Never mind the forecast, the weather sucked. Not only did the morning suggest poor photography, but it also wasn’t the most pleasant conditions for a walk. Grey, gloomy and cold with a cloud base of around 400 metres, it certainly wasn’t the best. Still, I had decided on a walk up the Paps and I was keen to get on with it. In addition to the aforementioned biscuits, I was loaded with hot soup, chilli crisps, outdoor kit and of course lenses… Very heavy lenses! I should have rationalised my load here, but it was one of kitchen sink moments where I convinced myself of the apparent need for every focal length between 10mm and 400mm.”

The most exciting element was guessing whether each footfall would sink 6 inches or 3 feet into the peaty gloop. Climbing up on to the saddle between Beinn an Òir and Beinn Shiantaidh saw matters get a little hairy, and I was now within the cloud base and also above the snow line. I guess motivation was fair to moderate (becoming good) at this stage, having negotiated the lowlands I was now hitting the stairs, so to speak.

Anyone familiar with the paps will know that they are a serious undertaking. Whilst not especially high, they are remote from civilisation, steep, covered in loose scree and most importantly Scottish. This final point (combined with winter conditions) means that you shouldn’t really under-estimate them, and I would only advise experience winter hillwalkers attempt them in these conditions.

I knew that there was a diagonal line across the East face, but finding it in a whiteout was pretty tricky. The next hour or so was to be quite a test as I navigated onwards and upwards in the snow. I’m never afraid of admitting defeat in these situations and I made a decision at around 600m to abandon the climb but when the skies cleared briefly and offerred the first visibility in hours I took this a good sign and within a few minutes I was on the summit ridge. I was met with fierce South Westerlies and the wispy cloud was flying past. The scenery below was flicking in and out of visibility by the second. It was pretty exhilerating to be up there, and I moved freely and happily along the ridge to the actual summit.

In the gallery you can see the actual views James enjoyed and I believe the word breathtaking describes pretty much what he saw that day! Make sure to visit the website of James Deane for lots more beautiful photography on www.jamesdeanephotography.com

Visit the Walking the Paps in Jura in Winter Gallery here

Clive Loveless: The other week I was at the London Print Fair at the Royal Academy and walking down the aisle of stands I suddenly see an image which immediately connected. It was an etching by a Jason Hicklin of “The Paps of Jura”, 2008. The image struck me strongly with its brooding quality that I bought it on the spot and, now on the wall of my London flat, it resonates with vibrations and memories of the past. So to explain….

Maybe around 1963 my parents, English and Welsh, not Scots were employed by the Riley-Smith Estate to manage the Craighouse Inn and restaurant. I remember my first trip up there, pre-Christmas 1963 on the MacBrayne’s ferry from West Loch Tarbert, arriving at the quay in Small Isles Bay, in the dark. I fell in love with the island.. its wildness and warmth… right there and then.

I was about 20 and soon meeting the locals, drinking the whisky (the old distillery was just about to re-open again) and joining in the ceilidhs. Then, challenged by another young local man, whose name I think was John James Mackay (?), I climbed with him all three Paps in one day! And what a day it was… adders in the heather… eagles soaring above.. the incredible views.. what a day to share with another young fellow.. a stranger.. but not really!

I truly fell in love with the place, the atmosphere, the light and even took some girl friends up there to share my enthusiasm of the island including the late Wendy Richard of “East Enders” fame who immediately became a star with the locals… if not notorious for fighting off Greater Black Backed Gulls with an oar as they dived upon our little rowing boat and barking Beagle hound on a sunny day in Small Isles Bay.

Another strong memory was a visit by Land Rover and final foot trek to visit Barnhill, the home of my literary hero, George Orwell or “Mr. Blair” to the locals. How extraordinary to set foot in the house where “1984” was written and then feel the experience of the Corryvreckan whirlpool thrashing a few paces away. I’d never seen anything like it!

I can’t believe I last visited after my parents, Tony and Joan, had left the Inn due to the sea strikes of the late ‘60’s.. finally taking my then wife to be, Jane, there in 1970. Maybe the memories are so clear and strong that I don’t want to crack, even shatter, them from so long ago by visiting again…..it all seems so close and recent as I look at my “Paps of Jura” etching on the wall…

For more information on the artist Jason Hicklin visit his website at www.jasonhicklin.com

The fact that Orwell wrote his book in Barnhill, situated in the north of Jura, is a reason for some to undertake a pilgrimage to the Isle of Jura and follow into the footsteps of this famous writer. Barnhill still is a very remote place, cars are not allowed and to get there you have to leave your vehicle four miles before Barnhill on the side of the road, or better track. From there it’s a beautiful walk into solitude and remoteness, following the same track George Orwell had followed in 1945 for the first time.

On the website orwell today you can find a travel report of a couple who made a pilgrimage to Barnhill in August 2004. It’s interesting to read that almost nothing has changed in the last six miles or so and only little has changed in the journey from Kintyre to Jura. I’d like to quote a paragraph from the travel report:

We walked to the car – put our boots in the ‘boot’ – and then began the drive up the island to where the road ends and the walk to Barnhill begins. Two miles after driving past the manor house at Ardlussa – and opening and closing two gates to keep the cows contained – we came to the end of the road for cars and parked in the space available there. Just beyond the point where the trail to Barnhill begins a solitary white horse was watching us. I went up to try and pat him but he walked away before I reached him. He didn’t seem to want his picture taken.

My feelings as we began the walk to Barnhill are hard to explain. I kept thinking of the words written on a biscuit tin I’d used for years, “The road to a friend’s house is never long”. I felt that I was truly going to visit a friend, a friend who I very much wanted to see. We weren’t in any hurry and stopped a few times to take photos. The weather was absolutely perfect with glorious sunshine but not too hot. My husband walked ahead of me most of the way but sometimes we’d walk side by side and talk about Orwell. After walking for an hour and a half or so we made a bet to see who would be the first to spot Barnhill. Not long after that we came to the crest of a hill and there it was! It appeared all of a sudden and all at once!

Barnhill image by Alan Gerrard licensed for reuse Creative Commons Licence

Donald Ewan Darroch looks up at me from the haunch of venison he’s in the process of quartering. I’m a slow butcher, he says, with a wry smile and, though I have no way of knowing if he is slow or not, I agree, mostly because it’s such a pleasure to watch him work – as I have done all morning,
ever since I left my car by the ferry and walked half a mile along the shore to his house, passing the big, wind-thrawn rowan tree on the beach by the
sailors’ graves and stopping now and then to pick a citrus-coloured shell from the white sand, the solitary, elm-green deer larder always in view as I
negotiated a path through the rocks and the dark, brown trickles of water and peat spilling on to the sand from the slopes above.

I am on the Isle of Jura. I came here to write poems and stories, beneficiary of one of those invaluable retreats that contemporary writers, like the
monks and mystics of old, can hardly do without. Here, I can sit all night over a paragraph and not worry about the morning. Here, I can walk all day, crossing the fairy-haunted hills, with the place-names ringing in my head – Cróm Dhoire, Beinn Shiantaidh, Leac Fhola – and waiting for the image that will capture the local and specific now, of which, according to Emily Dickinson, forever
is composed.

That different time is everywhere on Jura. In the walled garden of Jura House, where one of the gardeners wraps a slice of elm wood in a sack and fastens
it to the sluice for a month, so the water will flow through and season the wood. In the way people here think about the dead, not letting them slip
forgotten into the past, but talking about them, always, as if they were still present. People here characterise the mainland as a buzz of noise and
impatience, a place they visit reluctantly, and from which they are glad to return…..

John ends his article with a nice poem:

The old days were better for mourning;
better for tongue-tacked girls in ruined plaid
climbing a hillside to gather the rainwashed bones
of what they had lost that winter to the cold;
and men in the prime of their lives, with dwindled sight,
gathering rowans to lay on an empty grave
and thinking of the dead, away at sea,
who dream of nothing more than Leac Fhola

Those endless sunny days which blessed our new abode in the Lincolnshire market town of Sleaford simply could not compete with glorious Argyll and that special silver west-coast light which reaches out to meet the dawn on summer nights. After a couple of days unwinding and taking time out to enjoy the fine walks around scenic Port Appin, we ventured down through Mid Argyll and on to the ferry terminal at Kennacraig to sail out to the neighbouring islands of Islay and Jura. From the ferry point at Feolin, which lies only 10 minutes across the water from Islay, it’s a half-hour drive to Craighouse, which is home to the Jura Hotel. This is remote living at its best. You simply don’t arrive on Jura by accident and everyone you meet has had to make a positive decision to journey here. There are lots of wild deer around the island, but very few people and only a handful of cars, making it an ideal place to enjoy your own space in the great outdoors. And when you return from your leisurely walks, the Jura Hotel is a most comfortable outpost of the British Isles. It offers a great menu, usually including a tasty venison dish, which can be enjoyed in a charming dining-room looking out over Small Isles Bay – pure bliss. Yes, it may have more than its fair share of rain and midges, but for me, west is definitely best.

It’s been a while since Scottish Book Trust told me that I was going to the Jura Malt Whisky Writer Retreat for some precious writing time between mid-August and mid-September, and I knew I was looking forward to it, but I didn’t know how much was going on at the back of my mind. So, when I finally got here (after a three-day sojourn on Islay, because the Jura car ferry had broken down) I had so much work – so many promising notions – to be getting on with, I didn’t know where to start. At which point, of course, the place to start is by calming down and reminding yourself that there’s plenty of time. A whole month, more or less (car ferry notwithstanding). And also to take a look around and see where you are. In Jura. I didn’t know it would be such a beautiful place.

What I do know is that a beautiful place has beautiful place names – and when Catriona Mack, the housekeeper of Jura Lodge, brought me a pile of local interest books, the one I seized upon was Place Names of Jura: A Guide, by Calum McArthur. It’s not a big book – 16 pages, in fact – but it’s full of treasures. Beinn nan Capull, for example, which means “peak of the horses”, or Tom na Pioghaide, which translates as “hillock of the jackdaws”. The name “Jura” could originate in old Norse (meaning something like “deer island”) and the Vikings certainly were a presence here. The island is full of voices. All islands are. Everyone who passed by, or passed through, left a voice behind, their own individual sound, indelible, among the rocks and rivers and hill trails.

The holy grail, I suppose, is a process of distillation. Cask strength, at its best. Surely the right metaphor to end on, after a month of living and working next to a distillery. At night, or in the early morning, when I was about my business, the people who worked over there – a yard’s width away – were at theirs. Found that heartening, reassuring. We were both engaged in the business of making something – hopefully, what I was making might warm somebody, or inspire a good conversation, or close out a solitary evening by the fire almost, though not quite, as well as the water of life. So no goodbye to Jura – and one day, I trust, a return.

Although the weather wasn’t too good they certainly did some serious climbing on Friday: “To do all 3 Paps includes a boggy walk in and then almost 5000ft of ascent on very steep, scree covered hills. They managed to scramble up 2 of the Paps in a shade over 9 hours before the long but scenic 6km road walk back to the camp site. From the top of the Corbett, Beinn an Oir (Hill of Gold) there were fabulous views of wild uninhabited land, white sandy beaches and improbably Mediterranean–looking azure seas!” “In summary, the weather prevented much walking and exploration, however in the right conditions this is a picturesque Island with great hills and superb scenery. Make a note to visit Jura – at least once!”

“There is also, of course (and probably most importantly) one whisky distillery, producing Jura’s creamy Highland-style malt whisky. Opened in 1810, Jura Distillery produces 54,000 litres of whisky a week and operates 24 hours a day, every day. But for those more interested in stylish getaways than malt tastings, it’s the five-bedroom lodge attached to the distillery that is of significance. Also dating from 1810, the building was originally apartments for local workers, but in late 2006 was transformed into a boutique holiday rental that rivals some of the world’s most exclusive hideaways. Arriving at the lodge is like stumbling into a private home that has been decorated by someone well-versed in the rules of shabby chic. Battered leather sofas, dark wood floors, woven rugs and wall-mounted deer antlers are all styling devices straight from the pages of the glossiest interiors magazines.”

“Two days on Jura and a quick distillery tour and I can see how easy it is to become a whisky bore. Tasting the different varieties produced on the island, including the locals’ 16-year-old single malt favourite and the heavier Superstition blend, I’m a fan. From the three Paps – the towering peaks that dominate the centre of the island – to the often inaccessible caves of the West Coast and the more welcoming shoreline of the East, it’s a breath-catchingly beautiful place.”