walkhighlands

Features

A remarkable walk: Beinn Eighe Mountain Trail

David Lintern is woo’ed by the Beinn Eighe woodlands. This visit to Coille na Glas Letire – ‘the wood of the grey slope’ – was something of a pilgrimage for me; it’s where British Conservation stopped being theoretical and became physical. In 1951, Beinn Eighe and its surrounds became the UK’s first National Nature Reserve. At the start, there was much disagreement and debate about how best to care for the rare and beautiful fragment of Alpine rainforest that sits between Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree – after all, there was no precedent. Over the decades since, a range of

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Munro-bagging – what counts as a genuine ascent?

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

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Posted in Features, Magazine

Shooting the Breeze – Alex Boyd

We continue our series of interviews with the leading lights of Scottish outdoor photography. David Lintern quizzes a master of Victorian photographic techniques and finds a very 21st century artist just under the surface. Let’s start with your exhibition of new work, currently running at the John Muir Visitor centre in Pitlochry. What can people expect to see? It’s a selection of new work made over the last two years, mostly using old Victorian processes in the Scottish landscape. For this exhibition I’ve largely concentrated on work from the Hebrides, but in particular Skye and the Uists. Expect stark, monochrome

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Photography

Butterfly wings are beautiful things

One of my earliest memories of interacting with the natural world involves those gaudy cheap fishing nets you used to be able to buy at seaside resorts. They were essentially just a length of bamboo cane with a brightly coloured bag-like net on the end – perfect for scooping up fish and whatever else took our fancy in those Cornish rockpools. But I didn’t use them for fish. I didn’t even use them on the coast. My brother and I would use them in our garden, 70 miles from the sea, to catch butterflies. I never actually wanted to keep

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Posted in Features, Magazine

40 years on…

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 –

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Posted in Features, Magazine

Navigation: A day to learn, a lifetime to master

Ever been lost on a hill? Last week, David Lintern found himself with Mountaineering Scotland. “I’d have thought you Walkhighlands guys would have your navigation all sorted, no?” said Steve, with a bit of a twinkle in his eye. We were walking in on the approach to Ben Donich, a popular Corbett above the Rest and Be Thankful, and our training ground for a one-day navigation course provided by the Mountaineering Scotland. Steve was only teasing, but he probably had a point. I do OK I suppose, but I can’t pretend for a minute I’ve got it licked. To be

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Posted in Features, Magazine

I’ve found a fluffy wee chick. What should I do?

A couple of weeks ago my boss phoned just as I was packing up to leave work for the day. She’d received a report from a park visitor who had found an owl chick sitting on one of our mountain bike trails, and was phoning to see if I knew what the general advice was regarding owl chicks found out of their nests. But I didn’t know. My acquisition of wildlife factoids that assist me as a ranger has developed principally on a ‘learn as you go’ basis. Any knowledge that my fusty old brain manages to retain about a

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Going solo

I was in my sleeping bag by 6:50 PM on the night of the Spring equinox and still able to write by natural light. I looked east, watching through the tent flap as the light died over Meall nan Tarmachan, Ben Vorlich, Stuc a Chroin. I couldn’t see the sunset directly, having pitched my tent at about 750 m on the south-eastern crags of Meall Ghaordaidh to shelter from increasing night winds. However, a sharply demarcated block of shade had risen up the hills, contrasting with a diminishing russet glow on the tops as blue-grey clouds draped over them, the

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Posted in Features, Magazine

Political Priorities

VERY few folk would have been surprised if the SNP had not been the dominant party in the recent Scottish election but what should the new Scottish Government’s priorities be for the next five years? The SNP manifesto was fairly light in terms of the Scottish outdoors, although I have been heartened by the party’s stance on the Scottish National Trail, which they see as a link to promoting and strengthening our Great Trails network of long distance trails. The whole idea of the SNT was to link up existing trails and footpaths into one continuous route through Scotland from

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Posted in Access issues, Features, Magazine, Nature

In pictures: Black Grouse lek

Once seen, the sight of a black grouse in the hills is rarely forgotten. One of Scotland’s four grouse species (the others are red grouse, ptarmigan and capercaillie), the Black Grouse was a game bird but after years of decline is on the red list for its endangered status – with only 5,100 males left in the UK at the latest survey. There are reasons to be optimistic though, with recovery in some areas following positive land management. Like the even rarer Capercaillie, Black Grouse cocks perform at a ‘lek’ – an area where they strut, call, fight and display

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Posted in Features, Magazine


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You should always carry a backup means of navigation and not rely on a single phone, app or map. Walking can be dangerous and is done entirely at your own risk. Information is provided free of charge; it is every walker's responsibility to check it and to navigate safely.