Don’t let shorter days force you to settle for so-so walks – climb a spectacular volcano instead.
MY FATHER, PERHAPS like all fathers, had a limited stock of Wise Sayings he would call on time and again at what he deemed Important Moments. One of which was when we were in the mountains and the cloud was down and the wind was up. Any time he sensed a rising panic in me about whether we might ever find our way home for fish fingers and waffles, he would hold up his finger and say gnomically “Mountains don’t change their shape in the mist”. I found it deeply reassuring. But I don’t believe it to be true. Mountains not only change their shape in the mist, they alter size according to the season, the weather and where you are in your life. Relativity takes hold as soon as you leave the tarmac. What might be 3000ft on a still summer’s day might as well be a 4000m alp in Scottish winter conditions; a mile amid squall and scree a marathon on springy turf.
And while my appetite for adventure doesn’t diminish with the length of the days, what’s fit to feed it certainly does. Many mountains grow out of reach in the shorter days, but thankfully others swell to ripeness. So while this story is predicated on the idea of small hills suitable for shorter days, that isn’t how I see them at all. Like the shadows cast by the light of a low, bright December moon, these are hills which have grown to fit a new purpose – not to frighten, but to fulfil.
I’ve come to the Campsies – a small range of hills cheek by jowl with Glasgow and home to one of walking’s great shapeshifters. By some measures a modest hill of 427m, and a mere outlier to an already fairly humble range of hills, by the more important measure of standing looking up at it, right now, today, it’s one of the most impressive mountains imaginable. Dumgoyne. Dumbfounding. Rearing upward from a tiny footprint, it’s got a whole lot of height to gain in a very short space of time if it’s to reach its mapmandated altitude. So while it may top out 80ft lower than the very domesticated Cat Bells, Dumgoyne’s slopes are from a different order of mountain altogether – more like standing at the foot of a big wall than a small hill; heaped up and horizonfilling – improbably, perhaps impossibly massive.
As an intro to the Campsies Dumgoyne has all the subtlety of a strong tug on a fairground waltzer. Beyond it the contours calm down considerably, the Campsies’ tranquil moorland a place more of sighs than squeals. For much of history it’s been more tranquil still. Three hundred and fifty mill
