Last weekend I travelled to Huntly for a weekend cross-country skiing course at the Huntly Nordic and Outdoor Centre. Cross-country skiing is something I have always wanted to try and my interest was rekindled recently after reading Adam Watson’s accounts of cross-country skiing journeys in his recently-published autobiography (see my recent blog post ‘It’s a… Read more »
Posts By: Eddie
Clachnaben and two aircraft wreck sites
Last week I travelled to Aberdeenshire and walked to the 589m summit of Clachnaben from Glen Dye. Despite being a relatively small hill, Clachnaben is very distinctive in having an unusual and large granite tor on the summit. The weather conditions on this walk were quite unusual with not a trace of snow for many… Read more »
Avalanche and navigation awareness course
Yesterday I went on a short 1-day winter skills course at Glenmore Lodge. The course was an avalanche and navigation awareness course. There were a couple of classroom lectures about about planning winter routes in the mountains and about avalanches in general. The bulk of the day however was spent in a small group on… Read more »
The map is not the territory
1. The divide in the discipline of Geography Geography is a somewhat schizophrenic discipline. Is it a ‘social’ science or is it a ‘hard’ science? The two aspects of the discipline have been in conflict since the ‘quantitative revolution‘ of the 1950s and 1960s within Geography, and the ‘hard’ science of Geography is represented in… Read more »
A snow book, northern Scotland
Adam Watson has been continuously observing and collecting data about snow in the north-east of Scotland (and particularly in the Cairngorm mountains) since the 1930s, and this important book represents the culmination of that activity. It will have a strong claim in the future to being the standard reference work in the discipline of research… Read more »
It’s a fine day for the hill
Adam Watson can surely lay claim to being a true ‘Mountain Man’ of Scotland – perhaps the premier contemporary claimant to this auspicious title! Adam Watson’s recently published ‘It’s a fine day for the hill‘ (subtitled ‘And once in a blue sun and moon’, the meaning of which is explained in the book) is his… Read more »
Using GIS techniques to analyse and model the topographical environment and dependencies of long-lasting snowpatch locations in the Scottish mountains
One of my pet interests is the study of long-lasting (and sometimes ‘perennial’) snowpatches in the Scottish mountains. I have written many previous postings on my blog on this subject (see a list of these on my website here). The question of what factors affect the longevity of snowpatches in the Scottish mountains through the… Read more »
Wreck of a wartime Bristol Beaufort bomber in the Angus glens
Last week I went for a short walk in Glen Lethnot, one of the Angus glens north of Brechin, with my friend Katy. We walked from the farm at Auchowrie, up the west slope of Hill of Wirren, to look for two air wreck sites on the hill. However the weather was not as good… Read more »
Wreck of a postwar Viking passenger aircraft near Largs
Last week I went for a short walk on the moorlands to the east of Largs, in the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park. I was looking for the wreckage of a BEA Vickers Viking, one of the first commercial passenger aircraft in the UK, that crashed in the area in 1948 on approach to Renfrew Airport… Read more »
Braeriach and the largest air wreck site in Scotland
Last week I travelled to the Cairngorms and spent the day walking in the Braeriach area. I walked from Whitewell in the Rothiemurchus Forest, into the Lairig Ghru and up along Coire Beanaidh (where I spent a night camping on a Mountain Leader training course three years ago) to the 1296m summit of Braeriach. I… Read more »
I am a software engineer / database administrator / web developer living in Edinburgh, Scotland. In my spare time I like to travel and take photographs (especially of mountains). See my main website here: Eddie's Photo Archive