I recently watched the second episode of the BBC series ‘Mountain (with Griff Rhys Jones)‘ and found it pretty disappointing. It seemed to spend more time talking about Coleridge, Wordsworth and Kendal mint cake than about mountains. I also checked out the book that accompanies the series and my disappointment increased further. Of the 250… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Mountains & hills
Two aircraft wreckage sites on Beinn a’Bhuird
Last Monday I climbed Beinn a’Bhuird in the Cairngorms. I camped in Glen Quoich on the Sunday evening beforehand to break up the long 33km walk and give myself an early start the next day. The path and easy gradient from Glen Quoich up the mountain makes for straightforward walking and I was on the… Read more »
Ciste Mhearaidh and even more about climate change and walking in the mountains (zzzzz…)
I thought I’d follow up my last blog posting, ‘Yet more about climate change and the media (yawn)‘ with some details of my recent personal experiences of ice and snow in the mountains. Last Saturday I walked up to the summit of Cairn Gorm via Coire na Ciste and Ciste Mhearaidh. Ciste Mhearaidh is a… Read more »
Yet more about climate change and the media (yawn)
It is often assumed in many media reports that: All the mountain glaciers on earth are melting and receding rapidly They will all vanish in a few years This is an unprecedented change in the Earth’s (and hence mankind’s) environment This is entirely due to the effects of modern industrial civilisation, particularly increased air and… Read more »
Canadian Rockies #4; Hikes
Although my recent trip to the Canadian Rockies wasn’t primarily a hiking trip, I still had plans to do some walking in Jasper National Park and possibly get up to some summits. Here’s a list of the hikes I did on the trip whilst staying at Patricia Lake Bungalows near the town of Jasper.
Canadian Rockies #2; Yoho & Kootenay National Parks, Golden, Canmore & Calgary
Following on from yesterday’s posting… After our time in Jasper, Lesley and I drove (it was Lesley’s first time using an automatic gearbox and driving on the right; she took to it with no hesitation at all) to Golden in British Columbia via Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. Roads and trails were… Read more »
Canadian Rockies #1; Jasper National Park
This morning I returned from a 2-week trip to the Canadian Rockies with Lesley. We flew from Glasgow to Calgary, Alberta with Zoom Airlines (whom I can recommend for the long 8-hour transatlantic crossing to western Canada, despite them being a charter airline).
I’m not a Munro-bagger, honest
Two recent BBC news articles about ‘Munro-bagging’ have only served (at least in my mind) to accentuate the utter craziness of this activity. Munros are mountains in Scotland higher than 3000ft, and attempting to climb them all has acquired the term ‘bagging’. The very concept of a Munro is one that makes no sense even… Read more »
Stob Coire an Laoigh
Yesterday I drove to Spean Bridge in Lochaber and climbed the 1116m summit of Stob Coire an Laoigh, in the Grey Corries (photographs here). The route I took started from Corriechoille to the north and walked up the north ridge of Stob Coire an Laoigh via an old tramway path and a dam in the… Read more »
Scottish glaciers
Ever since my first real mountain walking trip, to the Cairngorm plateau, I have been fascinated by the idea that in Scotland there can exist at high altitudes, even in the summer months, a small portion of the arctic. This trip was in June 1983, and the Cairngorm plateau then truly was arctic in nature,… Read more »
I am a software engineer / database administrator / web developer living in Edinburgh, Scotland. In my spare time I like to travel and take photographs (especially of mountains). See my main website here: Eddie's Photo Archive