At the Ciste Mhearad snowpatch on Cairn Gorm
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 SMC-published Hostile Habitats book), and who has also worked on long-lying snowpatch monitoring and research.
On the first day of the course we walked through Ryvoan Pass to Abernethy Forest, closely looking at plantlife, discussing forest and deer management policy, land ownership and the geomorphology of the surrounding terrain (including glacial meltwater channels).
On the second day of the course Keith took our group up Coire na Ciste in the northern corries to Ciste Mhearad to explain the special plant communities of late-lying snowbeds, a really interesting day! The snowpatch at Ciste Mhearad itself is pretty small now, the smallest I’ve ever seen it in July, I doubt it will last to the end of August.
Eddie
Two weeks after this course I went on another weekend course at Glenmore Lodge, an Introduction to Scrambling course, although I was only able to attend on the Saturday. We spent the day practicing setting up anchor and belay points on steep rocky ground in the Chalamain Gap, a very similar set of skills to those needed for the ML award, so this day was very useful for that. The day was also notable for the horrendous midgies, which were as bad as I have ever encountered in the Cairngorms, and necessitated me wearing my head net.
Jack Raven Bushcraft Website
Hello,
This blog-post is all about the awareness of our environment.We should save our environment and nature.Thank you much more for sharing this post.
Jack Raven Bushcraft Website