We all make mistakes. On Sunday, I made two: firstly (pretty minor) not realising that you can now park above the bridge at the bottom of the Callop track, and secondly (gruesomely major) getting the forest completely wrong! (more…)
16 September 2015
12 September 2015
6-0-2?
So a ‘new’ Munro Top just makes the height and an ‘old’ one gets demoted by four (?) inches, meaning 6-0-1 becomes 6-0-2 because I’d already done them both! And the news really shouldn’t affect many folk when you’d have to be trying pretty hard not to do Mullach Coire nan Cisteachan (aka Carn na Caim South Top) if ascending Carn na Caim by the track from Drumochter Pass, but could perhaps have been more interesting the other way round when Creag na Caillich might just have been omitted as a (now) ‘mere’ Corbett Top by someone going for a minimal ‘tick’ of the Tarmachan Ridge. Now of course any logical traverse of said ridge continues to the end, but imagine that… having to go back and reascend to 3,000ft for those four inches! Narrow margins, and to some extent a mug’s game, but you have to draw the line somewhere… rules are rules if you’re going to play it and it’s not the mountains that have changed but our perceptions of them. The moral (if there is one) perhaps being that you get what you deserve if ticking ‘just enough’!
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6 September 2015
Heart of Ardgour
This was a much-anticipated outing, delving into the very heart of some fantastic Munro-free mountain country I’ve barely touched beyond repeated visits to the great Garbh Bheinn. While ‘built’ round the reigning peak of Sgurr Dhomhnuill (one of these classic cones like Sgurr na Ciche and Binnein Beag that just looks great from everywhere), it was also fuelled by ‘greed’ in realising that that whole central group was up for grabs in a hefty day’s round accessed by bike up Glen Scaddle… (more…)
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23 August 2015
Streap
Sgurr Ghiubhsachain or Streap? Two much-anticipated local(ish) peaks standing proudly south-west and north-east of Glenfinnan, so which to do first? (more…)
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20 August 2015
Plotting the peaks
Some plotting going on here, but who knows in how many senses? For sure I’ve now got all the Corbett Tops, Grahams and Graham Tops from the latest Database of British and Irish hills plotted on my map, but am I plotting to do them all? Probably not… (more…)
15 August 2015
Corbetts, Corbetts and Corbett Tops
Clockwise round of Glen Galmadale in Morvern today when I ‘should’ have been on Coll… bastard start through deep vegetation, ditches and holes in the ground where the SMC ‘Corbetts’ book merely says ‘climb steeply’, but lovely, gentle ridge to get back to sea level as nicely as anywhere! And, for the second walk in a row, I saw no-one else on the hill… (more…)
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13 August 2015
Cheap boots and bunions
No, it’s probably not what you’re thinking! Not cheap boots blamed for bunions, but in this case given credit for accommodating same in some comfort… (more…)
9 June 2015
Meall Gaineimh misses the mark
It was Noel Williams who alerted me to the proposed remeasurement of Meall Gaineimh on Ben Avon just days before my scheduled 601-top completion with a 6 May email jokingly asking ‘A spanner in the works????’ (more…)
31 May 2015
6-0-1!
Not sure quite how long ago I decided, but it’s certainly some years (and umpteen Munros) since I moved from thinking ‘how come I’ve never climbed Slioch?’ to ‘I’m saving that for last!’ And what better peak for the job when you’ve already run out of candidates within a couple of hours drive of home and a major ‘singleton’ with one of everything (Munro, Top, Deletion) has to be the perfect finish to an ‘all-time’ round of everything that’s been listed in Munro’s tables? So Slioch it’s been going to be for so long, and now Slioch it was (yesterday) with my 601-top round complete… (more…)
17 May 2015
Balancing act
Something I posted to Facebook a few hours ago that really deserves a more ‘permanent’ place here where anyone can read it. Facebook ‘friends’ can also read some nice responses over there. :-)
A strange tale of work/life balance, life/life balance, running, racing and depression… (more…)