Thursday 7 September Start Point: Small parking area at road end by Melgarve (which is some 5km beyond the road end as shown on current OS maps, but only around 1.3km beyond the road end shown on my 2011 map) Distance and ascent: 16.1km, 854m Weather: Glorious! Another excellent weather forecast and my final opportunity for a hill on this trip. I opted for Gairbeinn, from Melgarve, to be tackled as a circuit with (yet another) Geal Charn and Corrieyairack Hill. Corrieyairack Hill is shown on the map as being the same height as Gairbeinn, and they used to be listed as a twin Corbetts, but more ..read more

Tuesday 5 September Start point: Allt Rhuadh car park, Glen Feshie (approx NH853012) Distance and ascent: 15.4km, 930m Weather: Sunny, soon warm, barely any wind on the ascent, and none on the summit. An intentional repeat this time. Just a couple of weeks previously, on 17 August, I was robbed of the reputedly fantastic views from the top by low cloud, and also omitted to do the lollipop route. I said that I would happily revisit it. When I saw Tuesday's forecast, I clearly had to go up a hill, and preferably a big one. However, I also had a lack of time, needing to be back in Newtonmore by ..read more

Sunday 3 September 16.1km, 230m ascent Mini-post, just for my records. Mick dropped me off on the A86, just east of Cluny Castle so that I could do a linear route up to Glen Banchor, then along the Glen to Newtonmore (adding on a bit of the Wild Cat Trail at the end, just to make up the distance). It was lovey! Heading up from Cluny Castle to Strath an Eilich Lumps and bumps and lots of them(Looking SW-ish from Strath an Eilich) Dalnashallac (estate bothy) just before the track meets the River Calder A narrow trodden line ran along Glen Banchor, but not following the line of the old RoW sh ..read more

31 August I had two objectives today: 1) to visit a possible bridge; and 2) to walk through the Dirc Bheag (a magnificent natural feature in the landscape). It was an excellent and most enjoyable route, albeit slow-going through the Dirc Bheag. After Mick dropped me off on the A86, N of the Falls of Pattack, I first made my way along a track through forest that, from the map, had the potential to be uninteresting, but once beyond the buildings at Gallovie, this one was surprisingly nice, with the river running alongside. I didn’t take the small diversion to get a view of the Falls of Pattack ..read more

Saturday 26 August Start Point: Fyrish Car Park (NH627715) Distance and Ascent: 10.3k, 380m Weather: Rain, mainly light, but with two downpours My intention had been to take in a hill by Carrbridge today, on our way back from Alness parkrun. Then, as we sat in Erica-the-Campervan in a secluded car park on the Black Isle last night, with the rain drumming down, it occurred to me that I pass by Carrbridge far more frequently than I pass by Alness (in fact, to the best of my knowledge the only other time I’ve been on that bit of the A9 was in 2008 on a bus from John o’Groats), and thus it made s ..read more

Tuesday 22 August Start Point: informal, deep layby by track end at NN635909. Distance and ascent: 5.7km, 275m Weather: rather damp on the way up, fine on the way down. It’s been a while since I accidentally revisited a hill in ignorance of my previous visit, but that’s exactly what I did today. With my two visits having approached from opposite directions, the first I became aware of the inadvertent repetition was when I just went to save today’s gpx file to find that I already had two files for this hill, one labelled ‘bike’ and one ‘walk’. My previous visit was on 17 May 2018, and now that ..read more

Sunday 20 August Start Point: Nature Reserve car park at NN776998 Distance and Ascent: 23.3km, 695m Weather: Overcast and breezy, but dry save for one short, light shower Couldn't fit it all on one screen grab I’d intended to do the head of the lollipop of this outing in the opposite direction (i.e. along the ridge to my objective, then back along the glen), but having parked in the Nature Reserve car park for the second time this week, and made my way along the Speyside Way off-road route and into Glen Tromie, the wind direction and speed suggested that a reversal would be more comfortable ..read more

Thursday 17 August Start Point: car parking area just before Allt Rhuadh bridge in Glen Feshie (approx NH853012) Distance and Ascent: 15.5km, 880m Weather: Sunny intervals, but with the effect of laminar flow, breezier than expected. It’s always a risk setting out early up a big hill as to whether the morning cloud will clear before you get to the top, and this was one of those days. There were some big clear patches of sky as I drove towards Glen Feshie, with cloud just sitting over the higher summits, and with a forecast that said it would lift. A big bank of cloud over the ridge to which ..read more

Thursday 10 August 2023 Start Point: parking area at end of Glen Road, Newtonmore Distance and Ascent: 19.9km, 800m Weather: warm and humid (24 degrees in glen at start; forecast said 14 at 900m), but mainly overcast.  Read on to find out why I wouldn't recommend this route in its entirety On Wednesday night I’d mentioned to Mick a couple of options as to what I might do on Thursday morning, neither of which was remotely high level, so he was a bit taken aback when, on Thursday morning, I announced that I was going up Carn Dearg. My reasoning: the forecast warm and dry day may prove to b ..read more

Wednesday 14 June Start Point: Coniston Distance and Ascent: 15.6km, 1100m Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine. Breezy on the ridge. On Tuesday afternoon I’d contemplated what to do on Wednesday. I didn’t want to have to drive anywhere, and knew that I had no unbagged Marilyns to collect, so I turned my attention to what other summits were nearby. After an extended period of failed password resets when I feared I may have lost access to my log of bagged hills, I finally managed to access hill-bagging.co.uk and establish that I’d not yet been up Wetherlam or Swirl How. “But you’re not bagging Wain ..read more