Petestack Blog

While the 2012 Coll Half-Marathon always promised to be special in ‘moving’ from the old village hall to the new centre at An Cridhe, it was doubly so for us with the whole ‘Glover’ family (Duffs, Duggans and McBrydes) having contributed to the fundraising and an inscription in memory of my grandparents within this wonderful building. So it was with extra excitement that Eileen, Donald and I travelled to Coll last weekend, and here’s what we wanted to see most: (more…)

So the 2012 Devil has come and gone with a personal performance more in line with realistic expectation (7½ to 8 hours given current shape and weight) than aspiration (sub-7 surely being possible on the right day). But how it hurt to find myself struggling desperately over my home patch (the hills either side of Kinlochleven, which I’ve run literally hundreds of times)… (more…)

While I’d quite fancied a trip to the western Cairngorms for the Glen Feshie Munros yesterday, I was late to bed, late to rise and the forecast wasn’t that encouraging, so headed out after lunch to mop up a couple of annoying ‘singletons’ instead. The first being Meall Chuaich above Dalwhinnie, which Irvine Butterfield described as:

A boring hill with an equally drab outlook. Its main merit is that it can be climbed quickly.

To which I can only add that his assessment’s probably about right although, with ‘boring’ (as so often) translating to ‘good for running’ and ‘quickly’ in this case proving to be 10:58 miling from van to van, there simply wasn’t time to get bored! (more…)

Having spent the past two days wondering what kind of resurrection Alexander Mackonochie was hoping for, I just had to go back and check sometime. So, with the run up to his monument and back being rougher but no further than the round trip to Altnafeadh (which had been tempting me this afternoon), there seemed no time like the present to head up with pencil and paper. (more…)

So what’s the difference between a cairn and a pile of stones and how long does it take to find out? I’ve blogged about these before but, despite having passed below Meall a’ Bhainne with school DofE groups (when I’ve not been free to head off my own way) since, it’s taken me over a year to slot in the lengthy run necessary to go back and check… (more…)

If you’ve read Tuesday’s blog post, you’ll know exactly what! Meant to turn right at Meall Dearg today to head straight for Garbh Bheinn, but conveniently ‘forgot’ and fortunately found most of the ridge (apart from the steep descent from Am Bodach) in similar good dry condition to Monday. (more…)

Afraid the blogging’s been getting a bit sporadic recently, with some good stuff like May’s excellent Polldubh Club Skye Meet (on which I spent the first day climbing at Neist and the second traversing the ridge from Sgurr nan Eag to Sgurr Dearg) just not getting written up here. But yesterday’s run strikes me as interesting enough to merit a line or two, starting (as it did) as a routine late afternoon jaunt over to Altnafeadh and back, but spontaneously transmogrifying somewhere above the Allt a’ Choire Odhair-mhoir into a double traverse of the Aonach Eagach. (more…)