With the first snows of winter now settling on the Scottish mountains the timing is perfect for the first MCofS Winter Safety Talks set for next week. The first event will held on Wednesday 12 November at the Cotswold store in Aberdeen with further dates around the country well into February next year. In addition to the MCofS evenings, the well established Winter Safety Lectures at the Clachaig in Glencoe will run every Tuesday in February. These evenings are always entertaining as well as informative and if you’re lucky enough to bag a seat at the Aviemore Mountain Cafe nights…

As the clocks go back this weekend it’s time for walkers and climbers to ‘go back’ to their winter kit. With days getting shorter, a head torch is an essential part of equipment. But the end of British Summer Time is also a reminder of other changes in Scotland’s mountains. Heather Morning, Mountain Safety Adviser with the Mountaineering Council of Scotland advises: “Shorter daylight hours, dropping temperatures and the first dusting of snow on the hill are obvious indicators for the hill walker to think about extra kit in their rucksacks. “A head torch – and spare battery – is…

Rob Woodall became the first person to complete the ultimate hill-bagging list – the Marilyns – when he completed ascents of Stac Lee and Stac an Armin on the St Kilda archipelago on Monday. Also in the group was Eddie Dealtry, who became the second person to complete the Marilyns. The Marilyns are the 1,556 British hills to have at least 150m of descent on all sides, based on a list originally drawn up by Alan Dawson in his book, the Relative Hills of Britain, and updated many times since. In the book, published in 1992, Dawson predicted that someone…