After the recent debacle in Dumfries and Galloway I was keen to do a hillwalk that would go smoothly from start to finish. The obvious candidate was Ben Arthur or “The Cobbler”; it’s one of our favorite hills and has a well maintained and clear path from start to finish that actually ties up with published maps.

We started out from Arrochar very early in the morning with a clear star-filled sky above us, and reached the ridge between the north and central peaks with half an hour to go before official sunrise. Perfect!

I took a few minutes to swap my cold, sweaty top for a nice dry thermal one, got a couple of snaps with the camera, dished out some treats to my furry and impatient companions, and then made the remaining short trek up to the central peak. Thus far things couldn’t have gone any better; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, we’d timed the walk perfectly, and we were about to have the summit all to ourselves.  Just as the rocky Eye of The Cobbler structure popped into view, I also saw two radio masts and a camouflaged tent.

I’d never seen anything like that on the top of a hill before, and I assumed it was some kind of unmanned science project. I took the pups straight past it and set up to get some nice shots of the sunrise. As usual I chatted away to Beanie and Biggles as I set up the tripod and gave them a few treats.

A couple of photos in I suddenly heard the crackle of a radio from the tent, and someone replied. Clearly we weren’t alone, and whoever was in the tent had heard me gibbering away to my Beagles like an escaped mental patient. The radio conversation continued with lots of “Echo.. echo.. over” and all of that jazz, and I lowered my voice as I told the pups to quit tangling their leads around the legs of my tripod. That was a big mistake! You should never, ever let a Beagle know that you need them to be quiet, because if you do you’re guaranteed to get this..

I heard the occupant of the tent having to repeat his latest radio exchange, and in a effort to restore the peace I made another, even bigger mistake: I gave the pups a treat each. For the time it took to devour a chicken-flavored mini-jumbone (about 25 seconds) there was indeed a cessation of woofing, but I’d just rewarded their previous outburst with food. I had in effect paid them to woof. Unsurprisingly they woofed again as soon as their jumbones had been dispatched.

I wanted a few more shots, and I didn’t want to disturb the occupant of the tent any further, so I paid them again, and again. This was a dream come true for Biggles. Woofing had always been one of his favorite hobbies, but now he’d turned that hobby into career. He’d become a professional woof artist!

I got my shots and then I hurried Team Gobby down off the summit and back to the ridge as quickly as I could. Biggles continued in his efforts to generate more edible income, but soon discovered that on The Cobbler, overtime goes unpaid.

Usually we just retrace our steps to get down off Ben Arthur, but this time I decided to try the alternate route to the southeast. This kept us in the bright morning sun and provided a marvelous view of the area around the southern peak.

I found this route to be much kinder on my knees than trudging back down the rocky “staircase” on the other side, and before long we joined up with the main path taking us past the Narnain boulders and back to the van for a well-earned breakfast.

From a hillwalking point of view this expedition couldn’t have gone better, and its success has gone some way to erasing the memory of being rescued from dense foliage just a few minutes from a car park in Glentrool. However, it has also set a dangerous precedent in Beagle law and proved to Biggles that he can earn his keep not just by collecting socks, but also by woofing.

The Bigglet. He’s not just good at making noise, he’s a Pro!

Beanie has always been keen to fill her life with new experiences; even as a little pup living with her brothers and sisters, she was the one who was always trying to escape from their playpen. She’s had all kinds of medical misadventures, eaten all kinds of things she shouldn’t, voyaged across the seas on ferries, climbed numerous mountains and even had an unsanctioned offlead run-around on one of them. Now, in celebration of her twelfth birthday, she’s been liberated from an overgrown jungle by a Scottish Mountain Rescue team and had a short but very exciting ride in an ambulance.

This latest adventure of Beagle proportions began when I discovered that there was a hill in Dumfries and Galloway called “Curleywee”. That definitely sounded like the sort of hill a little furry girl should visit, so I found a route on Walkhighlands and off we went. The route was meant to ascend another hill first (Lamachan Hill) – only including Curleywee as an afterthought – so I decided to put things right by doing the walk in reverse. It started out very easy, with a pretty stroll by the edge of Loch Trool.

Once that first section was over the route quickly became incredibly tedious, taking us through a seemingly endless stretch of marshy bog. Walking through that kind of terrain is way more tiring than climbing a hill; one step may sink just an inch into squishy marsh, then the next can plunge you knee deep into mud, filling your boots with gritty bog juice. Though much lighter and more nimble than me, even Beanie and Biggles were having plenty of muddy scrambles. It was a huge relief when we finally started the ascent of Curleywee.

Bog, bog and more bog..

.. even the pups were getting bored with it

Finally we arrived at the summit of Curleywee

And there was much (chicken-flavored) rejoicing

Onward to Lamachan!

I was feeling a bit pooped from the bogfest and all the camera and other gear I was carrying, but the actual on-hill walking was great, and with a dry stone wall to follow for most of the way back down, I felt sure that the remainder of the walk would be a breeze.

Of course it wasn’t. Once we lost height we were back into bog territory and the going became very difficult again. Biggles sensed his chance to earn some extra treats; in recent years he’s become excellent at following faint trails and finding more solid ground. He took the lead as pathfinder and for a little while our rate of progress increased, but then Beanie got jealous and decided that she should be in the lead (it was HER birthday after all). She did not make good decisions on where to step, and a lot of time was wasted in sorting out lead tangles and extracting ourselves from the mud. The light was failing and soon I had to break out my torches, but I could see from the satnav and the paper map I had with me that we were closing in on the end of the walk, albeit much slower than expected.

I was hugely relieved when we emerged from the wilderness onto a logging road. From here it was all roads and solid paths back to the car; we still had a little way to go but I knew progress would be rapid from this point on. I followed the satnav carefully and before long we had just one sharp turn to make before effectively being on the home straight. Unfortunately that last turn –  shown on both the satnav route and the paper map.. just wasn’t there. I wasted a lot of time going back and forth convinced that I must have missed it, but no, it simply didn’t exist any more; in its place was the remains of a logging operation. It was now well past the expected arrival time back at the van, and I knew Susan would be getting worried back at home, so I kept texting her, assuring her that all was well.

From the paper map I could see a diversion along logging roads that should have got us back, so I set about following that, but after only a short distance it too departed from what was there in print, and from what was shown on the satellite images I’d downloaded. I returned to the point of the original missing turn, thoroughly p***ed off and tired. Beanie and Biggles echoed my sentiments; they were sick of tramping up and down the same bit of road and wanted to get back to their travel crates for a well-earned nap. Each time I stopped to text Susan, they started to make improvised beds for the night, and I had a hard time convincing them to get moving again. It was maddening; we were only a short march from the van, but the path to get us there no longer existed. I decided – in retrospect foolishly – to use the satnav to follow the path that should have been, hacking my way through all the logging debris. After all, that must eventually dump us out by the car, and how hard could it be? Very, very hard as it turned out. If I’d been on my own I could have stumbled my way through all the hidden potholes, roots, tree stumps, broken branches and rope-like vegetation relatively quickly, but with Beanie and Biggles the task became almost impossible; their leads kept getting caught up and I could barely take two steps before I had to free them and lift them over – or out of – some obstacle. I would have been happy to carry them but even that wasn’t really an option because I needed my hands free to keep myself from falling over.

Progress was painfully slow but from the satnav I could see us getting closer to the end, and I was sure we were going to make it. Out of the blue my phone rang, and I answered it, assuming it was Susan, but it was actually the police, whom Susan had contacted. I did my best to describe the situation, thinking that we’d soon be out of this hole-in-the-ground and back at the van. Unfortunately that was not to be, because shortly after that we found our way blocked by a deer fence. It had been erected fairly recently so the wire was strong and taught, with no way under it and no stile or other access provision to get over it. I stood for a while looking at it, and then decided that after all this, the only solution was to climb over it.  I had to climb it twice using only three limbs because there were two little Beagles who needed to be lifted over the top and carefully lowered to the other side, one at a time.  It took a lot out of me to get over that fence, but in the torch and moon light I could see a dry stone wall up ahead and what looked like a straight, smooth path beyond. I fought through some particularly tall and dense vegetation to get to the wall, having to untangle Beanie and Biggles with every step, but what I now saw ahead wasn’t a path, but yet more jungle and another two dry stone walls. We were now massively overdue, and after a few more conversations with the police, Susan allowed them to call out Galloway Mountain Rescue.

This was as embarrassing as it was surreal. I remembered joking about one time when the emergency services had been called out to help shoppers escape from a local Asda store after heavy rain had “flooded” the car park; in reality, the rescue teams were carrying people over what was essentially just a big static puddle, with the water barely going over the ankles on the rescuers’ wellies. Now, Beanie, Biggles and myself were about to be saved by a Scottish Mountain Rescue team even though we were miles from the nearest mountain. That said, I was feeling truly depleted and unsure about how much more jungle I’d have to hack through to get back to our van. I gave the team our satnav coordinates; now we just had to stay put and wait for them to get to us. I’d long run out of treats, and Beanie and Biggles were not happy at all. Biggles gave me a severe and deserved woofing, while Beanie made a bed in the undergrowth and grumbled herself to sleep. This was the worst Beanie birthday bash. Ever.

The rescuers arrived remarkably quickly, and I was dismayed to find how very close we’d been to getting ourselves out of there. My embarrassment went through the roof, but Beanie loved the attention she got from the team. It made her day when we got a ride to our van in the back of an ambulance. She stood on the her back legs with her front paws on my knees and her tail wagging furiously as I shared the energy bar I’d been given. Instantly the best Beanie birthday bash. Ever.

We’ve been back home a couple of days now, and while Beanie & Biggles are full of energy, I’m still as tired and shagged out as Monty Python’s infamous Norwegian Blue parrot. I’ve got more muscle soreness than I’ve experienced in over 30 years of hard training, but a hot bath and a couple of Ibuprofen tablets helps with that. I still haven’t found anything that reduces the embarrassment I’m feeling after this debacle. Needless to say Galloway Mountain Rescue have a donation coming their way, but in the meantime, here are a few more pics from Beanie’s birthday that didn’t involve the emergency services.