David Lintern returns to the centre for his first post lockdown overnighter. After dark confinement, air and space and the colours of summer. Down in the glen, the first blaeberries, voluptuous purple bell heather and the vivid yokes of bog asphodel line the path. Further up, fresh juniper, birch and pine shoots wave skinny young arms in praise of a warm breeze. Topping out, there are fluorescent green flushes with rust oxide hearts, sharp edged newly bolted deer grass, fluffy head-nodding cotton grass, clusters of dusky white, purple and pink Orchids. It’s an outdoor festival, a landscape in motion. The…

Lucy Wallace feels all her senses heightened on an emotional return to the hills. Granite has it’s own smell. I think I’ve always known this. I’ve travelled the world and there is always something familiar, intangible and yet homely, in a granitic landscape. Today, in the brisk, dry air, the acrid scent of decaying minerals is distinctive. It’s a sharp, metallic odour, but not unpleasant. I’ve missed it. There are other smells. As soon as we step out of the car, we pick up the earthy flavours of damp soil. We set off through thick birch wood that gives way…

David Lintern is asleep on his favourite job Wild camping is quietly embedded in most of the things I love to do outdoors, the silent partner to hilltop wanderings, bike rides and paddles, so it’s been no surprise that under lockdown I’ve pined for it every bit as much as the journeying itself. If moving through landscape is the story, then staying over in the mountains provides the punctuation, a resting place to take stock before the next chapter begins. Without a regular outdoor sleep over I don’t really function properly, and like many of us, my mental health has…

The big man grunted as he drove the shovel into the earth, his breath misting in the cold winter air. His two companions watched the spade rise and fall as the mound of soil grew. They stood beside the pile of earth – one stocky and bald, the other a thin and mouse-like creature with a black hat crammed onto his head. Every few moments the small man’s gaze would dart into the surrounding forest and he would scan the snow-covered fir trees in the steep-sided valley. He searched uncertain of what he might find but fearful of anything that…

Polly Pullar tells the powerful story of a challenging personal journey, which had it not been for the restorative powers of nature, might have ended very differently. Words by Polly Pullar, Images by SCOTLAND: The Big Picture. It’s January, the season when a fox’s hormones fuel the urge to breed. At night I lie in bed and hear their eerie yattering as they wander on their nocturnal forays, their soundtrack accompanied by tawny owls – they too are preparing for breeding. The wood is also thick with the aroma of red deer.  My son Freddy and I are following a…

Words, sounds and pictures from lockdown in a rural place. I am sitting by a river near to my house. I sit by that river and the longer I sit, the more I notice. Just the white rush of small rapids upstream to my right at first, but after some minutes, more layers creep in. A slosh of waves on boulders to my left. A bass drone of the main flow ahead, submerged. A small slapping at my feet, where long tendrilled mosses sway in the backwash. A dipper zips past, busy making springtime plans, a robin tries in vain to…

Finding stillness in nature is both immersive and rejuvenating, and can bring nature close to hand. Lucy Wallace is finding solace under lockdown in the sights and sounds of her garden. I’m going to start this piece somewhere very wild and currently out of bounds to me. I’m sitting by the footpath in Glen Feshie, and I can hear my group’s voices echoing in the trees ahead. They’ve stopped for lunch and spirits are high. I’m not sure if they know I’m there, but I can see gangling shapes between the pines, bouncing around in the way that teenage boys…

Many of us who love the hills and wild places are finding solace or keeping sane at the moment by reflecting on our most treasured outdoors memories. Here Ben Dolphin reflects on five walks that changed the course of his life. Every walk you take contributes to your knowledge and experience, whether you’re aware of it or not. Most of the time the learning is subtle but it’s there nonetheless, happening quietly in the background. But there are also walks that go way beyond mere enrichment of your walking experience and, although it might not be apparent at the time,…

In this time of physical constraint and uncertainty, when we cannot head off on adventures as we once did, exploring a chart can take us on a rich journey of story and imagination. Join Merryn Glover, then, in a little Map Gazing. ‘Here Be Dragons,’ does not appear on OS maps. Sadly. Just imagine! You are running your finger along the route for the Speyside Way planning where to camp and have just got past Grantown when you see a warning about mythical beasts! (Perhaps you can tell I write fiction, and sometimes for children.) But even though our maps…