Environmental Awareness course

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Science, July 26 2011.

Last weekend I attended an Environmental Awareness course at Glenmore Lodge, as part of my preparation for the ML award. Our group was lucky enough to get Keith Miller as an instructor for the weekend, who is a real expert on the environment of the Scottish mountains (he wrote the Invertebrate Life chapter in the… Read more »

Big Black Mountains Challenge

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Travel, June 6 2011.

Three weeks ago I travelled to South Wales to take part in the Big Black Mountains Challenge. This is an annual long-distance mountain walk organised by the Longtown Mountain Rescue Team. I had never been to South Wales before, so walking in this part of the Brecon Beacons National Park was a new experience for… Read more »

Skye (2)

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Travel, May 11 2011.

Last week Lesley and I travelled to Skye to spend a week in a holiday cottage in Fiskavaig. The weather for the first 5 days of the trip was absolutely perfect, allowing us to have a couple of barbecues in the evening with the added bonus of there being no midgies this early in the… Read more »

The Allt a’ Mharcaidh catchment, Sgòr Gaoith and the highest tree in the British Isles (possibly)

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Science, April 26 2011.

A month ago I travelled to the Cairngorms for a high-level walk around the Allt a’ Mharcaidh catchment. The Allt a’ Mharcaidh is a relatively small river in the north-western Cairngorm mountains and is a tributary of the Spey, joining it at Kincraig via the river Feshie. The catchment (or drainage basin, or watershed) of… Read more »

Cool Britannia

Posted by & filed under Books, Mountains & hills, Science, February 24 2011.

Iain Cameron (with whom I visited a long-lasting snowpatch on Aonach Mòr last October, see the blog posting ‘Autumn snowfields in Lochaber‘) and Adam Watson have just written a book together, called ‘Cool Britannia‘. This book is a welcome guide for anyone interested in the little-known area (although now coming to more public prominence after… Read more »

The Scottish mountains: on the glacial ‘knife-edge’

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Science, February 16 2011.

Something I’ve always been interested in are the environmental conditions that are required for glaciers to form. Glaciers are often associated with high mountains and polar areas, and the major environmental factors that influence their existence are long-term climate trends (e.g. precipitation, average air temperatures and prevailing wind direction), latitude and altitude, and local topography… Read more »