Snowpatches and satellites

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Science, July 25 2023.

Overview For many years, the extent of snow cover in the Scottish Highlands has been recorded and documented by groups of ground-based observers from a volunteer community of ‘citizen scientists’. This winter snow cover melts in the spring and summer months, leaving behind remnant snowpatches, some of which have shown themselves to be ‘perennial’, lasting… Read more »

GIS MSc – part two

Posted by & filed under IT & the Internet, Mountains & hills, Personal, Science, Software engineering, August 24 2017.

The three-year part-time remote learning UNIGIS UK MSc course I recently finished had two very different components – the first two years consisted of teaching modules of learning materials and assessed assignments (see my earlier blog posting about this here), and the third year involved the planning, development and writing of a dissertation, which is… Read more »

Were there glaciers in the mountains of Scotland as recently as the mid-19th century?

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Science, February 25 2014.

New research Two academic papers have been published recently in the journal ‘The Holocene‘: Harrison S, Rowan A V, Glasser N F, Knight J, Plummer M A, Mills S C. 2014. Little Ice Age glaciers in Britain: Glacier-climate modelling in the Cairngorm mountains. The Holocene 24. 135-140. Abstract: http://hol.sagepub.com/content/24/2/135. Full text of paper (PDF; access… Read more »

A Zoologist on Baffin Island, 1953

Posted by & filed under Books, Mountains & hills, Science, September 24 2013.

I have been interested in the Canadian island of Baffin Island since ‘Frozen Fire: a Tale of Courage‘ by James Houston was a set text when I went to school. Baffin Island, which straddles the Arctic Circle in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago is in many ways the archetypal ‘Arctic’ location – it has sea ice,… Read more »

Garbh Choire Mòr

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, Science, October 11 2012.

For several years now, there has been a secretive and remote location in the Scottish mountains that I have been trying to get to. This location is Garbh Choire Mòr, a corrie at the western end of the larger An Garbh Choire in the Cairngorm mountains, between Braeriach and Cairn Toul, and it is notable… Read more »

Cranstackie and the wreck of a Second World War Mosquito

Posted by & filed under Military/Aircraft, Mountains & hills, September 26 2012.

Three weeks ago whilst staying for a week in nearby Kinlochbervie, I climbed the 801m Corbett summit of Cranstackie in Sutherland. Cranstackie (along with its neighbouring Corbett summit of Beinn Spionnaidh) is the most northerly mountain (if you count a mountain as being above the Corbett height of 762m) in the British Isles, and Sutherland… Read more »

Ben Nevis

Posted by & filed under Mountains & hills, July 22 2012.

Last week I climbed Ben Nevis with Lesley’s sister, Kate. Kate had had an ambition to climb the highest mountain in the British Isles, and asked me to guide her as she is not an experienced hillwalker. Because the aim of the trip was simply to attain the summit, and not take Kate anywhere dangerous… Read more »