Ski tour - ski more!

Conditions for XC ski touring here in Aberdeenhire have continued to be exceptionally good - so good that I've been doing lots of skiing and not much blogging!  Repeated snowfall and overnight temperatures well below freezing have combined to build a really deep and stable snowpack.  In the forests the tracks are skiing really well.....

...on compacted tracks where there have been lots of traffic.  Off the usual routes the snow has a good crust, and is very pretty, but is just failing to hold my weight on forest skis.

Out on the open hills the views are really enhanced by snow cover, Tap o' Noth's summit hillfort is standing out particularly well.

All the high ground has good snow cover - and since this image was taken in the last week of January there have been further heavy falls to build up the snowpack.

It's a different world up here on the Correen ridge, just five minutes drive and 300m altitude separates the ridge from my house, but up here the wind is stingingly cold and the temperatures are lower by day - it's quite arctic.

Whenever I've been up doing short tours I've met other skiers - and in the spirit of the latest Covid lockdown almost all have been neighbours, friends and locals.  And really, if you have conditions like this on the doorstep, why travel any distance?!

So, skiing has taken centre stage for now while the good conditions last!  Under a blue sky it's marvellous, but if the touring by day has been good, touring during evenings and nights has been superb.....

 

One good thing - 2nd and 3rd May 2020

One good thing about the weekends is the opportunity to take longer walks without the time constraint of working from home. These longer routes have averaged around 15km and are usually circular, although one of the walks this weekend was linear.

Setting out from home I revisited the route which runs from Alford to Rhynie over the Correen Hills.  Once used as a cattle droving route, it was also used as a path between kirks.  The parishes of Forbes on the Tullynessle side of the hills and Kearn to the north shared a minister and services alternated between the kirks, so on Sundays this route would have been busy with one or other congregation making a return journey over the hill.  This route remains a right of way between Alford and Rhynie and is relatively easy to follow.

From Terpersie a track climbs gently up on a broad spur to a long-disused quarry.  The soundtrack was all moorland birds, the constant backing stream of Skylark song, the sudden "squelch" call of a Snipe zig-zagging away from close by, the chuckle of Red Grouse, the wild call of  Curlews in display flight, and - as expected this weekend the familiar pirate call of a Cuckoo, the first of the year.

The view back down to Tullynessle opens up as height is gained, moorland and forest bounded by rich farmland. 

The highest point of the walk is at a shallow bealach (col) near Badingair Hill from where a wide view opens up to the north with Tap O'Noth crowned by its massive hillfort prominent.  The previous time i walked this route I turned east (right in this image) near the solar array to finish at the village of Clatt.  Today I wanted to follow the traditional route to Rhynie - which goes along the strip along the side solar panels towards Tap O'Noth.

Close up the renewable energy plant is quite impressive.  I had a fascinating chat with a mole-catcher who was checking his traps around the base of the solar panels.  He's one of the last people to specialise in mole catching locally and I learned lots in a short conversation.  The moles here are clearly very numerous judging from the amount of molehills and are presenting a problem not just around the infrastructure but in the livestock fields nearby.

The three turbines at Carnmore are 81 metres tall and each of the blades is 25 metres long, rotating at a nominal 26rpm, each has an output of 850Kw which is claimed to be capable of powering 600 homes.  The whooshing of the blade tips was noticeable but not as intrusive as some.

Nearby is the remains of Cairnmore hillfort - a Pictish site dated to around 500AD.  Not as immediately spectacular as the forts on the summits of Tap O'Noth or Bennachie, it is nevertheless thought to have been a site of high status in the Pictish era and has a wide outlook over the surrounding country and a direct line of sight to Tap O'Noth.

Tap O'Noth was built many hundreds of years before Cairnmore but it's possible that both were in use at the same time for a period.  At this time of year it's likely that huge fires would have burned near both sites at the celebration of Beltane, which has roots very early in history.

An information board gives a good impression of what the site may have looked like based on a series of archaeological digs.

The route from Cairnmore follows a farm road downhill to a quiet country road leading to the village of Rhynie.  If time allows there's an outstanding collection of Pictish symbol stones at the kirk in the village.

This route was a little over 15km and takes around 4 hours including stops. I feel that the finish in Rhynie is a better one than the finish in Clatt. It's another added to my exploration of walks straight from home, and has lots of good things to recommend it.

Tap o' Noth hillfort

 The initial and enduring impression as one enters the Tap o'Noth hill fort is the sheer scale of the site.  The walls enclose an area approximately 100 by 30 metres,  making the site around the size of a football pitch.  The aerial view on "Canmore", the digital archive of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Sites of Scotland can be used as our guide around this impressive place.

 

 Although tumbled, enough remains of the walls to gain an insight into what a mighty fortress this would have been, the tumbled remains of the walls are 6 metres wide and 3 meres high  The organisation of labour to build and to occupy Tap o'Noth must indicate an advanced people with a structured society and the means to both construct sites like this and sustain themselves at the same time.  Archaeological finds here include an axe head dated around 2000BC-800BC and a piece of bronze horse harness dating to around the 1st-3rd century AD.  This would indicate that the site was probably in use from the Bronze Age and continued through to the Iron Age Picts, perhaps starting out as a small fort before being greatly expanded.  The word "Noth" is thought to have a Pictish origin and possibly has the meaning of "looking" or "seeing" - very appropriate given the wide ranging views from the summit.

 The fort site has a stone lined cistern well, clearly visible on the aerial view as a dark depression near the southern end of the enclosure.

 Parts of the wall have been vitrified by intense and prolonged heat, these vitrified sections are mostly concentrated at the north western end wall.

Debate continues amongst experts as to what vitrification represents, destruction or a deliberate strengthening of the walls.  There's some more about vitrified hillforts here, and as I visit more vitrified forts it seems to me to be logical that this represents a deliberate construction technique rather than a destructive one.

But the fort itself is just the crowning glory.  Lower down (pretty much at the divide between the grass and heather in this image) there was another stone rampart running right around the hill.  Remains of over 100 house platforms have been recorded in this area, with a definite clustering on the northern and northeastern slopes, sheltered from the prevailing wind and weather by the hill and the fort.

The line of the lower rampart can be seen in this image.  The whole site is a staggering 21 hectares in area; this is no mere defensive bolt-hole or even a status symbol built by an individual - it looks and feels more like a major centre of power; which is what it is believed to have been.

From the northern slopes of the hill a series of terraces exists in places, and occasionally the possible outline of a building.  From here the fort wall looks very impressive - how much more so must it have looked when in use?

The effort involved in the building of such walls must have been enormous.  It would be a mistake to think that these Iron Age people were in most senses of the word "primitive".  Named "Picti" (painted people - probably deriving from the habit of tattooing) when the Romans encountered them in the late 200's AD the Picts were already a force to be reckoned with.  A sophisticated and organised society who farmed, kept livestock, indulged in art and sculpture and were fearsome warriors, they dominated northern and eastern Scotland until around 900 AD when the Picts were defeated and absorbed by their Gaelic Scots neighbours.

As I stood in a raw wind at the wall of Tap o' Noth,  my  thoughts of the warriors who would once have peopled this place were interrupted by a flat roar......

....the signature noise of a modern warrior class - the crew of a Tornado fighter-bomber streaking past in a hard turn. 

A significant view from the Tap o'Noth

One of the most distinctive hills in the north east of Scotland, Tap o' Noth with its sawn-off cone of a summit lying at the end of a ridge is one of the familiar landmarks of Aberdeenshire.  On a walk along the Correen Hills I realised that it had been more than a year since I'd climbed it despite the hill being barely fifteen minutes drive from home.

A couple of days later a dry-ish day and a few spare hours gave me the chance to revisit.  I started from the tiny car park below the highest point of the hill from where a straightforward ascent can be made.  The route climbs on a track through farmland before contouring out on a level grassy area with the summit cone straight ahead.

The village of Rhynie seems very close from just below the summit area.  The village is mainly known for  the Rhynie Chert, an early Devonian sedimentary rock deposit aged about 410 million years which contains the earliest known insect fossil, and a strong Pictish connection - of which more shortly....

To the south west there's a long view across to the Buck o' the Cabrach , itself a noted viewpoint lying between Strathdon and Glenfiddich with grandstand views to the Cairngorms.

On the subject of grandstand views, the extent of the view from Tap o'Noth is shown on an information board just below the summit area.  Each circle is a 5 kilometre extension with the outer, 50 kilometre ring showing the potential view on clear days.  From the North Sea at the city of Aberdeen to the Moray Firth, south to the Angus Hills and west to the high Cairngorms, it's a marvellous panorama from a hill which is just 563 metres/1847 feet high.

Probably the most significant elements of the view are direct sight lines to the Pictish fort at Burghead on the Moray Firth, to the hillfort summit of Bennachie and below to Rhynie itself. 

Significant because the entire summit area of Tap o'Noth consists of a huge hillfort; the second highest in Scotland and one of the largest at 21 hectares in area.  The best angle from which to get a sense of the scale and extent of the place is from above, as in this image from the Canmore archive.

I first climbed Tap o'Noth when we moved to Aberdeenshire some 15 years ago - I was blown away by the fort then and every time I return it has the same effect - let me show you around......

Winter arrives - a fleeting brilliance

Sunday 22nd November dawned bright and brilliantly white.  Through Saturday evening and into the small hours snowfall had been steady and had resulted in quite an accumulation.  I tried the nordic skis at home, but the snow was just a little "sticky" for good cross country touring - good for walking though.

Just a few minutes drive from home is a hilltop parking area at the start of the Gordon Way.  I set out into a landscape transformed....

...into a winter wonderland.  It was still, cold and quiet in the forest, every branch of the spruce trees  heavily loaded with powdery snow.

Breaking out onto a more open area, the view to the north opened up.  The distinctive sliced-off cone of Tap o'Noth was an unbroken white.....

....alternately lit with a fleeting, brilliant light.  The capacity of snow cover to utterly transform the landscape never ceases to amaze; I have to confess to a childlike pleasure in a good fall of snow!

And there had been a good fall too.  In contrast to the northerly wind of the preceding days, the night had been almost windless and the snow had settled where it fell.

On the higher ground the depth of cover made walking an energetic and aerobic experience, but I certainly wasn't complaining!  My objective was Knock Saul (Cnoc just means "hill"), the broad hill with tree cover in the middle distance of this image.  To get there I intended to drop down to a forest track between Suie Hill and Knock Saul, then effectively walk around the back of the hill to climb it from the far side.

Climbing back out of the forest an hour or so later, the weather to the north looked somewhat different with dark clouds and a banner of snow flying off Tap o' Noth in a strengthening wind.

By the time I reached the summit of Knock Saul the sky to both north and west was full of snow and a bitter wind was blowing.

My eyes were streaming in the cold, so I took a quick look back over to Suie Hill where I'd started the walk.....

...and then turned my back to the wind.  The view southwards from this small hill is really extensive; the distinctive tor on the side of Clachnaben is some 50 kilometres distant but clearly visible in the sharp air.

I didn't linger too long on the summit and was soon back in the shelter of the forest, heading down towards home.  The snow lasted just a couple of days, its fleeting brilliance a brief taste of winter to come - and there's more snow in the forecast over the coming days.