Since 2021, photographer and historical researcher Estelle Slegers Helsen has been wandering around Lochaber in the footsteps of the Scottish photographer W S Thomson MBE, 1906-1967. She takes photographic remakes roughly 70 years after Thomson initially captured the landscape and talks to local people along her journey. Every fortnight, Estelle takes our readers to various places in Lochaber. This week, she focuses on Upper Glen Nevis.
“Have you got a signal?” a man in his fifties asks me on the narrow path descending from Steall Waterfall along the Nevis Gorge.
I take my phone out of the front pocket of my hiking trousers and look at the screen. “No signal,” I reply.
“You will probably have to drive from the Upper Nevis Car Park to Fort William to get a signal.”
“Why?” I ask.
“There’s a guy near the falls with a sprained, possibly broken ankle. He needs help and I need to call the emergency services.”
“You get some help,” I say, “and I will have a look when I get there.” “Watch out, it’s slippery,” I add.
About 15 minutes later, I see a guy limping, held up by his girlfriend. Some people ahead of me on the path ignore the couple as they don’t seem to care.
“Where are you going?” I ask the guy. “They are calling for help for you. You can’t keep walking in this condition,” I say. “You need both feet to get back to the car park.”
The guy looks surprised but listens and looks for a place to sit.
It is mid April 2022 and my planned walk to Steall Waterfall is on the last day of a two-week trip to Lochaber, one of my regular visits to the area for the Travel in Time project.
I see the waterfall in the distance. I can’t do much more than join the couple and wait for help. We talk. The guy is on holiday from the US and he and his English girlfriend from the West Midlands are in Fort William for a few days.
He is wearing sneakers and shorts. “You’re not really wearing the right footwear,” I preach.
He looks puzzled. “It works,” he answers.
“But not for hiking in the hills and mountains.” I sound like his mother.
His girlfriend says she is going back to get help. I know help will come, but there is no way of holding her back, and she leaves.
“Be careful,” I shout just before she disappears behind a rock. I check the time. Sunset is in about an hour. We sit in silence for a while.
He looks annoyed, as if I am stopping him from going back.
“Do you have anything to eat or drink?” I ask. “I will wait another 15 minutes and then go back.”
Although I have a torch, I am not keen to return alone once it gets dark because I haven’t been here before. I leave my sandwiches, tea and an emergency blanket.
As I approach the car park, I see the rescue party coming. Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team is in full swing; about a dozen guys and girls fully equipped, including a stretcher. I am impressed.
At the car park, I join Mike, the man who went looking for help. He looks a bit rough. His home is a modestly equipped van.
“I don’t like four walls,” he says. I learn he was a British soldier who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I need the space to clear my head,” he explains. “An event like this brings back a lot of bad memories.”
I try to imagine what this feels like, but I can’t. The closest I have ever been to a war was making a report from raw footage in the editing room of a Flemish television station where I worked in the 1990s. And I haven’t had a TV for the past 25 years.
While we chat, a young couple dressed in impeccable white trousers and even brighter trainers ask where the waterfall is.
We strongly advise them not to go because it is nearly dark and the path to the falls is not a red carpet walk.
“You need proper clothing and daylight,” Mike says. They hesitate but return to their car.
It is dark when the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team arrives at the car park with the American guy strapped in the stretcher.
The team has just finished a weekend of training and further development in the mountains, so the whole team was out.
A team member returns my flask, sandwiches and emergency blanket. An ambulance is on its way. I say goodbye to everyone, including Mike and his dog Buster. I am still following Mike’s wanderings throughout the British Isles.
Glen Nevis is one of my favourite places in Lochaber; I love everything about it, even the fact it is very ’touristy’. Although it’s busy, I like to stay in a tent at the Glen Nevis Campsite when I visit Fort William.
Much later than expected, I prepare my last dinner in the dark and notice the dancing torchlights of people descending and ascending the path to Ben Nevis. During the night, a helicopter flies through the glen.
The glen was often photographed by W S Thomson in the 1930s when he frequently visited for weekend hikes in the area - even more so when he lived in Fort William from 1945 until 1961.
In June 2022, I revisited the Upper Nevis Car Park for a remake of Thomson’s black-and-white 1945/1946 photograph entitled Where the Road Ends, Upper Glen Nevis, the Meall Cumhann in the background.
*Travel in Time - Lochaber Series was supported by the West Highland Museum and the Year of Stories 2022 Community Fund. Estelle has published a 64-page book with 30 side-by-side then-and-now photos, which you can find in local shops or buy online - www.travelintime.uk.
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