Features

Confused about re-wilding? So am I!

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Cameron McNeish

I guess website columnists are paid to inspire and inform, provide solutions to problems or to offer a sensible analysis of events and trends. I therefore apologise unreservedly, because what I am about to write offers no positive or constructive discourse at all. In effect it exposes me as a confused and disordered soul still seeking answers to some very important questions. You see when it comes to the issue of ‘re-wilding’ I am as undecided as anyone. So please be patient with me as I attempt to separate ambition from dreams, optimism from reality and pragmatism from desire. Several…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Shooting the breeze – Shooting People (Part 2)

Posted on November 20, 2015 by David Lintern

In the second of his 2 part series, David Lintern looks at photographing people in the outdoors. Last time we concentrated on settings, position and lighting to make the composition work. This time is about the more ephemeral end of the photographic equation – trying to illustrate how it feels, tell a story and so on. Let’s look at another style of shot, but one that’s also very familiar. I find I catch alot of this when people are taking a break and looking around. I have hundreds of examples, and I can’t stop taking them. Let’s get the important…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Photography

Surprised by a seal pup

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Ben Dolphin

As both a wildlife enthusiast and snap-happy photographer I confess I have an innate desire of wanting to get as close to wildlife as possible. Or more accurately, as close as wildlife will allow me to get. I’m certainly not alone in wanting to do so either. How many of us have tried creeping up on a butterfly or have gone to a pond in search of tadpoles? How many of us have simply tried to edge closer to a hare, ptarmigan, golden plover or some either iconic species out on the hill, only to fail miserably as it scurries…

Posted in Features, Magazine

Mother Nature’s Recipes

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Linda Cracknell

I chose the autumn equinox when everything is held in balance; when light and dark are of equal length. I thought of this walk as a deep breath before the winter: a good time to look back, then accept the receding light and look forward without foreboding. Walking the track upstream along the Almond from Newton Bridge, I was at first between some of my familiar, round Perthshire hills, climbing gradually west towards Loch Tay. But then at the head of the valley I planned to leave familiar territory and turn south over the westerly flanks of Ben Chonzie to…

Posted in Features, Magazine

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Cottage

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Cameron McNeish

A few months ago I wrote about some of the more curious occurrences I’ve come across in the hills of Scotland. One of those stories mentioned Donald Watt, the erstwhile leader of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, and a strange experience he had near Loch Mullardoch. As he descended the hill he and his companion apparently saw a house with smoke coming from the chimney. As they approached the house the view of it was hidden by a copse of trees, but when they passed the trees they were astonished to see a crumpled ruin, where a few minutes earlier they…

Posted in Features, Magazine

Shooting the breeze – Shooting People (Part 1)

Posted on October 15, 2015 by David Lintern

In the first half of a 2 part series, David Lintern looks at photographing people in the outdoors. So, shooting people – instantly more complicated than what we’ve looked at up until now, with all their confounded moving around and cluttering up the scenery! Yes, I know it’s annoying, but I’m not talking about that kind of annoying, or that kind of shooting – a camera, ladies and gentleman, use a camera! I’m going to concentrate on settings, position and lighting in what follows – there’ll be more to come later on some other aspects. The second caveat is that…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Photography

Walking above the clouds

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Ben Dolphin

Many different factors conspire to make the Scottish landscape as beautiful as it is, or for making any given walk particularly memorable. The different seasons, the colours, the quality of light, the wildlife, the list goes on. But few prompt walkers to wax quite so lyrical about the benefits of hillwalking as the cloud inversion – those joyous days when the cloud level is so low that the higher ground pokes up through it. Joyous, that is, for the lucky folk standing on the higher ground. For anyone standing on the lower ground it’s another matter entirely. Because in cold…

Posted in Features, Magazine

Wild ways – Maintaining routes into remote Scotland is an ongoing labour of love

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Chris Goodman, Footpath officer at the John Muir Trust

Deep in the heart of Glen Sligachan on the Isle of Skye, work is about to begin repairing the path over Druim Hain to Loch Coruisk. This remote site, about an 8km walk from Sligachan, may not be the busiest or best known path in the UK, but the combination of foot pressure and, especially in this case, surface water has created a bare gully 7 metres wide and nearly a metre deep. In heavy rain, water cascades down the path line and, with no vegetation or roots to hold the soil together, more and more of the ground is…

Posted in Access issues, Features, Magazine, Nature

Gallery: Scotland’s largest freshwater lochs

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Helen Webster

Loch Lomond Loch Lomond, its bonnie banks famously celebrated in song, is Britain’s largest freshwater lake by area, stretching over 71 square kilometres. The loch is at the heart of Scotland’s busiest National Park, and has many islands, including Inchmurrin – the largest on any loch – and beautiful Inchcailloch. The Highland fault line runs right through the loch and ensures a great variety of scenery, ranging from the placid Lomond Shores at Balloch, to the foot of towering Ben Lomond. The West Highland Way path follows much of the eastern shores of the loch. Loch Ness Loch Ness may…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Our picks

Off road camping – can we cut out the confusion?

Posted on September 26, 2015 by Cameron McNeish

CHARLES INGRAM lives in a makeshift campsite on the verge of the A9 near Bruar in Highland Perthshire. The 70-year old former garage owner has endured three winters here, first of all living in his Mercedes car before migrating into a family sized tent. In the past year his little camp has morphed into a permanent encampment with at least three tents pitched alongside the car. A sign on the car windscreen proclaims a message about bent cops murdering his mother and it’s clear Ingram has various issues with society but whatever the reasons for his decision to live on…

Posted in Access issues, Features, Magazine