The estate factor had not been paid for 18 months. The local people had blockaded the landowner in the big house: he escaped by helicopter. In this way the sometimes violent history of Knoydart was still being played out when I first went there in 1998. The peninsula has no… Continue reading
SEANNA BRAIGH A sensational arc of mountains!! All of the major classics of the north-west, spread out for our view, and looking as though we could touch them. From An Teallach to our south, up through the Beinn Dearg group, across Ullapool to Ben More Coigach, Stac Pollaidh, Cul Beag,… Continue reading
QUINAG ; A NORTHWEST ICON According to John Muir Trust (who own it)….. and we saw no reason to disagree. A shapely collection of pointy bits, and a lovely narrow ridge in the middle. The first summit is Spidean Coinich (764m); easy-angled slabs of rock followed by steep uphill walking.… Continue reading
Drive West ! Drive fast ! Drive in hope ! We had been obliged to sleep in Pitlochry. The Highlands were wreathed in low cloud. We hurried through Laggan and past the sombre Commandos. Even past Loch Garry, and over the shoulder of hills, the valleys… Continue reading
Legs apart, my back is braced against the wind. I can’t see my feet:- a knee-deep river of spindrift hurtles past at motorway speed. They should get this at Alton Towers. Exhilarating !! Until we eventually turn west, that is:- transverse to the wind, the battle intensifies. Drifts up… Continue reading
Some 12,000 years later, the weather was looking a bit cloudy. So Frank, Dave, Linda and I found our way all along Glen Roy, — an internationally famous geological feature — taking in the amazing horizontal lines which run for miles along the hillsides [being the ancient beaches of the… Continue reading
On Sunday morning, 9th November, there were nine of us (plus 2 canines) who set off from Honister to join a busy footpath to the top of Great Gable. Dave, Donna and Ellie, Linda, Cath, Dolly, Steve, Matthew and me. We did not ask anyone’s permission to walk. We chose… Continue reading
“Slack low pressure” Things suddenly looked up after a dreary forecast for 11-12 October. From Drumochter summit, Dolly, Steve, Keith and I were soon enough on the top of Sgairneach Mor, first Lunch; and an hour later Second Lunch on Beinn Udlamain to… Continue reading
The journey took several days; possibly weeks. At last, in the hidden recess high in the mountains, the pilgrim crouched and spent hours or days chipping an image into the hardest rock. Two hundred generations afterwards, I crouch in the same position with my camera. Across the unfathomable gulf of… Continue reading
