So they keep telling us on the radio what lovely weather it is, but who’d say that while not just caught somewhere between frying and boiling on the hills but fighting off wave after wave of cleg attack? (more…)
13 July 2013
8 July 2013
Celtman support and Beinn Eighe
Quite a tough weekend in Torridon, supporting Robin Deroeck on the closing run of the very tough Celtman! Extreme Scottish Triathlon on Saturday and making a complete traverse of Beinn Eighe yesterday… (more…)
4 June 2013
Rob Morsberger
Rob Morsberger was a musician of rare talent, writing and performing catchy, literate, eclectic and impeccably-crafted songs standing comparison to the very best of singer/songwriters. He was also a dear friend from Edinburgh University days, much loved and admired by many over his 53 years and very much in all our thoughts right now. (more…)
10 April 2013
Up Two down Four
As a good-looking, deeply-recessed line (described by the guidebook as ‘the finest of the easy gullies on the mountain’), Number Two Gully (II) on Ben Nevis had long been on my wishlist for a solo day out and I finally got to do it today, with my descent by Number Four (I) inspiring a blog title with a nod to Dougal Haston’s immortal ‘Hut [was] full of steadfast English muttering earnestly, up Three down Four, up Two down Five, and other Nevis Gully permutations’. (more…)
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6 April 2013
Red Gully, Sgor na h-Ulaidh
While everyone else seems to be on their umpteenth routes of an ‘endless’ Scottish winter season, my ascent yesterday of Red Gully (III) on Sgor na h-Ulaidh with Jamie B and Jay was quite incredibly my first of the year! And it’s a very good route (classic, even) that would surely see more traffic if transported from Glen Coe’s most retiring Munro (with three-hour walk-in) to one of the more visible/accessible crags. (more…)
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3 March 2013
Blackwater bog loop
Having discovered a couple of weeks ago that there was an apparently unmapped local track I’d never run linking Black Corries Lodge to the Blackwater Reservoir, I’d been itching to give it a whirl and finally took myself round to Kings House to do so today. (more…)
31 December 2012
December
Has to be my least favourite month of the year, so glad it’s nearly over!
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24 November 2012
Invergarry mystery tour
Today’s run was supposed to be a straightforward circuit of Loch Oich, following the Great Glen Cycle Route (new ground to me despite driving both A82 and A87 countless times) up the north-west side of Loch Oich before returning by the Great Glen Way on its south-east side (which I’ve run once before as an out-and-back from Bridge of Oich). Which might have been fine if I’d known where the (now defunct?) Cycle Route goes, but wasn’t quite so good as a spontaneous (= mapless!), follow-your-nose expedition on the way home from another trip to Lochalsh Pipes. (more…)
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9 October 2012
The accidental piper
Having got back to whistle and flute playing in a big way last year, this year’s addition of Scottish smallpipes to my jack-of-all-trades (master-of-none!) musical armoury was still quite accidental. True, I nearly ordered a basic set (with chanter and drone as a double bore in one piece of wood made, I think, by a guy called Ian MacGregor we used to meet at Clachaig gigs) a good twenty years ago before buying an accordion instead (!), but I’m blaming Richard Cook’s Double Scottish Smallpipes videos (seen on 27 February) for rekindling my latent interest in what I described then as ‘a way that’s sure to have consequences’ (and very quickly did!)… (more…)
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2 September 2012
Middling Ben time
Not much to say about yesterday’s Ben Nevis Race except that my time on a cold, wet and windy day was 3 mins 19 secs slower than my best and 3 mins 36 quicker than my worst. (more…)