Celebrations mark 50th birthday of Bothy association

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Helen Webster

The founder of the Mountain Bothies Association, Bernard Heath and his wife Betty, also an early MBA member, led the Association’s 50th year celebrations at Newtonmore on Saturday by cutting an anniversary cake. Bernard and Betty commented:”We are both thrilled and greatly honoured to cut the cake, we can’t believe such an ocean of time has gone by since that so well remembered inaugural meeting in Dalmellington in 1965. We wondered then where the MBA would go and are so pleased that it has thrived. We hope that it goes on for ever.” The MBA is a charity and has…

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David Balharry to head Rewilding Britain in Scotland

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Helen Webster

Rewilding Britain has announced that David Balharry will join as Scotland Director on 2 November 2015. The environmental charity launched in July 2015 and campaigns to restore nature and reintroduce missing species. David joins from the Scottish Government, where he is currently a branch head in the agriculture and rural development division working on rural policy issues. David grew up in rural Scotland and his career includes two years in the private sector promoting sustainable management on sporting estates and over 20 years in the public sector. He has held roles in research, administration, policy development and regulation with Scottish…

Posted in Nature

UK Landscape Photographer of the Year winners announced

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Helen Webster

A photograph of the Dorset coastline has taken the top prize in this year’s search for the UK’s ‘Landscape Photographer of the Year’. The locally-based photographer, Andy Farrer becomes the ninth person to win the overall title and the £10,000 prize. His picture was chosen, by the judges, from the thousands of entries that showcase the richly diverse landscape of the UK. A shot of Glen Coe by Damien Shields took the The Sunday Times Magazine’s Choice award. From light dappled water and mist-filled forests to extreme climbing and mountain biking within our most challenging landscapes, the winning photographs in…

Posted in Magazine, Photography

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

Queens Award presented to Mountain Bothies Association

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Helen Webster

The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service has been presented to the Mountain Bothies Association. The presentation was made to Association Chairman, Simon Birch, by Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the County and City of Bristol, Mrs Mary Prior and the Vice Lord-Lieutenant, Dr Timothy Chambers, at a ceremony in Bristol yesterday. The MBA is a charity and was established in 1965, exactly 50 years ago. It has around 3,700 members, and, with the consent and support of their owners, undertakes the restoration and maintenance of old cottages, huts and similar buildings throughout the wilder parts of Scotland, England and Wales for…

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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

You can help Suilven with just a couple of clicks…

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Helen Webster

Many walkers regard Suilven as being the most dramatic mountain in Scotland. Now the mountain – owned by the Assynt community – is in the race to win £18,000 in Euro-wide online poll. The

Posted in Magazine, Nature

Outdoors trousers – Group Test

Posted on October 3, 2015 by Peter Macfarlane

The first thing you have to ask yourself is this; what do you want from your trousers? As odd as that might sound when you say it out loud it’s something you have to think about when looking at outdoor trousers. You can go from simple, just something to keep your legs covered to something technical with as many features and attachments as backpacking rucksack and in the review I’ve gone to both ends of that spectrum. Whatever the style you like there are still important constants to look for, the first of which is as always the fit, are…

Posted in Gear reviews, Trousers

Police appeal for missing Glencoe walker

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Helen Webster

Police Scotland are continuing to appeal for information to assist with the search for missing hillwalker Robin Garton (69) from Devizes in Wiltshire, who is believed to be in the Glencoe area and has not been seen since the morning of Friday 25th September 2015. Police enquiries to date have established that Mr Garton checked out of the Kingshouse Hotel in Glencoe at around 8am on Friday morning. He had plans to travel north to meet friends in the Kinlochewe area on Sunday but failed to meet as arranged. Officers traced Mr Garton’s black Volkswagen Passat estate car in the…

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