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…
North District Cross Country Championships
Forget the London Marathon or Great North Run, a muddy golf course on the southern fringe of Inverness was the place to be on Saturday. At 2pm sharp (amazingly), with the light already fading, 50 hardy souls – and a similar number of impish Scottish university students – were off, fighting for honours in the North…
Meall Gorm
Pigs. Or were they boars? I encountered this lot at Fannich Lodge after walking a loop of the two southernmost Fannich Munros, Meall Gorm and An Coileachan, today. I was eating the last of my food when I was startled by a grunt, which sounded like a rutting stag, although this was disconcertingly close. Moments later, I was surrounded…
Carn Mor Dearg
Thankfully, there is another way, a better way, to climb Ben Nevis. This is it. Instead of continuing to trundle up the soulless tourist track to the summit, on reaching the fork in the path above Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe, I turned north, leaving the hordes wearing wellies and carrying umbrellas to their ascent. The path…
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…
Carn Eige
Without doubt, one of the hardest days I’ve ever had. A 12-hour epic, starting and finishing in the dark: 80 miles of cycling, 17 miles of walking, three Munros. Stage one was a 40-mile ride between Inverness and Glen Affric, via Drumnadrochit. I left my cycle at Affric Lodge and followed the easy path into…
Creag nan Clag
I saw this big fellow as I made my way to Creag nan Clach, a Marilyn overlooking lochs Duntelchaig and Ruthven in the northern Monadhliath. I’m without a car at the moment, so unless I can cycle, walk or catch a bus or train to the bottom of a hill, I’m not going there. Frustrating at times, but also…
Carn Glas-choire
In the north of Scotland, summer – all two days of it – seems to have merged seamlessly into winter, with the first flakes of snow sprinkling the high tops of the Cairngorms. I went back to Carn Glas-choire, the 659-metre summit of Nairnshire on the northern edge of the Cairngorms National Park, three years…
Beinn Mheadhoin
I felt like Ed Wardle in the Alaskan wilderness. I was standing at the top of the Fiacaill ridge looking south across the Cairngorm plateau, Cairn Gorm on my left, Coire an t-Sneachda on my right, when I felt a presence behind me. Standing there was a reindeer, less than five yards away, looking dolefully at…
Braeriach
The greatest days have inauspicious starts. As we crossed the Slochd, mist was low and thick, obscuring any view of the Cairngorms to the south. A wasted trip, was my first thought, as I frantically began to think of alternatives to the mountains of the high Cairngorms. Yet, as we approached Aviemore, a queer thing…
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…
Heights of Madness 