walkhighlands

Features

Our pick: Scotland’s outdoors towns

One of our most popular posts last year was our pick of Scotland’s most picturesque villages. This time we take a look at larger centres, highlighting 15 Scottish towns which make great bases for outdoors activities. All of the links below give access to places to stay as well as routes to walk. Aberfeldy, Perthshire The attractive grey stone buildings of Aberfeldy cluster on the south side of Scotland’s mightiest river, the Tay, and serve as a gateway to the lower end of Loch Tay and to beautiful Glen Lyon. The town is a great base for countless family walks

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Our picks

A sideways look at outdoor gear

There’s no getting away from it. If we have shoes on our feet, a jacket on our backs and we’re carrying something on our back to keep our lunch in, we’re using outdoor gear. Of course as we’re human beings it’s not as simple as that – gear isn’t just a means to an end or a tool. We can’t help ourselves, we get enthused, we want to know more about it, what’s it made of, what’s coming next season, what’s the best? Many will roll their eyes at the thought of this enthusiasm and are happy in the same

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Posted in Features, Gear reviews, Magazine

Is it time to pay for our pleasures?

“NATIONAL Trust for Scotland to ‘ask people to pay towards wilderness upkeep’ for first time,” declared the headline in The Herald last month. You might be forgiven for thinking the NTS was going to start charging folk to climb hills on their properties and indeed, following that headline several journalists rang me to ask ask for my opinion. My opinion was simple. The headline was misleading. Under Scotland’s Land Reform legislation you can’t be asked to pay to climb a hill, or go for a walk and it wasn’t until I fully read the NTS press release that I discovered

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Posted in Access issues, Features, Magazine

Where are we at with Windfarms?

After a series of recent wind farm rejections, columnist David Lintern gives his take on what’s next for wind energy and Scotland’s wild places. Wind energy is a hugely contentious issue, and it would be a mistake to assume that readers of this article will agree one way or another. What I’d like to do here is to try and take the temperature of the situation – take a brief look at what’s happened historically, what’s changed recently and what it might mean for the future. Inevitably that will be a snapshot. I will be honest about my own position

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Nacreous clouds – better than Photoshop!

Colour can be in short supply during the average Scottish winter. Whether it’s due to low cloud, mist or rain, or invariably all three at the same time, we spend much of the winter under a blanket of grey that drains anything bright and sharp from the landscape. Ours is a muted world made of different hues of grey, brown and green. This inevitably means that when something colourful does finally come along it stands out with all the subtlety of a nuclear explosion. Waking up after weeks of dreichness to find a sparkling blue sky in the morning is

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Posted in Features, Magazine

Our first National Park – forever tainted

PERMITS, bans and byelaws, the words that will forever taint the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park, and indeed an SNP Government that many people, including myself, thought would take an intense pride in the access provisions of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, legislation that has become the envy of the world.   In an attempt to curb the activities of a minority who engage in anti-social behaviour on the loch-sides of our first National Park, it has been decided that a seasonal blanket ban on camping is the way forward, a ban on camping besides roads and lochsides

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Posted in Access issues, Features, Magazine

Walking in Circles

Snow was tickling the inland hills when I arrived at the ruined chapel at Kilmarie on the Craignish peninsula. It was early December and melancholy-grey; the sea and sky stilled after a weekend of violent storms. All was now holding its breath before a proper fall of snow. Overhead the sound of crows’ wing-beats and a curlew’s whoop seemed amplified. Despite planes going over, the fishing boats out again after the storm, a radio playing on a nearby building site, there was a sense of ancientness here amidst the glister of wet rock and mottled gravestones, their ownership gradually being

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Posted in Features, Magazine

Anatomy of a winter hill day

Whilst we’re still fairly early in the season I thought it might be worthwhile to spend a little time examining a specific winter excursion. I’m besotted with the challenges and rewards that winter conditions bring to the Scottish Hills, and I know I’m not alone. But there is a lot that can go wrong, and quickly too, so I think it’s really worth reviewing each time we go out, to see where we could have improved our day, making it safer, more enjoyable, or ideally both. I’m going to use an example of a day out a friend and I

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Posted in Features, Magazine

Scotland gets a soaking in extraordinary winter

Shortly before midnight on 18th December I happened to glance at my weather station’s console. Its comforting green glow informed me that it was 11.1C outside. I did a double take, and then I had to step outside to check it wasn’t an error. Sure enough, it was insanely mild in the darkness, and the warm wind felt like a hairdryer on my face. It felt weird. It felt…..wrong. I checked my weather data from the last five years and, true enough, that night time temperature of 11.1C was higher than ANY temperature I’d recorded in any of the previous

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Posted in Features, Magazine

Locations from Roads Less Travelled: West Highlands Part 2

Many of you will have watched the Adventure Show Special programmes, Roads Less Travelled: The West Highlands, presented by Cameron McNeish. The programmes are currently still available on the BBC iplayer. This second of our galleries for the programmes features locations seen in the second episode. You can see the locations for the first episode on this link. Aird of Sleat, Isle of Skye The second episode began on the Isle of Skye, with Cameron travelling to the Aird of Sleat and cycling the track down towards the Point of Sleat – before wildcamping nearby. Kylerhea – Glenelg ferry Cameron

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Posted in Features, Magazine, Our picks


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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.