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Imagine climbing a high, craggy and cold mountain alone........fighing against snow-blindness, bone-aching cold, and tretcherous paths.......knowing that you are completely isolated.................then you hear heavy footsteps stalking your own.....
This subject gave me the willies when I first read about it many years ago, so imagine my surprise when I found a recent account of a sighting......
The Story ~
The first "official" report of a malevolent presence on the mountain was given in 1925 by Norman Collie, an experienced climber with all the credentials of a credible witness in the situation. As a professor of chemistry at the University of London, this was not a man for whom hysteria or fanciful imagination was usual.
Mr Collie claimed that whilst climbing Ben MacDhui unaccompanied in 1891, he had become aware of another presence following him, although he knew there were no other climbers around. He estimated from the sound that his pursuer was taking steps three or four times the length of his own.
Although unable to catch any real sight of it, a sinister impression of being stalked by a huge and menacing creature grew upon Norman, so he did what any sensible person would do in the circumstances and ran like buggery without stopping to look back, careering and tumbling down the slope until he reached safety at the mountain foot. He never went on the mountain alone again.
Since then there have been many further reports of climbers experiencing the presence of a shadowy figure that filled them with terror and pursued them as they fled. Some have reported being drawn as if hypnotically to the edge of dangerous ledges and precipices while others are believed to have been chased to their deaths, in their desperation to escape, over the edge of the cliff known as Lurchers’ Crag.
Actual sightings of the Big Grey Man have been rare, but "eye-witness" descriptions of his appearance describe him as being around ten feet tall, covered in hair, with very long arms and legs.
Huge footprints in the snow, not made by any human or known animal have been found and photographed. In 1965, prints were discovered measuring 14 inches and with a massive stride that covered around 5 feet, just as Norman Collie had estimated prior to his panic-filled descent down the mountainside in 1891.
Lastest Report ~
"Overnight, it was chilly in the hut. We played cards with the lads from Stoke already ensconsed there and crawled into our pits fully clothed to shiver through the night. Finally the day dawned when the weather had closed in completely, and the tins of stew were running low. We decided to take a day off and legged it off to Aviemore for beer, chips and more tins. It was admittedly quite late when we started back up the hill, and getting rather dark by the time we should have been back at the hut. The spindrift was still howling round our heads and our heavily laden rucksacks were buffeted by the gale. At one point the clouds cleared for an instance and we discovered ourselves just about to fall down into the Lairig Ghru – we’d climbed too far up. Turning east again we crested a rise then fell down the slope on the other side landing in a heap not too far from the door of the bothy. We burst in, shared our booty with the lads, played cards and turned in for the night.
Overnight, the weather turned worse, and I woke with a streaming nose and a shivery cold. I wanted to stay in my warm sleeping bag with a brew so John took himself off up the hill into the howling murk. By about 6 o’clock, it’s just starting to get dark and there’s a rattle of gear, a stamping of feet outside and John appears in the doorway. His red beard’s covered in ice, his eyes are wild and his face a rather pale colour. He tells us where he’s been during the day. He’d started up Cairngorm, dropped down to Loch Avon, up into Coire Etchachan and up Ben Macdui, then had a tough time fighting back into the wind back to the bothy. “But the odd thing”, he said, “were the footsteps. Every time I walked on, I could hear someone behind me. When I stopped, they stopped. I kept looking round but no one was there. It was pretty wild so I couldn’t see very far, but I could hear the footsteps. They would go on for a couple of paces after I stopped, then they stopped as well”.
He was quite shaken up. We sat thoughtful for a while, then Ian piped up. ”Must have been the Old Grey Man”, he whispered, “You’re having us on, aren’t you?”
John hadn’t heard of Fearlas Mor, and didn’t believe the stories either, when we told him, of how walkers on their own on the top of Ben Macdui would hear what he’d described to us. We didn’t tell him that people who met the Old Grey Man died shortly afterwards; he wouldn’t have believed that either, and I’m not sure we would have done either. Nevertheless, within four months John had fallen off a mountain, and died.
I met Ian in Chamonix the following year and told him about the accident. He shivered. “The Old Grey Man”, he muttered, “Nothing else”.
I laughed uneasily and we went our separate ways. I have yet to climb Ben Macdui by myself in winter. You never know what you’ll find up those mountains."
Hammy x x x
