David Lintern interviews John Allen to ask – what has changed for hillgoers and the civilian rescue service, and what is the same?

My fleece trousers and woolly hat insulated me from the first icy breath of winter but it was still cold at the loch’s edge. I’d been sitting there for an hour, having deliberately got up before sunrise to see some geese. That probably sounds underwhelming but these were pink-footed geese. I’ve written about them before so won’t go into the ecology, but suffice to say they spend winter here in enormous numbers and their daily morning exodus is worth setting the alarm for. While listening to the geese waking up and readying themselves for departure, the first rays of sunshine…

On the summit of Ben Hee, with a cloud bank surfing over rock-swell and waves of snow-sharpened ridges and summits heaving up close by, I saw the three coasts of Scotland. Hills revealed themselves to the west; Ben Stack, Quinag, Ben More Assynt, baring unfamiliar sides to me in a complex fresh architecture backed by a blue line of Atlantic. To the north, Ben Loyal and Ben Hope guarded watery ingresses from the Pentland Firth. And to the east the twin cones of Morven and Scaraben rose above low bog near Dunbeath and the North Sea. Climbing Ben Hee, perhaps…

Karen Thorburn shares her personal perspective on St Kilda – Scotland’s ultima thule. Half my lifetime ago, in 2002, I found myself on holiday with my parents, standing atop huge sand dunes overlooking a magnificent beach on the west coast of the island of Berneray in the Sound of Harris. Pristine golden sand stretched in either direction as far as the eye could see, and turquoise water broke in waves on the shore. The little island of Pabbay lay to the north and, to the west, we looked beyond the Outer Hebrides to a vast expanse of open sea, or…

Although I’m someone who enjoys photographing wildlife, I tend not to head out on walks actively looking for specific creatures in the kinds of places they’re likely to be found. I much prefer the spontaneity, surprise and randomness that any walk can provide, which means that when I do encounter something interesting I’m often caught off guard. I therefore have a growing list of elusive wildlife subjects I’d like to write about in this column, but haven’t felt able to because I wasn’t quick enough or fortunate enough to snap a photo to illustrate them with. Lizards have long been…

I read a blog this week that saddened me, but didn’t unduly surprise me. Iain Cameron regularly contributes to various strands of social media and has made something of a name for himself as Scotland’s snow patch expert. Iain’s contributions to social media are fascinating and his work necessitates long journeys into the Scottish mountains at all times of the year, journeys that often takes him far from the ‘safety’ of footpaths and Munro-bagger’s routes. He has, for a number of years, collated information about Scotland’s snow cover, information that is crucial, for example, in the fight against climate change,…

Modest Ullapool Hill or Meall Mor (270 metres) beckoned on an early August day. I normally just have to open pink OS sheet 15, see the tightly packed contours of deep salmon pink contrasting against the pale spread of broken peninsulas, to be excited towards the pitch of the Coigach and Assynt Hills. Or looking the other way, sheet 20 with its expanse of roadless land, makes me want to pack a rucksack and to twist and turn through that interior that fastens in Beinn Dearg and Seana Bhraigh, and walk right through to the east coast. There is no…