Features

Our pick: Scotland’s West Highland beaches

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Paul Webster

Whilst most people associate Scottish landscapes with mountains and glens, the coastline is equally magnificent. When it comes to beaches, there is truly an unmatched range from tiny rocky coves to majestic windswept bays of perfect shell sand. There’s really far too much to cover in just one ‘Our picks’ article, so here we look at the beaches of the West Highlands, from the Great Glen heading north to Durness. In further posts we take a look at the unmatched beaches of the Scottish islands, and the best beaches of Eastern Scotland. Sanna Bay, Ardnamurchan The Ardnamurchan peninsula – the…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Our picks

Blood and Concrete

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Patrick Baker

Patrick Baker’s book The Unremembered Places was shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award, and is published this month in paperback. In it, he uncovers the human histories that have left traces in Scotland’s wild places. His writing blends walk report with archival research to tell the story of what you see in the landscape. This extract tells the story of the building of the Blackwater Dam above Kinlochleven in Lochaber, and the graveyard that is to be found there. At the start of the twentieth century, in a remote glen in the West Highlands, the clatter of pickaxes and voices…

Posted in Features, Magazine

Going further: Planning for long distance walks

Posted on April 7, 2021 by David Lintern

Getting your head around preparation for a big trip can be confusing. David Lintern takes it step by step… Over the coming months, we’re all looking forward to a little more freedom to travel and more outdoor exploration, but where to start, after what might well be a year away from the hills? A brief glance at the Long-Distance Route page on Walkhighlands is more than enough to whet the appetite, and the first and most obvious to say is not all long walks are created equal. Some require lots of logistical wrangling, others are more straightforward. Walkers on the…

Posted in Features, Magazine

Wild Winter

Posted on March 29, 2021 by John Burns

This week sees the publication of Wild Winter, the latest book from John Burns, bestselling author of The Last Hillwalker. In Wild Winter, John sets out to rediscover Scotland’s mountains, remote places and wildlife in the darkest and stormiest months. He traverses the country from the mouth of the River Ness to the Isle of Mull, from remote Sutherland to the Cairngorms, in search of rutting red deer, minke whales, beavers, pine martens, mountain hares and otters. In the midst of the fierce weather, John’s travels reveal a habitat in crisis, and many of these wild creatures prove elusive as they…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Project 282 – Film

Posted on March 25, 2021 by Paul Webster

Check out this superb 10 minute film of Emily Scott’s continuous round of the Munros in 2018. Back on the 26th of May 2018, Emily set off to climb all of Scotland’s Munros (mountains over 3,000 feet), attempting to make a continuous, self-propelled and self-supported round. The continuous, self-propelled and (largely) solo expedition took her 120 days and involved 2,200km on foot and 2,600km on the bike, with over 195,000m of ascent. Her great film of the trip – Project 282 – has received some success with film festivals, although of course Covid has meant that the majority of these…

Posted in Features, Magazine

Regeneration: the Mar Lodge Estate

Posted on March 15, 2021 by Andrew Painting

Andrew Painting is a seasonal ecologist at Mar Lodge Estate, the UK’s largest nature reserve in the Cairngorms. His new book, Regeneration: The Rescue of a Wild Land takes a species-by-species look at this landscape through time, focusing on recent conservation efforts that are beginning to pay off. Here he describes a walk around Clais Fhearnaig to show how that story is written onto the landscape. The headlines of the unfolding environmental recovery of Mar Lodge Estate are startling. 30,000-odd hectares of land, holding 15 Munros. Over 5,000 species, with more recorded every year. Ancient tracts of Caledonian pinewood, with…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Getting Scotland’s outdoors ready for busyness

Posted on March 12, 2021 by Helen Todd

Helen Todd, campaigns and policy manager at Ramblers Scotland, takes a look at efforts to ensure Scotland will be better prepared than last summer to cope with the pent-up demand for the great outdoors when lockdown is eased. Last summer, outdoor recreation in Scotland hit the headlines, but not always for the right reasons. After all the pain of the first Covid lockdown, it was uplifting to see so many people – especially beginners – enjoying the outdoors. In fact, a major independent survey published this month by the David Hume Institute (DHI) showed 36% of people in Scotland spent…

Posted in Access issues, Features, Magazine

A Dog’s Life

Posted on March 7, 2021 by Lucy Wallace

What does it mean to be a responsible dog owner in the hills with an enthusiastic young dog? Wildlife Guide Lucy Wallace is finding out. Meet Nuis… a yearling border collie with a big heart. He is officially a Good Boy, but there are two things that he finds really tricky: walking nicely on the lead (more on that shortly), and not chasing stuff. Nuis will chase everything. This includes (but is not limited to) bikes, balls, deer, other dogs, cars, leaves, cats, squirrels, birds, people and I’m sure if he could get the chance, sheep. He’s fun loving, impulsive,…

Posted in Access issues, Features, Magazine, Nature

Shooting the Breeze – Ways of Seeing

Posted on February 23, 2021 by David Lintern

David Lintern shares a few tips for unlocking a more creative outdoor photography It’s been a year since the last photographer interview on Walkhighlands, at least two since the last photo tutorial, and the start-stop nature of Lockdown (and of my tutoring and guiding work) has afforded time to reflect on why I still love to teach, and the kinds of technical and artistic issues students often present with. As discussed online and in magazines, there’s no shortage of dogmas, opinions and ‘rules’ in outdoor photography, but face to face teaching has shown again and again that many of these…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Photography

Scotland’s Canals – a refuge

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Nina Smirnoff

With the hills out of reach, outdoors enthusiast Nina Smirnoff tackles the towpaths on her doorstep to escape the strains of the pandemic. Canals were once the lifeline of central Scotland, transporting goods and connecting people, as important then as the roads and internet are today. Struggling with modern stresses and the constraints of lockdown, those same canals have been a very real lifeline to me centuries later. Since 1790 and 1822 when the Forth & Clyde and Union canals respectively opened, they were vital to business and communities in the Central Belt of Scotland. Connecting the North Sea with…

Posted in Features, Magazine