Features

Common Ground: Kevin Woods

Posted on March 21, 2024 by Paul Webster

Our Common Ground interview this month is with mountaineer, film-maker and musician Kevin Woods. Anna Wells’ round of the Munros in a single winter season has made recent headlines; Kevin was the previous person to complete a winter Munro round, back in 2019-2020. He’s made a great film about his experience, Winter282 – you can catch upcoming showings in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Yorkshire over on his website. Can you begin by telling us a bit about yourself and your background? I’m a creative type at heart. I spent my twenties playing drums in various bands which gave a lot of…

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Our picks: 10 walks on Scotland’s west coast islands

Posted on March 20, 2024 by Paul Webster

Every Journey Starts a Story There’s little that can match the magic of visiting an island. Places are transformed by the feeling you get when you have to board a ferry and cross the water to reach them. Nowhere is this more true than with the Scottish islands, which have some of the finest mountain and maritime landscapes in Europe, teeming with wildlife including whales, dolphins, otters and spectacular seabird colonies. There are endless layers of human history to uncover too, from the prehistoric remains such as the standing stones at Callanish, evidence of the long era of Norse rule,…

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Common Ground: Phoebe Sleath

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Paul Webster

Her watercolours of Scotland’s high mountains – painted in her sketchbook whilst in the field – have deservedly drawn attention for Aberdeen-based geology student and mountain leader Phoebe Sleath (see her website, Sketching from sea to summit). Here she tells of her approach to our great outdoors. Can you begin by telling us a bit about yourself and your background? I’m a Geology PhD Student and creative adventurer living in Aberdeen. I grew up in Herefordshire and, although my parents liked walking and took us on family holidays to Scotland and the Lake District, it took quite a long time…

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Common Ground: Joshua Adeyemi

Posted on February 17, 2024 by Paul Webster

In our new series, we aim to find out what makes our fellow outdoor enthusiasts tick. Joshua Adeyemi is the man behind the hugely popular talesbyjosh instagram account, through which he shares videos of his adventures in Scotland’s mountains. Josh describes himself first and foremost as a human. He was Ramblers Scotland’s ‘Walking Champion’ in 2023, and is a co-founder of Black Scottish Adventurers, a community-interest company that aims to: introduce more ethnic minorities to the Scottish outdoors, help benefit their physical and mental wellbeing, and educate people about how their daily activities impact their environment and, ultimately, the climate…

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Common Ground: Kirsty Pallas

Posted on February 8, 2024 by Paul Webster

In our Common Ground series, we hear from the some of the incredible variety of people who enjoy Scotland’s great outdoors. Can you begin by telling us a bit about yourself and your background? I’m a mountaineering instructor based near Oban, and I work part time for Mountaineering Scotland as a Mountain Safety Advisor, and the rest of the time freelance. This means I do a whole range of work from navigation courses, guiding on the Cuillin Ridge, teaching rock climbing, training up new Mountain Leaders, and delivering winter skills courses. We moved here as a family over 20 years…

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Tawny Twits and Tawny Twoos

Posted on February 2, 2024 by Ben Dolphin

Winter nights are rather quiet affairs, but I’d forgotten just how quiet they were until a familiar sound pierced one of them last week while I was out for a torchlit stroll. Huuuuu……..Huh….Huhuhuhuuuuuu. It sailed through the chill night air, clear and sharp, from somewhere within the dark recesses of a granny pine. I stopped in my tracks and waited for a repeat, which duly came after 10 seconds or so. Huuuuu….. I waited, listening for the familiar response. A short moment later a fainter, more distant sound, high pitched and squawky, called out. Kewick!…….Kewick! Tawny owls. The walls of…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

Common Ground: Glenn Campbell

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Paul Webster

In this new series of short interviews, we aim to find out what makes our fellow outdoor enthusiasts tick, the experiences they share and their hopes for the future. Glenn Campbell will be a familiar face to many from his role as Political Editor at BBC Scotland. Following his diagnosis last year, he is currently raising funds for Brain Tumour Research; you can support via his Brain Power JustGiving page. Can you begin by telling us a bit about yourself and your background? I was born and brought up on the beautiful whisky-making island of Islay where my parents ran…

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Our pick: Scotland’s best coastal clifftop walks

Posted on January 24, 2024 by Paul Webster

If you asked someone to think of archetypal Scottish landscapes, mountains and lochs tend to be at the forefront. Yet Scotland’s convoluted coastline – not just on the mainland but on the many islands too – is no less glorious. Here we pick out a selection of 21 of the finest clifftop walks to be found all around the country. Duirinish peninsula, Isle of Skye Skye’s grandest sea cliffs are on the distant Duirinish peninsula. The highest of all are at Biod an Athair, but it is the coastal walk from Ramasaig to Orbost – around Idrigill Point – that…

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Brown Hares – My Companion Animals

Posted on December 2, 2023 by Ben Dolphin

I’ve had my trail camera out at home recently. Now it’s getting colder, I’ve been investigating what creatures are milling about outside the house, in search of warmth or food. Last winter there were various rodents and shrews sneaking under the porch door, so I rather expected to see something similar this time. Maybe a red squirrel foraging nearby. Tawny owls on the fence posts. Or, given they have left conspicuous scat on the road, pine martens. But no. After the first night, I looked through the new videos and they all showed one of two brown hares, nibbling grass…

Posted in Features, Magazine, Nature

What’s your favourite coire in Scotland?

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Ben Dolphin

“We need a couple of volunteers next week to walk into Garbh Choire”, said our conservation manager. My ears pricked up. It would doubtless be a tiring day, as we’d be retrieving some 1t bags, wooden stakes and rolls of wire netting. But I jumped at the chance because, for some reason, I’d never actually visited An Garbh Choire. To my considerable shame, I might add, given its reputation as a grand and wild place, the home of the Sphinx (Scotland’s most famous snow patch), and it simply being the gnarliest, farthest flung corner of my office. Sandwiched between Braeriach…

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