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…

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…

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…

David Lintern embarks on a voyage of discovery to 3 of the smaller ‘sacred’ isles. “Your body is a boat to lay aside when you reach the far shore” – William Burroughs There’s something about islands, an irresistible draw. They loom large in our imagination… or at least they do in mine. In particular, there are countless ‘holy’ islands, dotted along the west coast and festooning the lochs that are particularly beguiling, not least because they play a huge part in our cultural history. My first visit was to an A-lister – Isle Maree, situated in the wooded archipelago that…

As a result of a pesky knee injury at the hands of Bidean nam Bian, my forays north have been few and far between lately. It’s five months since I last climbed a highland hill and because such trips form the mainstay of my articles for Walkhighlands, I admit I started to worry where my next piece would come from. Thankfully, there is a wonderful phenomenon in the writing world where inspiration hits you when you least expect it. Usually when you need it most, and often it’s from the most unlikely of places. In this instance….the cold, clinical, rain-soaked…