Hill paths: 'Torrential downpours happen any time now'

The best way to find out more is to go where Bob feels most at home, which is the Highlands. So we’re going on a virtual walk with him in Wester Ross: woodland, hillside, riverbank, glen. Bob actually grew up in a very different part of the country, the Borders, but still remembers coming to the village of Kinlochewe (pop: 80) for the first time when he was in his twenties and thinking: this is where I want to spend the rest of my life. “It was a profound sense of being,” he says.

READ MORE: Scottish salmon farms failing to control lice, says report

Bob, who’s 49 now, has never lived anywhere else since and for 24 years has worked on the National Trust for Scotland’s network of paths across the country, building, protecting, and restoring them.

And one particular path - which he’s been working on since he was a trainee in the 1990s - is now finally nearing completion. It’s a story, built from stone and graft, not just of one man and his team but the Scottish landscape and the environment, how we interact with it, and how it’s changing.

Head out to the path and it will take you eight miles across the spectacular landscape between the mountains Liathach, Beinn Alligin, Beinn Dearg and Beinn Eighe, starting at the car park at Coire Mhic Nobuil.

The first part of the walk is surrounded by the most westerly remnant of the Caledonian pine forest and gives an impression of how the Highlands would have looked when they were covered by ancient woodland. “It always amazes me to think that the other end of this is in Russia – that’s a big piece of woodland,” says Bob. “It used to be the lungs of the planet.”

Hill paths are under pressure (Image: FREE)

Then, suddenly, you’re out of the trees and to your left is the great dome-shape of Beinn Dearg and to your right the great ragged tooth of Liathach. This is one of Bob’s favourite spots on the walk, but it also gives you an idea of the scale of the project that he and his team have been working on.

“You’re in the heart of the area here,” he says. “I call it the main vein of Torridon. It’s like an artery that runs right through the middle of it and you’ve got this incredible vista. Liathach itself is astounding.”

But it needs protecting, which is where the path project comes in, and it’s tough work. All the tools have to be carried over the mountains by hand, and any stone and gravel they need has to be dug up from the ground and carried to the site. “The job needs a certain type of person,” says Bob. “It’s not for everybody and I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. I sometimes compare it to the fishing boats – lots will try it but not many can stick with it. You have to put a bit of soul into it – as soon as it becomes just a job, it's very hard to do.”

Bob tells me why the project is needed so much and it’s down to the water and the walkers. Every year, thousands of people make their way along the route which is brilliant because they’re seeing all this beauty for themselves. But it can also be an issue, particularly if walkers stray off the route when it becomes wet or boggy. People are just doing what people do but it often leads to erosion and damage spreading quickly.

“If the path is not great,” says Bob, “it can mean tens of thousands of people straying off the route and it won’t take long to destroy stuff and some of it’s irreplaceable. It’s not people’s fault –and we’re all part of the problem by default – I see it as my role to mitigate it.”

READ MORE: Stop the Green backlash. We need a leader who cares for climate

What Bob certainly doesn’t want to do is discourage people from getting out into the Highlands. “People won’t value what they don’t appreciate – if they’re not getting out in the mountains and seeing these amazing things, they’re not going to care so we need them to be out there. And they’re not my mountains, they belong to the people. I’m a very strong advocate of free open access.”

To maintain that open access however means a constant battle against the other big problem: water. “Water does damage in its many forms,” he says. “Whether it’s washing the surface away or puddles or making the ground boggy, it’s usually water that’s the issue. People will stick to a path but when it becomes too rough or too wet, that’s when they’ll stray off it.”

Bob admits he does sometimes find it hard to fathom. “I’ve never understood why people will spend £300 on a pair of mountain boots that are waterproof and then avoid puddles like the plague!”

Bob’s job when the water becomes too much is to find the source of the problem and fix it, which is something he’s become good at in the 20-plus years he’s been out constructing and repairing the path; he loves this landscape but over the years he’s learned to read it too. “You learn to read the vegetation,” he says. “Certain plants will give you an indication that it’s maybe too wet or too dry and will give you a clue to the source of the water.”

He isn’t about to deny either that the problem is getting worse: extreme weather, he says, is much more common than it was.

“There’s definitely a change,” he says. “I’m no scientist but you can see that the snow no longer comes in November and melts in March. It comes and goes and comes and goes and all that wash-out from the melt, that used to be a once or twice-a-year event, now it can be six, seven, eight times a year.”

Bob Brown (Image: NTS)

The rain is also worse, he says. “Torrential downpours can happen any time now,” he says. “The amount of water we get has also changed so some of the path that was fine in the 1990s is too low now.” What it means for Bob is having to adapt. “We have been making changes over the last decade including making the ditches wider and deeper and the drains a bit wider.”

Bob knows that he and his team can cope for now but he’s worried about the bigger picture, how the climate is changing. Environmentally, he says, what’s happening in Torridon is just a small blip in the timeframe of the planet but equally he believes Torridon is just as much on the frontline of climate change as somewhere like Brazil. “The peat bogs, in my head, are as important as the rain forests,” he says. “Everything should be looked after equally.”

When he’s out and about in Torridon, Bob sees what needs the protection: the pine martens, the goldcrests, the treecreepers, the red deer and sometimes, if you’re lucky, a golden eagle out on the open moorland.

He has also become something of an evangelist for the heather and other vegetation that thrive here: they are humble plants, he says, but they are also important. “It’s easy to be impressed with the vista and the mountains but I’m also really interested in the micro stuff – I’m quite often to be found grubbing around in the moss looking for plants as well.”

It’s when Bob is out on the hills like this, eyes on the mountains or nose in the moss, that he realises all the changes that have happened here: to the path, to the area, and to Bob himself.

The work on the path has been done in many patient stages. When he first arrived as a trainee in the 90s, there were signs of a rudimentary route, probably used by stalkers or farmers moving livestock, but there were also signs that even a hundred years ago, people were coming here for pleasure as well. At Coire Mhic Nobuil for example, there are the remains of an old curling pond, a bizarre remnant of the Victorians’ attempts, ultimately unsuccessful, to tame this place.

The work Bob’s work done in the area over the last 24 years has been to slowly build a path through it all that is fit for purpose. The first change he ever made – a ridge that diverts water to one side of the path – is still there and he often smiles when he see it, this little bit of evidence of his younger self as well as how long the project has taken to complete. Elsewhere, it's been about installing drains or steps or whatever is needed and all of it is tough work in a difficult and unforgiving location.

The changes to the wider area are a little more subtle but they are reflected in many other parts of Scotland too. When Bob first came to live in Kinlochewe, it was very remote indeed. He didn’t have a car, the nearest train station was 10 miles away and there were only three buses a week to Inverness, so it meant life was quiet. He also arrived in the autumn, after the few tourists had moved on, so if you saw someone, you’d know who there were. It wouldn’t suit some people but Bob loved it.

Twenty-five years on, things have changed a bit. There’s a new road from Achnasheen to Kinlochewe, which has made it a bit more commutable and there are many more tourists, thanks in part to the popularity of the North Coast 500. Bob doesn’t resent that one bit – quite the opposite, he thinks it’s great that more people are coming to see the area he fell in love with. But he does sometimes wish people would take more time to appreciate it.

“I almost feel sorry for some tourists who seem to be passing through, especially now,” he says. “Tourism seems to be quite a fast thing – drive through, take a picture and keep going. That’s nice enough but there’s so much more to these areas.”

The other changes Bob’s noticed are more personal. When he first moved to this area in the 90s, he was a young man. For a while, he’d floated about, unsure what to do with his life, living the often transient life of a contractor: a job would turn up, he’d go and live in the area, then move on. But a theme had run through his life without him realising it: when he was kid, he spent most of his time in an allotment or in the woods. Always, it was about being outside.

So Torridon was the right destination for him and the more he saw of it, the more he loved it. He doesn’t deny the downsides: the way the winter can drag on and the times when he’s working on the hills for days and weeks in the driving rain and gale-force winds. But he knows the value of the work he’s doing here: in all, as the National Trust’s upland path manager, he has some 250 miles of footpath in his care, but the Torridon trail is special to him. It’s where he started and by the end of April, all the planned works are due to be completed. There will be a path from start to finish. His work here will be done.

Looking back, Bob says he’s very proud of the project; he’s also proud to have trained many of the people who’ve worked on it alongside him for so long. I ask him if he has a favourite spot on the route and he says he has a few although one in particular is particularly special.

“It’s the junction near the start,” he says. “You can go along Coire Mhic Nobuil or you can you up the Horns of Alligin or go between the mountains in a different direction – 99% of the time I go gown Coire Mhic Nobuil because it’s where I like to be.” He says he likes it because of the magnificent views but he also likes it because it’s quiet. It’s been good for his health, this wonderful place, this extraordinary artery through the Highlands, but it’s also been good for his head.