I've asked a local man about the Drumochter track and got some useful information. He says the land was part of Dalnaspidal deer-forest, but the Loch Garry section has been taken over by Ben Alder Estate, owned by a foreign millionaire, and the estate is keen to develop the Garry section for grouse-shooting, hence the new track. He says a new track runs from Dalnsaspidal Lodge along the east side of Loch Garry for about 1 km, and a section splits off for 3 km to slant uphill out eastwards towards Meall Breac. Contractors have worked for the last couple of months or so, and an excavator driver is still there, working on drains. My contact, who is quite experienced in matters of tracks and footpaths, says the work appears at a distance to be of a fairly good standard. From this it does not follow that vegetation and upper soil horizons were carefully kept and thereby the visual impact minimised and ground reinstatement maximised. My local contact will try to find more information.

Scomuir Wrote:>
I think the NEMT appear to generally support renewable energy to a degree, given the number of links to wind farm sites on their website. I would imagine there are caveats, but that is the impression I get...
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I should hope so too as this very revealing map from SNH shows exactly where the wind farms are being dumped. Although I am also a supporter in general, I do think their impact / benefits should be shared equally across the country and as such, the Cairngorm plateau being such a windy place with a topography not unlike the Southern Uplands (albeit an average 750 ft higher), then the NEMT should also happily go along with all the positive arguments that the power companies and government spivs keep plying to the people in the remote parts of the South of Scotland.

[www.snh.org.uk]

Maybe Cairngorm Mountain Limited could lead the way ... not with a new skiing development but by installing 30 or 40 turbines near to the Ciste & Cas car parks, bringing Aviemore the same environment benefit and boost to tourism and the local economy that the 36 new turbines being proposed on the Devil's Beef Tub and the edge of the Moffat Hills will deliver to Moffat

Everyone's a winner eh ?



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 08.27hrs Thu 9 Jul 09 by moffatross.

Ross, if I follow your argument correctly, then there is a case for building those turbines in the Grampian area, as you suggest. - Since any turbines visible from the M74 will plainly attract tourism, which would otherwise continue further north to the Loch Lomond & Cairngorm National Parks.

By this logic, which I think some organisations adopt, it could be beneficial to build turbines in all our lesser-visited remote landscapes of outstanding natural beauty...as a means of boosting visitor numbers.

Now if I recall correctly, all the ski centres could do with increased visitor numbers....and if this could be associated with clean renewable energy...it's win-win!

However I suspect that a different logic drives these decisions. - Anybody old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher, and Spitting-Image, may recall the "Thatcher Map of UK" with all land north of Carlisle labelled "Testing Ground". - Sadly true.

I doubt if "Britain's" next nuclear power plant will be built inside the M25.

I'm now well off the Drumochter topic, but has anybody noted that a further 2 large scale hydro schemes are planned after Glen Doe : [news.scotsman.com]

These are advertised as "Hydro", but are actually "Pump-Storage" of energy generated by other methods....for example to allow stable running of new nuclear plants. - It could also store excess wind power generated overnight in Moffat, but the scale of scheme & the history of Loch Awe system suggests that nuclear is much more likely.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11.07hrs Thu 9 Jul 09 by HTH.

Dont know if anyone looked at the North Pennines link I put up earlier but if not the SNH presentation has a couple of interesting maps. You have to be on Skye to get more than 8km from a track. 5-8km away is the best you do for parts of the Cairngorm.

One thing I hadnt realised before is the amonunt of infrastructure that goes in around a wind farm. Luckily not to many in the North Pennines or Peaks.

Chionophile

The track starts at 642722 and heads down to around 2.5 k from Dalnacardoch I couldnt see where it finished. A branch heads off from around 660720 straight uphill to around 550 metres. At the Loch Garry end the track is 4 metres wide and rather crudely finished, quite convex. Maybe there is further work to be done. Access seems to be off the A9 around about 2.5 k from Dalnaspidal. They would have to cross the Garry which is dry just now. The machines do not appear to have came in by the lodge. There was at least 3 diggers working and a caterpillar vehicle carrying hardcore. There is still a lot of work to be done on the eastern half of the track

Jim

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Many thanks, Cremrow, for such a good detailed account and for the photographs, which tell quite a lot. The photos show that on these sections at any rate they are not using local borrow pits for gravel, and instead are importing the gravel and laying it on top of the extant vegetation and peat, and hence there are no gravel banks on either side, of the kinds that are typical with excavated tracks. This is a plus, but the associated minus is that the imported material of yellowish-orange hue is so very conspicuous that it will take many years to begin to blend into the landscape. You will see it from miles away. The convex running surface might seem crude, but is actually a plus, because water runoff will tend to run laterally for a few yards into the ditches on either side, rather than picking up volume and momentum by going straight down the track along a flat camber. This also obviates the need to have cross drains on the surface, which require continual maintenance of they are to work properly. On the other hand, your first photo shows such a long hill that I would expect that some runoff in heavy rain would cause erosion down the track, though far less than if the camber was flat. Another snag in the long run is that the convex camber will tend with use and time to become less convex unless it is re-engineered, and so the likelihood of erosion straight down linearly along the line of the track surface will increase.

All the photos showing the track with the moorland on either side reveal that most if not all of the vegetation that was removed during the excavation of the ditches was dumped out of sight, and hence must have been buried under the imported gravel of the track. This is poor practice. Saving the vegetation during the excavation of the ditches could easily have been used to cloak the exposed wet peat on the ditches, hour by hour as the driver proceeded. This would have caused less impact on the landscape and vegetation, and would have reduced water runoff from the exposed peat and therefore less erosion in the ditch itself. it will take years for local plants to colonise on to wet peat, because it is a very poor medium for natural seedlings to establish.

Good detective work, Cremrow. Keep your keen eye on it!
Adam



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11.10hrs Sun 12 Jul 09 by Chionophile.

Getting back to the OP:

Are you referring to the branch track or the one running North South? (thats been there for decades)

There are several new tracks I've noticed pooping up there:

1. Down the East side of the Garry (tho not sure how far it goes)
2. Parallel and South of A9 from Dalnaspidal for a good 3 or 4 km
3. Fairly sure the Stalkers track up Coire Dhomain has recently been bulldozed - not sure how far in

As a keen mountain biker i find it a double edged sword from an access point of view but there is no denying that many are environmental vandalism - just driven in with no sensitivity to width, choice of line etc. The Gorms are often referred to as wilderness but the sad fact is you are never more than 8 miles or so from one of those bulldozed tracks

Sorry - should have read the whole post.

As Chionophile states that will be a big scar for many years to come