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July 6 Dodging the Showers - Early
Morning in the Eastern Cairngorms
Incessant rain has been falling for over a month now, with low cloud
shrouding the Scottish hills. Finding space and sunshine between the
downpours has meant keeping a close eye on the forecast and seizing any
opportunities, however brief. I've had two successful overnight trips,
grabbed when the Mountain
Weather Information Service, the best forecast for the
British hills in my experience, predicted good weather early in the
morning. The first trip was to Ben More Assynt in the North-West
Highlands, the second to Ben Avon and Beinn a'Bhuird in the Eastern
Cairngorms. In both cases the forecast was correct and there was a
weather window of 4-6 hours when the sky was clear. On the last trip I
was up at 4 a.m., as the first rays of the sun turned the granite
cliffs gold, and soon striding across the Ben Avon plateau in early sun
and a cold east wind. Everything shone and glittered, a magical
brightness after all the grey rainswept dullness. By the time I was
descending from Beinn a'Bhuird at 10 a.m. the clouds were returning, by
the time I reached the car the first spots of rain were falling. I'd
left home the previous afternoon. I was back in time to watch Dr Who,
satisfied with snatching some sun from the wetness.
The photo shows granite boulders on Beinn a'Bhuird. Taken at 8 a.m. as
the first clouds began to appear. Photo info: Canon EOS 350D, Tamron
11-18mm lens @ 12mm, ISO 100, f8 @ 1/250. Raw file converted and
processed in DxO Optics Pro and Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.
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July 1 Congratulations to Alan Sloman - Thoughts on Land's
End to John O'Groats
On June 27 Alan Sloman finished a 119 day walk from Land's End to John
O'Groats, a south to north walk that included, most unusually, the TGO
Challenge, a west to east walk. Alan's walk was in memory of his father
and to raise funds for Sue Ryder care. There's still time to donate to
this worthy cause here.
Walk back in 1978 I spent 10 weeks walking from Land's End to John
O'Groats, my first long distance walk, and I have been musing on the
changes over the last three decades. The big one isn't to do with
equipment or even the route but communciation. Alan kept a blog during
his walk, updating it several times a week. This online journal was
referenced on other blogs and there was clearly much interest in his
walk. There were no blogs in 1978. Indeed, there was no Internet. Nor
PDAs, mobile phones or digital cameras. My place of work at the time,
the YHA Adventure Centre outdoor shop in Manchester, put a map on the
wall with my proposed route marked on it. Every so often I sent them a
postcard. On receiving it they moved a pin along the route. Some
customers did come in to see where I'd got to occasionally. A year
after the walk I had a magazine article published in a long gone
magazine called Camping World. Until then only a few friends knew
anything about it. The Backpackers
Club was in existence then but there was no other means of
contacting like-minded people, no online forums, no websites, not even
any walking magazines. I hardly met anyone with any comprehension of a
long walk let alone interest in it.
Yet whilst the communciations we have now were inconceivable in 1978,
and there is a growing community of backpackers and long distance
walkers, actually backpacking from Land's End to John O'Groats hasn't
changed at all. In his entry on his last day Alan writes "Yes, it has
been a long way. I have had fabulous weather on the whole. The scenery
I have passed through has been top-drawer and some of the people I have
met unforgettable." My weather wasn't quite that good but the landscape
was wonderful (and it's good to know it still is) and I met some
memorable people. Alan also comments on the great support he received
from TGO Challengers and others along the way. One of my memories is
how helpful many complete strangers were during my walk. One enquiry in
a village pub as to where I could camp led to me pitching my tent in
the pub garden (Alan would have liked that). It is a long way too. I
walked 1250 miles, Alan over 1600. En route you see the amazingly
varied scenery of this small island. Land's End to John O'Groats takes
you right through Britain from the wild coasts of Cornwall to the
Scottish Highlands. This is a Britain far from the intensity and stress
of urban life, crowded motorways, political intrigues,
sordid crimes and the other wonders of civilisation. It's
good to know it's still there.
The photo of Suilven with deer skull has a tenuous connection as Alan
and I both saw Suilven on our walks. Photo info: Ricoh GR-D,
ISO 64, f7 @ 1/400. Raw file converted to JPEG and
resized in Photoshop Elements 5.
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June 14 In Praise of Colin Fletcher
1922-2007
Back in 1978 I read a book that changed my
life. Colin Fletcher's The Thousand-Mile Summer, about a walk
the length of California, captured perfectly the feelings and
experiences of wild camping and wilderness walking. I'd never walked
outside Britain at that time but this book made me want to explore the
deserts and mountains of the Western USA. And four years later I did,
on the Pacific Crest Trail. Later I read Colin Fletcher's other books,
relishing his facility with words and his ability to describe both the
landscape and his thoughts and feelings. The Man Who Walked Through
Time, the story of his hike the length of the Grand Canyon, I found
particularly intense and moving and it resulted in my hiking in the
Grand Canyon myself (the picture was taken on my second trip
there). No one else has captured the experience of backpacking, right
down to the minutiae of camp chores, better than Colin Fletcher. On
June 12, aged 85, he died. It may be a cliche but the world does feel
emptier. By coincidence only days before his death I had been thinking
about him and rereading some of his works for an appreciation I was
writing for TGO
magazine. This will appear in the August issue. Now I will pull my
battered copy of The Thousand-Mile Summer from the book shelves and
read it again, in memory of Colin Fletcher.
Photo info: Ricoh RDC-5000, automatic exposure (f7 @ 1/362), 337.5kb
JPEG processed in Photoshop Elements 5. Taken in 2000 on my first
digital camera, a 2.3mb model.
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June 4 Walking the Yukon
Podcast
Just out is a podcast on my book Walking the Yukon, which tells the
story of my 1,000 mile walk through the Yukon Territory. The
podcast is the latest in The
Outdoor Book Club series, which is part of The
Outdoors Station. At present it doesn't actually appear on
the Book Club site but if you have iTunes set to download Book Club
episodes it should appear. Those without iTunes will have to wait -
I'll put up a link to the actual podcast as soon as it appears.
UPDATE: June 21. The podcast is now available on The
Outdoors Station as Book Club No 9.
The podcast with Andy Howel (who has an interesting blog
of his own) covers, the nature of the terrain, solitude (at one point I
saw no one else for 10 days), grizzly bears, gear and more. I really
enjoyed talking about a walk that was probably the remotest and most
challenging I've undertaken as it brought back many memories.
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May 28 TGO Challenge 2007
Four days ago I finished the 28th TGO
Challenge coast to coast crossing of the
Scottish Highlands. This was my 11th Challenge, spread over 27 years as
I was on the very first one back in 1980. This year I spent 13 days
walking some 340 kilometres (210 miles) from Strathcarron to St. Cyrus
over 27 summits, 13 of them Munros, 2 of them Corbetts and the rest
"just" hills. As usual the weather provided everything from hot sun
to blizzards with hail, heavy rain and strong winds thrown in.
I wore a waterproof jacket every day bar one but only wore it all day
on two days. The high level route meant regular buffeting by the wind
but also fine views and some glorious wild camps - the highest of which
is pictured, at 800 metres on the col between Sgurr na Lapaich and Carn
nan Gobhar on the hills between Glen Cannich and
Glenstrathfarrar. The day following this camp I crossed Carn nan Gobhar
in a hailstorm, descended to Loch Mullardoch in sunshine then crossed
Toll Creagach on the next ridge to the south in heavy, wet, wind-driven
snow that reduced visibility to a few yards and had me wearing all my
clothes and moving fast to keep my feet, in thin wool socks and trail
shoes, from freezing. The next day I had my shirt sleeves rolled up as
I crossed from Glen Affric to Glen Moriston in blazing sunshine. Then
two days later I was floundering through the peat bogs of the Monadh
Liath in heavy rain and storm force winds. On a Challenge crossing you
have to be prepared for and to accept every type of weather. But that's
one of the aspects of the event that makes it so enjoyable and makes
every crossing different.
En route I only met two other Challengers, and none until near the end
of the ninth day. It's easy to forget there are 250 or so others out
there. However St Cyrus produced a cluster of packs at the top of the
cliffs and a huddle of walkers out on the sands by the sea's edge and
then more pouring out of the pub for the bus to Montrose, where
Challenge Control sits and waits in the Park Hotel and Challengers
gather to swap tales of their adventures over a dram or two. This
sudden sociability, including camping with dozens of others on the
Montrose camp site in the glare of lights from a chemical works, makes
for a great ending to a long walk. It's always good to share one's
madness with others.
Photo Info: Canon EOS 350D, Canon 18-55mm lens @ 18mm, 100 ISO, 1/100
sec, F8. Raw file processed in DxO Optics Pro and resized in Photoshop
Elements 5.
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May 6 A Glorious Day in the Northern Cairngorms
Mayday dawned sharp and clear with a touch of frost in the air. I was
meeting Andy Davison of outdoor company FurTech in
Aviemore to look at his new jackets. We had intended to try them too
but shorts and T-shirts were more appropiate for this weather, though
Andy did wear one at the end of the day when a cool wind blew up and
the heat of the declining sun lessened. The photograph shows Andy on
Stob Coire an t-Sneachda in the late afternoon. Setting out from Coire
Cas we crossed the foot of the Northern Corries and climbed up the west
shoulder of Cairn Lochan from where we could see much avalanche debris
and some massive snow walls on the Great Slab in Coire an Lochan. The
Cairngorm plateau was shimmering in the heat as we crossed the dry,
crunching stony ground to Ben MacDui. Only below the remaining snow
patches was the ground damp. Sitting overlooking the deep cleft of the
Lairig Ghru we watched as a golden eagle soared over broken crags,
twisting and turning effortlessly in the thermals. Occasionally it
dropped down and perched on a rock, the lord of the mountains studying
its domain. Across the Lairig Ghru the great scoop of An Garbh Choire
cut deep into the hills below Braeriach, Sgor an Lochain Uaine and
Cairn Toul. Hills rolled into the west where the distinctive wedge of
Ben Nevis rose above the horizon. The heat was almost soporific. The
air began to cool as we walked back over Cairn Lochain, Stob Coire an
t-Sneachda and Cairn Gorm. The late sun turned the rocks gold and red
as the sky began to darken and we descended at the end of a perfect day.
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April 30 A Tale of
Four Happenings
The last ten days has seen me dashing around Scotland and even
venturing south of the border into England to attend four events, all
to do with the outdoors and yet all very different. Only one
involved any walking - ironically that was the only one where the
weather was wet and windy. All the others took place in perfect sunny
conditions.
1. April 21-22 Heighting new Munros..... or not
Earlier in the month I gave an illustrated talk on my continuous round
of the Munros and Tops at the AGM of The Munro Society
after which I was invited to attend "heighting" meets at which
professional surveyors from CMCR
Surveyors guided by society members would measure the heights
of Beinn Dearg in Torridon and Foinaven in the far north to ascertain
whether these hills reach the magic 914.4 metres (3,000 feet) that
would qualify them for Munro status (and not change their status as
magnificent hills one jot of course). Both at present are listed as 914
metres (2 998.687 feet!), the Ordnance Survey not measuring to less
than a metre. The surveyors say their state of the art of the equipment
can measure accurately to +/- 30mm and so should be able to confirm
whether the hills have the necessary extra 40 cms.
Having already failed to reach the summit of Beinn Dearg due to bad
weather the previous autumn with a team from the BBC programme
Landward, also intent on finding out if its a Munro or not, I thought
it would be interesting to try again and drove over to Torridon, where
we stayed in a climbing club hut, on a fine Friday. The forecast was
dire however, predicting a severe blip in what has otherwise been a
dry, sunny month. Saturday duly dawned with a strong wind, a cloud base
of a few hundred metres and heavy showers. A coastal walk to Craig,
once a youth hostel, now a bothy made the best of a stormy day. The
forecast was marginally better for the Sunday and we determined to try
anyway, sharing the heavy equipment between us. I was rather alarmed to
discover the GPS unit I was carrying was worth £15,000!
Unfortunately the weather worsened and heavy showers, strong winds and
dense mist forced a reluctant retreat at around 600 metres, a 100
metres higher than I'd reached on the previous attempt. The surveyors
needed two hours to take their readings, whilst not being blown away or
frozen, and this just seemed impossible in the strong gusty winds. The
attempt was enjoyable though and I hope to take part in the next one
and maybe reach the summit this time. The image shows surveyors and
Munro Society members ascending rough terrain in the mist and rain on
Beinn Dearg.
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2. April 24 Victoriana on the
Beauly-Denny Line
Two days after returning from swirling clouds on Beinn Dearg I headed
south to the city of Perth and a much more serious undertaking,
the Beauly-Denny
Public Inquiry into whether the Highlands should be
desecrated by a line of monster pylons ( which would inevitably
followed by many wind farms and other power lines). As the
representative of the
Mountaineering Council of Scotland on the Beauly-Denny
Landscape Group, (other members of which are the John Muir Trust, Ramblers'
Association Scotland,
the
National Trust for Scotland, Scottish Wild Land Group
and the
Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland), I was
attending the first day on which the B-D Landscape Group's
expert witnesses were giving evidence. This part of the inquiry (there
will be local sessions at locations along the proposed line) takes
place in a large room in an old hotel in Perth. The hotel looks
Victorian and so does the inquiry. There is an amazing amount of paper
and an amazing lack of modern electronic communications - just a few
laptops outnumbered by all the pens and notebooks (including mine I
must admit). Around the walls are arranged tiers of large box files,
hauled out for whichever document is being referenced, with copies for
the applicant's lawyers, the three reporters, the objectors' lawyers
and the witnesses, one of whom looked in danger of disappearing behind
a growing pile of files and papers. The inquiry proceeds slowly, very
slowly, excrutiatingly slowly. At times it seemed suspended in time. I
couldn't help thinking of Dickens' never-ending Jarndyce v Jarndyce in
Bleak House
- a tedious, ultimately meaningless, soul-destroying lawyers'
game. Our witnesses answered their questions well, even under
unpleasant cross examination that would have made you think they were
guilty of some crime rather than volunteers giving freely of their time
and expertise for a cause in which they believe. There was little sign
from the impassive unemotional faces of the reporters that their
statements had made any impression. Do these people understand concepts
like wild land or nature I wondered. I doubted it when one of our
witnesses was asked why the Beauly-Denny Landscape Group hadn't
employed a landscape architect to assess the value of the landscape
along the proposed route of the pylons (the implication being that
without such a "professional" assessment we couldn't say the landscape
had any value). The questions seemed biased towards the applicants and
the following day the evidence of one of our witnesses, which
undermined the economic case for the line, was rejected as contrary to
the inquiry's procedures. I was not surprised when one of our experts,
Roger Crofts, former head of Scottish Natural Heritage, appeared in
the Sunday
Herald saying the inquiry was a charade and "weighted against
community groups who opposed the pylons but lacked the resources to
make an effective case". Scottish and Southern Energy, who wish to
build the line, are employing expensive QCs of course.
Frustrating and boring though it is this inquiry is of crucial
importance for the future of wild land in the Highlands. It's due to
drag on until December, if anyone has any energy to make it that far.
The B-D Landscape Group intends to fight for the landscape all the way
but is in desperate need of funds. Donations can be made through any of
the member groups listed above. Click here
for how to do so through the Mountaineering Council of
Scotland.
A picture of the inquiry would be uninspiring and I'd probably have
been thrown out for taking one. The image shows the Backpackers' Club
tents at Bellingham (see below).
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3. April 26
Stoves and clothes for the Adventure
Show
Two days after the Beauly-Denny disturbance I was heading west to Loch
Laggan and Creag Meagaidh to do some filming for BBC Scotland's The
Adventure Show, for which I've done a number of short pieces on gear
and wild camping. This time we were covering stoves, camp food and base
layers. Lighting and cooking food on six stoves at once was an
interesting exercise! The weather was beautiful so the scenery should
look wonderful if you get tired of me wittering on about bits of
titanium and aluminium or limp pieces of wicking cloth. When the pieces
will be broadcast I don't yet know.
I took no pictures on this trip. I was too busy being filmed! The image
on the left shows backpackers checking out lightweight gear in
Bellingham Town Hall (see below).
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4. April 28
Backpackers in Bellingham
A week after blundering around Beinn Dearg in the wind and rain I was
camping in hot sunshine in a farmer's field in Bellingham in
Northumberland with 120 others at the Backpackers Club
AGM, which this year featured a lightweight gear festival organised in
conjunction with TGO
magazine. Specialist backpacking gear companies such as Backpacking Light,
Winwood
Outdoor, Inov8
and Alpkit
brought along much interesting gear and many backpackers returned home
weighed down with shiny new ultralight gear. The event was inspiring
and exhilarating. There's nothing like spending a weekend with others
who share the same passions, talking about trails, wild camps, places
to go, backpacking techniques and gear hour after hour.
The event was organised by Northumbria
Backpackers, who did a great job of mixing good organisation
with a loose relaxed feel. One of the leading members of this group
runs the excellent Classic
Camp Stoves website and brought along an interesting
collection of old stoves, many of which I'd never heard of before, let
alone seen. The image shows his display - only a part of his
collection, he pointed out.
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April 17 2007
New Book!
This month sees my latest book published, a guide to 24 walks in the
stupendous landscape of the North-West Highlands, arguably the most
spectacular and beautiful in Britain. The book covers the huge variety
of scenery found in the area including waterfalls (Falls of
Glomach, Eas a'Chual Aluinn), coasts (Sandwood Bay, South Duirinish),
lochs (Loch Affric, Loch Coruisk) and summits (Beinn Bhan, Suilven, Ben
Loyal). There are no Munros though, these being well covered in other
books. All the walks can be done in a day though some make good
overnight trips. The book is illustrated with 39 of my colour
photographs and there is 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey mapping for each walk.
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April 5 2007
Easter Greetings - I hope the weather lasts
The last two weeks have seen beautiful spring weather in the Highlands
with sharp, clear, sunny days and frosty nights. I've been out in the
Fannich and the Beinn Dearg (Easter Ross) hills, wild
camping, taking photographs and ascending peaks. The image shows a camp
by Loch Li in the Fannichs early one morning with the warmth of the sun
just beginning to be felt and a skim of ice on the loch. The overnight
temperature had been -3C. Now the sunny weather is beginning to fade
with cloud and a cool breeze. I hope it lasts for all those out on the
hills over the Easter weekend.
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30 March 2007 Lightweight Packs
& Gear
This week has seen a flurry of interesting comments on lightweight
gear, especially packs, on various outdoor blogs - Roman,
John
Hee, London
Backpacker - (thanks to Weird Darren's Outdoors
Magic Blog Roundup for pointing these out). Having used and
abused many packs over the decades I think that some lightweight packs
are tougher and more durable than most standard and heavyweight packs
due to the simplicity of the design. They can be just as comfortable
too. On long walks I've had top quality heavyweight packs fail from
five leading companies. Hipbelts have ripped off, shoulder straps
snapped, frames broken. In two cases field repairs were impossible and
I had to buy new packs. In one case I sat in a bog in the rain and
stitched the hipbelt back on, in another duct tape held a frame
together for the last weeks of the walk. Being heavy and complex does
not make a pack tough. I reckon a simple Dyneema pack like the GoLite
Gust or Pinnacle would long outlast any of these packs. Dyneema is the
toughest pack fabric I have used. Packs made of silicone and ripstop
nylon arem't as tough but for walking rather than scrambling or
climbing they are fine.
Presuming a pack is the right back length the key to comfort with loads
over more than a few kilos lies in a well padded hipbelt and a back
stiff enough to transfer weight to the pack. The very lightest packs
are designed for very light loads but there are packs weighing less
than 2 kilos that will comfortably carry 25kg loads and ones weighing
1kg that will handle 18-20kg well. Pictured is an example of the latter
- the Granite Gear Vapor Trail.
As to whether lightweight gear is "safe" or not - light loads are safer
than heavy ones in terms of mobility and stresses on your body.
Lightweight packs and cooking gear are just as safe as heavier ones and
can be used by novices. Shelters are another matter. Ultralight tents
and tarps do require some skill and knowledge. But lightweight models
like the Hilleberg Akto can be used by anyone, regardless of experience.
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26 March 2007
Book Review: Letters From Yellowstone by Diane Smith (Penguin, ISBN
0-14-029181-4)
Browsing through the books in the gift shop in the Snow Lodge at Old
Faithful in Yellowstone National Park back in February I came across
this little book. With several long evenings to come alone in an igloo
in Rocky Mountain National Park I thought the book might provide a
little entertainment so I bought it. This was a good decision as this
novel is well-written and with a strong plot and characters that hold
the interest even when tired after a long day out skiing in the
mountains. The story is set in Yellowstone in 1898 and
touches on many topics of interest to those who love the outdoors -
such as nature, national parks, conservation, environmental history and
tourism. The book takes the form of a series of letters written by
several of the characters, a unusual style but one that works
well. The central character is student and botany lover A.E. Bartram
who joins a scientific expedition to study the botany of Yellowstone.
The interactions of the different characters - scientists, guides,
Native Americans, tourists - make for an interesting tale amongst the
glorious Yellowstone wilderness. I've not been impressed by
many "outdoor" novels. This gentle, subtle yet thought-provoking book
is an exception.
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15 March 2007
In Praise of Ski Pulks
Sorting through my images of the Yellowstone ski trip for a talk to
Inverness Nordic Ski Club I was reminded of the excellent pulks Ed
provided for the trip, the best I've ever used. And I have some
experience of pulks, having hauled various models from adapted kid's
sleds (which just lasted two weeks) to expensive and heavy Norwegian
expedition ones in places such as Greenland, Spitsbergen, Lapland, the
High Sierra and the Yukon Territory. Some have been uncomfortable, some
very uncomfortable. In Yellowstone we used pulks from Ed's Wilderness Systems (a
different Ed). These are lightweight (9lbs for pulk plus poles) and
comfortable. They still slip downhill at times when traversing and it
can still be hard to extricate yourself from the amazing tangles you
can get into but most of the time the pulk just follows obediently. The
key seems to be the poles. which are incrdibly flexible yet very
strong. Mine went into contortions way beyond those any other pulk
poles I've used would have managed without snapping. So if you're
looking for a pulk I recommend these ones. That's Ed Huesers in the
picture, hauling a Ski Pulk uphill in Yellowstone.
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February 2007 - skiing with Igloo Ed in Yellowstone National Park
My first adventure of 2007 was a wonderful ski tour with Ed Huesers of
Grand
Shelters in the Little Firehole region of Yellowstone
National Park. Ed makes an igloo building tool called the Ice Box and
during our trip we built and lived in two igloos. These proved roomy
and far warmer than a tent. The image was taken on the night
of the full moon and shows our igloo in the Little Firehole Meadows.
That night the temperature dipped to -35C in parts of Yellowstone. I
didn't get an outside reading but it was certainly extremely cold
(inside the igloo it was +3C, an amazing difference). We could hear
trees cracking as the moisture in them froze and a warm, fully charged
camera battery went dead after half an hour of use - interestingly the
battery in a Ricoh GR-D compact camera kept working despite the cold
and despite having been used for several days and not being kept warm.
The battery that died was in a Canon 350 DSLR.
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In six days in the Yellowstone backcountry we saw
no people or even any trails. We did see bison and elk and the tracks
of many animals and birds. Most interesting though were the backcountry
thermal areas we skied through with their clouds of steam, bubbling
mud, hot pools and luridly stained bare ground. The one in the picture
was a surprise as it's not marked on maps.
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Grantown-on-Spey, Strathspey and the Cairngorms. December 24, 2006
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SEASON'S GREETINGS
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Cairn Lochan, December 19, 2006
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Late December 2006 - The Return of Winter
After all the wind and rain it was a relief to wake to
calmness and a touch of colour in the sky as the clouds slowly faded.
The last few days of wetness had brought snow to the heights and the
Cairngorm mountains showed touches of snow on their slopes. On the 19th
I crossed the Cairngorm plateau from Cairn Gorm itself to Ben MacDui,
returning over Cairn Lochan and Stob Coire an t-Sneachda. Ragged shreds
of cloud driven by the cold west wind drifted over occasionally, torn
from the dark mass that hid the hills to the west. Much of the time the
sun shone though, giving colour and warmth. The hills shone, their
slopes dusted with snow and frost. On lee slopes the snow lay knee deep
in places, making walking difficult. Elsewhere it was thin and crisp
with an icy surface into which boots just cut. On the summit of Ben
MacDui the temperature was -3C but it felt much colder in the biting
wind as I sheltered behind the summit cairn and heated up a packet of
soup. Returning over the plateau in the dusk I watched pink strands
streak the sky and the granite of the cliffs turn golden brown in the
late sun. Crampons were then needed for the descent in the dark down
the Fiacaill a'Choire Chais ridge where it was impossible to tell
whether the ground ahead was soft snow or ice.
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River Spey, Grantown-on-Spey, in the December 2006 floods.
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Early December 2006 - Floods & Water, Water & Floods
The touch of winter disappeared in late November to be replaced by warm
winds and heavy rain, very heavy rain that caused the rivers to swell
with peaty brown water and burst their banks, leading to flooded fields
and woods. Everything was sodden - the ground, the sky, the air, the
vegetation, the rocks. To venture outside was to be damp. On a visit to
the North-West Highlands I made two sallies into the hills and failed
to reach the summit on both occasions. On little Stac Pollaidh - just
613 metres high - I was almost on the summit ridge when a great clap of
thunder burst overhead. Black clouds swirled in and the rain became
torrential hail, scouring my face in the powerful wind. Not
wanting to be caught in a thunderstorm on the hill's narrow rocky ridge
I turned back and half-ran, half-slipped back down as a flash of
lightning illuminated the darkening hills and more thunder roared. Two
days later in similar weather, though without the thunder, I forebore
the pleasures of navigating on Ben Mor Coigach in thick cloud and a
stormforce wind and instead descended to the coast and slithered,
staggered and slipped in and out of deep holes and bogs on a
waterlogged path that undulated high above the grim steel grey sea, its
colour matching the thick dense watery air.
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Cairn Lochan, November 2, 2006
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November 2006
Winter finally arrived in the Scottish hills in early November after a
warm October. On the 2nd I went up on to the Cairngorm Plateau to find
a frost-clad, mist-shrouded mysterious frozen world. Rime ice and frost
feathers coated every rock and blade of grass. Windblown snow
lay on the bare ground. Visibility was 20 metres. The temperature was
-2C. Despite the sub zero temperatures the mist was damp and I was
quickly coated in a fine patina of moisture. On the edge of
the great northern corries that bite into the plateau a cold wind
roared up from invisible depths. Gullies led down between pale
insubstantial rocks into a grey nothing. A few snow buntings skittered
across the ground, their black and white plumage matching the
colourless landscape. White-winged ptarmigan with speckled breasts, now
in their winter plumage, swerved curved winged over the rocks. All else
was still and silent. Just the occasional rush of the wind and the
crunch of my boots in the snow. Cold and remote, viewless and
colourless, it was a glorious place to be.
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September 2006
I'm giving illustrated talks on the GR20 long distance path in Corsica
at Tiso's
Outdoor Experience shops in Edinburgh and Glasgow on October
10 & 11. I walked this exciting trail last year and took many
digital images. The one on the left shows the Cirque de la Solitude,
into which the trail descends via a hard and exposed scramble before
climbing back out by an equally hard and exposed scramble. The
Edinburgh talk is sold out but there's still tickets available for the
Glasgow one, which starts at 7.30.
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Wild camp, Rum
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August 2006
Welcome to a new look website and, hopefully, more regular updates, now
called a blog, after the current fashion. Here I'll discuss trips,
gear, photography, environmental campaigns and anything else that takes
my fancy.
Since my last update I've continued working on the Scottish Mountain
Guide, a writing and photography project that is now the biggest I have
ever undertaken. I'm enjoying the work and learning an amazing amount
about the Scottish hills. The resulting book will I hope inspire and
inform others interested in this beautiful country. As well as
the desk work I am still doing field research (a great name for some
hill walks and wild camps), most recently on the splendid rocky hills
of the island of Rum in the Hebrides, where the weather was
very wet and very windy . I recorded a gust of 57.7mph on a
465 metre pass and 30mph at sea level, strong enough to make walking
and camping "interesting".. With steep slippery ground and poor
visibility as well this made for an exciting few days. I had three
camps the most dramatic of which is pictured left, perched on the steep
slopes of Ainshval looking across Glen Dibidil to Askival.
New this summer have been some podcasts, an exciting and entertaining
new development, which I've made for "Podcast Bob" at Backpacking Light
UK and for the new TGO Show on Bob's Outdoor
Channel. Bob's
Outdoor Channel. The latest podcast on Backpacking Light
contains my thoughts about long distance wilderness walking. My first
two TGO Show podcasts are on soft shells and the new gear on show at
the Outdoor show in Friedrichshafen, Germany in July. Have a listen and
see what you think. I can tell you it's very different getting your
thoughts together in an interview from writing them down!
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White Canyon Wilderness, Arizon
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April 2006
The last six months have been
busy, hence the lack of updates for many months. I am still working on
a Scottish Mountain Guide for Cicerone Press, which is proving a much
bigger project than expected. Last October I led a trek to Everest Base
Camp for KE Adventure, which was enjoyable despite rather too much
illness, both to group members and myself. It's not a wilderness walk
but the scenery is spectacular and the historical and cultural interest
great.
Back home in the Cairngorms the early winter was wet, windy, mild and
anything but snowy. However late February the snow started to fall and
then fell and fell and fell to give the most cover for many years. Ski
touring on the plateau has been marvellous and I've had a few snow
plods on foot too, of which the most memorable was accompanying Steve
Perry up Ben Hope, the last summit of his continuous round of the
Munros, a great achievement. Now in late April spring is finally
beginning and I have backpacking trips planned and gear to test
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