Kinder Scout

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Personal, September 18 2007.

I spent last weekend in Witney in Oxfordshire at Lesley’s sister’s wedding, and on the journey back to Scotland we stopped off to go for an excellent curry in Manchester’s famous ‘Curry Mile‘. We also went to the Peak District and went for a walk on Kinder Scout. This hill was the site of the… Read more »

“England, thy beauties are tame and domestic…”

Posted by & filed under Books, Mountains & hills, August 13 2007.

I recently watched the second episode of the BBC series ‘Mountain (with Griff Rhys Jones)‘ and found it pretty disappointing. It seemed to spend more time talking about Coleridge, Wordsworth and Kendal mint cake than about mountains. I also checked out the book that accompanies the series and my disappointment increased further. Of the 250… Read more »

Yet more about climate change and the media (yawn)

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Science, July 17 2007.

It is often assumed in many media reports that: All the mountain glaciers on earth are melting and receding rapidly They will all vanish in a few years This is an unprecedented change in the Earth’s (and hence mankind’s) environment This is entirely due to the effects of modern industrial civilisation, particularly increased air and… Read more »

Canadian Rockies #4; Hikes

Posted by & filed under Books, Mountains & hills, Travel, June 19 2007.

Although my recent trip to the Canadian Rockies wasn’t primarily a hiking trip, I still had plans to do some walking in Jasper National Park and possibly get up to some summits. Here’s a list of the hikes I did on the trip whilst staying at Patricia Lake Bungalows near the town of Jasper.

Canadian Rockies #2; Yoho & Kootenay National Parks, Golden, Canmore & Calgary

Posted by & filed under Military/Aircraft, Mountains & hills, Travel, June 16 2007.

Following on from yesterday’s posting… After our time in Jasper, Lesley and I drove (it was Lesley’s first time using an automatic gearbox and driving on the right; she took to it with no hesitation at all) to Golden in British Columbia via Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. Roads and trails were… Read more »

Canadian Rockies #1; Jasper National Park

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Travel, June 16 2007.

This morning I returned from a 2-week trip to the Canadian Rockies with Lesley. We flew from Glasgow to Calgary, Alberta with Zoom Airlines (whom I can recommend for the long 8-hour transatlantic crossing to western Canada, despite them being a charter airline).

I’m not a Munro-bagger, honest

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Personal, May 12 2007.

Two recent BBC news articles about ‘Munro-bagging’ have only served (at least in my mind) to accentuate the utter craziness of this activity. Munros are mountains in Scotland higher than 3000ft, and attempting to climb them all has acquired the term ‘bagging’. The very concept of a Munro is one that makes no sense even… Read more »

Stob Coire an Laoigh

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Travel, April 30 2007.

Yesterday I drove to Spean Bridge in Lochaber and climbed the 1116m summit of Stob Coire an Laoigh, in the Grey Corries (photographs here). The route I took started from Corriechoille to the north and walked up the north ridge of Stob Coire an Laoigh via an old tramway path and a dam in the… Read more »