Sutherland's Grove

Saturday was a mountain-bike orienteering race at Sutherland's Grove near Oban, which Andy had mapped and planned and put together (stressfully over the last couple weeks). He quadrupled the size of the orienteering map of the area that already existed, and put out 24 controls around a huge area of forest interwoven with gravel forestry roads and single-track hiking/biking trails.

We had 60 or 90 minutes to get as many of the controls as we could in the time limit, in no particular order (what's called a score event). I rode around the course with our friend Ellie--she ended up waiting for me a lot of the time, unfortunately.

I'm not an experienced mountain biker, though luckily the bike I've been riding (it belongs to Ellie) is great and has good tires, gears and brakes. It did wonderfully, although I felt pretty slow. The first half of the course I ended up running with the bike alongside because the trails were so tough.

We did OK, got more than half the controls, and came in with 4 minutes to spare. Results are here.

Sunday there was a mountain biking race at the same spot, in a double loop around the forest.


I hiked and picked chanterelles while Andy raced. The moss sparkled in the misty gleams of sunshine and the chanterelles glowed with an orange radiance in the darkness of the evergreen canopy.


I met Andy at the finish--he was covered in mud from head to toe and looked very happy. I meant to get a photo of him in that state, but was slow on the draw.

For the rest of the afternoon, we hiked up a glen, Invercreran, at the foot of Beinn Sgulaird--it was sunny but cold. We saw these ruined sheilings--summertime huts for the girls who tended the cattle in their summer grazing lands. They were pleasantly situated next to a rushing river on a grassy outcrop. The river bore signs of having been dammed into a series of gentle steps, perhaps to improve the quality of the pools for fishing.


Herds of red deer grazed in these fields as we approached the big house. A sign warned us to stay on the main trails as stalking was in progress--deer stalking or hunting is still a popular sport in Scotland. As the overpopulous deer are partly to blame for the difficulty in re-establishing native Scots pine woodland, deer hunting could be seen as a necessary environmental control.

This valley retains the character of a large estate, or several, with huge stately mansions hidden behind ivy-topped stone walls, gorgeous views dominated by solid, castle-like structures. Clearly, the rich landed gentry (referred to with disdain as 'toffs') are still enjoying their hunting and fishing lifestyle in places like this.


It is often only on these huge estates that the historically 'natural' ecosystems of Scotland are preserved--such as in Rothiemurchus where the largest tracts of native Scots pine woodland still stand. It is a sorry state of society when a land's beautiful native ecology depends solely on the eccentric whims of rich landowners.

Of course, there's much more push toward conservation and preservation nowadays, but look what we have left to work with--1% of native woodland, and 0% old growth.