Comment – Page 3 – Heights of Madness

Ben Nevis Race – in!

I’m in! I’ve got a place in the Ben Nevis Race, the pinnacle of the Scottish hill racing season. I’m excited, yet nauseous.

I’ve entered the Ben Nevis race. That doesn’t mean I’ll get a place. That wasn’t meant to rhyme. I’ve just put an application in the post. Hopefully, the local yobs don’t torch the pillar box containing my neatly folded entry form and cheque tonight, which, in the part of Inverness I live in, is a possibility….

Mountain tracks

Labour is calling on the Scottish Government to improve the existing regulation of tracks on hills and mountains to prevent them spoiling the landscape. Following concerns raised by the John Muir Trust and the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, Labour has now lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament, with the party’s environment spokeswoman Sarah Boyack describing “engineered…

Charging for Ben Nevis

About 160,000 people climb Ben Nevis every year, a quarter of them of them charity walkers. Obviously, their charitable intentions are to be praised. But those 40,000 people – many of them arriving, leaving and scaling the Ben at the same time – left an almighty mess. The car park was strewn with litter and the toilets used…

Snowy Inverness

Inverness is still under a blanket of white, 22 days after the snow first starting falling on December 19. This is a date imprinted in my short-term memory because it was the last time I was able to run or do any exercise of any kind. On that fateful day, I was among a group…

Bushey Heath

I’m re-visiting many of the UK’s county tops for a guidebook, due to be published some time in 2011. This is one of the least memorable: Bushey Heath, a 153m ‘peak’ on the Hertfordshire/Middlesex boundary and the highest point in the latter county, which I visited during a recent few days in London. The ascent…

Highland Cafe

I was on BBC Highland’s Highland Cafe today. When I was first contacted by the programme, I was asked to speak about plans to fly a Model T Ford to the summit of Ben Nevis. Crazy idea, I told the producer. We mustn’t allow our mountains to be abused in this fashion. I’ve mellowed since. Lochaber man Iain Blyth wants…

Wainwrights

A boy aged five years and 22 days has completed the Wainwrights. All of them. All 214 of them. A five-year-old. An extraordinary achievement, which is inevitably attracting criticism. Still, at this rate, Sail Chapman of Beverley, will have climbed the Munros by seven, Everest by 10, the North Face of the Eiger by 11…

Sgurr nan Ceannaichean

Sgurr nan Ceannaichean is no longer a 3,000ft hill, the Munro Society revealed today, meaning there are now only 283 Munros to bag. Beinn Teallach and Ben Vane remain as Munros, with Sgurr a’Choire-bheithe staying as a Corbett following a new survey by society members John Barnard and Graham Jackson. I know many people will say ‘who cares?’ but…

Munro shake-up

The 284 Munros look certain to be no more tomorrow. There will be 283 or 285, but no more 284. The new number will be announced at a press conference called by the Munro Society, following a survey of four hills, three of them Munros, and one Corbett. I’ve only climbed one of the four…

Amazon

I’ve become obsessed by Amazon.co.uk. As I write, my book is 9,824th on the bestselling list. Not bad, but I’m not about to crack open the champagne. It’ll be 20,000-odd by tea time I’m sure. One reviewer was nice though. Here is what he said: I was hooked even before he arrives in Scotland where…