Posts Categorized: Science

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Three weeks ago I travelled to Lochaber to walk to the summit of Aonach Mòr. The purpose of the trip was to locate an area on the mountain which contains a long-lasting snowpatch from last winter. I’ve visited similar areas in the Cairngorm mountains many times (see several previous blog postings and my website page… Read more »

I’ve written a lot in my blog postings about snowfields that persist in mountainous regions at high altitudes into the summer months (and beyond), but there is a related phenomenon that I have only recently become aware of, and that is of winter ice persisting into the summer months in rock fissures (or fractures) and… Read more »

During my recent 2-day trip to Ben Macdui I took the opportunity to have a look and see what snowpatches are still surviving in the vicinity of the summit of Ben Macdui. This follows on from my trip to the Cairn Gorm – Ben Macdui plateau in early July (see the blog posting ‘Summer snowfields… Read more »

For the past few years I’ve made summer trips to the Cairn Gorm – Ben Macdui plateau in the summer months to check on the snowpatches that remain at high altitudes on the plateau (see the previous blog postings ‘Summer snowfields in the Cairngorms (2)‘, from August 2009 and ‘Summer snowfields in the Cairngorms‘ from… Read more »