I was on Meall nan Tarmachan the other day enjoying the bonus of starting my climb at a healthy 500 metres above sea level. I mentioned this to a couple of guys I met close to the summit and one of them, with tongue firmly in cheek, suggested we were all ‘cheating.’ The comment reminded me of a minor brouhaha that broke out a few years ago when the Daily Mail ran a story about a member of the Munro Society, the club that exists for all those who have climbed Scotland’s Munros, suggested that the vast majority of the…

THIS summer I’m celebrating 40 years as an outdoor writer. I’m going to mark the occasion by taking a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon with my two sons, followed by a five week campervan and mountain walking trip with my long suffering wife to the hills of France and Spain. Then, all going well, it’ll be back on the training bike as I prepare for an autumn ride around the North of Scotland 500. In between I have to spend a few weeks working – I’ll be filming my second series of Roads Less Travelled for BBC Scotland –…

Last month I had the pleasure of hosting the National Adventure Awards in Glasgow, an annual gathering that celebrates the achievements of folk who have pushed the boundaries of their particular adventurous activities. It was a great event, an evening in recognition of some truly amazing accomplishments and an antidote to the prescribed, sanitised society that most of us live in. The nominees for this year’s Awards include some extraordinary individuals, people who quietly and effectively close the door on normality and set out to push their own limits in a wide variety of settings, from the wilds of the…

SEVERAL folk have asked me recently if I’ve given up the hills for cycling? I’ve certainly been enjoying my bike a lot more in the past five years than in the previous fifty and it’s true to say that for me bikepacking has certainly taken over from backpacking. Over the past few years I’ve cycled Land’s End to John O’Groats; toured through France from the Channel to the Med and cycled Ireland end to end. Last autumn I spent a couple of weeks cycling in the Picos de Europa of north Spain, an area that had some of the longest…

A few months ago I wrote about some of the more curious occurrences I’ve come across in the hills of Scotland. One of those stories mentioned Donald Watt, the erstwhile leader of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, and a strange experience he had near Loch Mullardoch. As he descended the hill he and his companion apparently saw a house with smoke coming from the chimney. As they approached the house the view of it was hidden by a copse of trees, but when they passed the trees they were astonished to see a crumpled ruin, where a few minutes earlier they…