1 15/11/12 16:48 Page 10 caleb’s list it brings the entire tram network to a grinding halt until the fault can be repaired. The problems with the trams generate much heated discussion among the citizens of Edinburgh. A crow on a nearby rock eyes Caleb sceptically. The crows were here when Iron Age farmers hewed the cultivation terraces on the slopes of Arthur’s Seat, and will hang on the breeze still after Caleb has gone to his long rest. To the west at the edge of the Meadows, the domed roof of the recently built McEwan Hall. Nearby, George Square where the tower blocks of The University of Edinburgh stand today. To the east Holyrood Park merges into the open countryside of East Lothian. At Lilyhill the new houses will soon stretch almost to the boundary wall of the Queen’s Park. Past the barracks at Piershill a ribbon of sandstone villas straggles along Willowbrae Road petering out around Northfield Farm, and Duddingston Mill a mile or so from the seaside resort of Portobello with its beach and pier. To the north beyond the tenements of Leith Walk and Easter Road and the chimneys and clock tower of Chancelot Mill lie the docks. White water foams against the Martello tower, and close by steam ships and sailing ships lie at anchor in the Forth waiting to enter the Port of Leith. Cranes and sheds dominate the shoreline near the new extension to the docks, but 60 years will pass before the tower blocks of Restalrig and Lochend are built. Puffs of smoke rise from the funnels of steam trawlers moored beside the east breakwater at Granton harbour. Fettes College stands on the very periphery of the city among fields and trees. Beyond are islands: Inchkeith, Inchmickery and Inchcolm. Closest to Edinburgh is Cramond Island linked to the land by the Drum sands at low tide.