Trip Report: The Longest Line
Jamie Dakota
The following trip report comes from Howl’s Robin Heath, Mountain Leader and Canoe guide for our Loch Awe trips.
In October 2019 my good friend Jamie Dakota (Howl Bushcraft) and I embarked on an ambitious challenge to walk the longest straight line possible in the UK without crossing a road. The intention of this was to highlight the need for sensible route choice and decision making in the wilds of Scotland whilst simultaneously raising money for mountain based charities, most notably Scottish mountain rescue.
The route was 71km long and took us over varied and difficult terrain in some of the most remote parts of the Scottish Highlands. We would have to cross several Munros, large rivers, valleys, streams, cliffs, ravines and bogs and take on 5000m of altitude gain in total over 4 days, all the while wild camping and carrying with us everything we needed. We had originally intended for just the 2 of us to make the attempt but as more people were made aware of what we were doing, the more interest we gained. So we made the decision to recruit Peter Forrester as a cameraman and Max Barnes (Howl Bushcraft apprentice) as an extra pair of hands to help Peter carry equipment/set up tents etc.
We set out on our expedition in classic, brutal Scottish conditions: gale force winds, torrential rain - which was freezing and sleet at times, and intermittent poor visibility. It turned out that this weather would not let up at all for the duration of our challenge.
Unfortunately, a combination of recent illness, horrible conditions and a terrifying slip and near death experience on a cliff edge proved too much for our cameraman Peter to handle, and a few hours into day one he would have to take an escape route out with Max. On the way out they also happened across a lost mountaineer, seemingly heading in the exact opposite direction to what he thought, and brought him down to safety too.
Myself and Jamie continued on for 2 more days (re-joined by Max at the end of day 1). Conditions never once let up, our waterproofs leaked, boots and feet were soaked from crossing waist-deep rivers, every small stream had become a raging torrent, the peat bogs we had to cross had become almost impassable and the cliffs we had to ascend/descend had become dangerously wet and slippery.
After 2 long days of hiking and covering 52km we were suffering. I had sores on my feet and legs that were bleeding profusely, Jamie had sprained his knee and done Ligament damage, even Max who had missed much of the first day and was good 10 years younger than me was exhausted to the point of desperation. We eventually made it to the Corrour Bothy in the Lairig Ghru and had a decision to make: we either carry on into even more difficult and remote terrain with the risk of having to call out the very rescue teams we were trying to raise money for, or we make the sensible decision of a 16km escape route. With Jamie’s injury he had no choice but to call it a day, and although Max and I had the potential to continue, the thought of another 2 days of being battered by nature defeated us. We decided to end together as a team.
As an outdoorsman who has been mountaineering since childhood I have heard countless stories of people pushing on due to ‘Summit Fever’ and their obsessive need to complete their challenge, many of which had ended in disaster. Our summit was our end point, which we were desperate to reach. But if Jamie’s knee were to truly fail him on a river crossing, or abseil or just in a remote area without phone signal, then a seemingly minor injury could’ve turned out fatal. I have no doubt in my mind that we made the right call to quit, and even though it felt like failure I believe we succeeded in what we had originally set out to do: highlighting the importance of making sensible decisions in the mountains.
Thanks to Dark Peak for supporting us by supplying amazing down jackets. They truly were one of the few comforts we had and the only thing that managed to provide warmth! It takes an exceptional jacket to withstand those conditions and I think we would have needed to escape much sooner without them. I will never head up another mountain without it.
- Robin Heath
We have a full immersive article in the December issue (28) of the Bushcraft Journal Magazine which details this endeavour with a complete sense of what we went through. There’s a teaser to this article at the end of this post…
I want thank everyone who donated to the caused in the lead up and after our trek, the money raised really does make a huge difference in the outdoors. Donations will be open until the end of 2019, so if you’d feel like we suffered enough pain please consider dropping a £1 or two using the link below.
We were supported in this attempt by some wonderful companies, DarkPeak as Robin mentioned above being one. We also had assistance from the Ordnance Survey in establishing the actual line in detail and with GPS tech too.
Rab were incredible in their positivity towards our goal, and provided us with some fantastic protection for our hands, Shadow Hoodies, hats and base-layers which really saved us during the bad weather. To have a company from my hometown offering their kit to help achieve our target was wonderful, I look forward to working with them more in future.
Keela gave us our waterproof jackets, these were solid and comfortable during the entire trip. I’ll be writing a separate review on these in due course. Safe to say both their Stratus and Cairn Jackets are recommended options in their respective price ranges for mountain days.
And finally a huge thank you to Ethan at Summiteer based in Kendal. His independent brand is built on quality and experience in the outdoors, he single-handedly custom made our packs for this trip which are fantastic. And the Haven 200 tents he designed and provided for us performed perfectly! Thanks Ethan.
Thank you for taking the time to follow our attempt, hit that donate button to support Scottish mountain rescue, the BMC, and the Mountain Bothy Association.
Look for issue 28 of the Bushcraft Journal Magazine in December 2019…
Thursday Morning:
I wake up on the wooden floor of the bothy, between a Latvian Gent I don’t recognise and my friend Peter, with one hell of a hangover. Except we hadn’t been out drinking last night, and that was the problem this morning. Dehydration is a creeping monster that slowly climbs up your back and sits heavily on your thoughts if you let it, its effects passing mere thirst to brain thumping inertia and this morning I’m certainly feeling the latter.
It’s 7am, just breaking dawn, and I’m the first one up. The all consuming thought is that I need a drink, “need” being the motivating word which drives me to unzip my sleeping bag. A sharp jolt down my leg reminds me why we were so late to the bothy last night, my knee is no better than it was when I hobbled into this refuge just 6 hours ago; but I have to drink, so I start to massage my thigh in a placeboic attempt to coax it into bending. I slowly get to my feet, dizzy in a dark room full of strangers and friends, steadily making my way to the door and my rucksack beyond. I’m glad for our foresight in the struggle last night to refill our water bottles from the river some 20 meters from the bothy...a distance that seems infinite this morning, as now all I need do is crack out the stove and boil the stuff to purify it. The assembly of gas-can to burner, piezo to flame, liquid to vapour I watch from a distance, as my hands controlled by some other part of my mind do the work they’ve done a thousand times while I sit behind my eyes and wait. I’m poured a weak, sugary coffee by my limbs and am drawn out through aroma and steam, at last I enter the room.
The whole process must have taken quite some time as I realise only now that the four strangers we’d shared the bothy with are gone, they’d packed and set off for their walks while my breakfast cooked in slow motion. I’m left surrounded by friends in equally transcendent moods preparing their own breakfasts and drinks. We share hot water and morning greetings, dropping the nights hold together. It had been an interesting 48 hours to bring us here…