Wild Lochaber Blogs
The latest bleats from the sheep on the street...
Blogs (web logs) and blogspots provide a unique insight into Highland life and nature in Lochaber and The West Highlands.
We have put together a collection of Lochaber blogs to highlight the traditions, culture and wildlife in the various regions, including the West Coast Islands.
We show entries from the last 100 days, organised by region, topic and blog. The titles and text snippets give a taste of each entry with direct links to the main blog entry on the host website. We hope you will find time to explore the full articles and further information on the host blog sites.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions for blogs you would like to see here.
Mingary Castle
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So the garden has been slow and hard progress but looking back we can now see that we are getting there. Back in October the soil was placed in the garden and Chris started the task of levelling, stone picking and weeding this.He even managed to get it looking pretty level and seeded before the...
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So things are changing at Mingary now that the inside is 99% there, we (Chris and Holly) have moved into our office and had the wonderful opportunity to show Jon around. We invited Jon and his wife Gill to come and visit the castle now that most of the furniture is in place, unbelievably this was...
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With the weather taking a turn for the better, we were out walking along the beach to the east of Mingary on Monday enjoying the views across the bay to the castle. The low, rocky point which sticks out into the Sound of Mull to the immediate left of the castle is Rubh' a' Mhile, off which a ship...
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On any normal building job, the conditions over the last week might have been terminal. Two major storms, Gertrude and Henry, have passed through. We've had winds gusting to 131mph a mile or so from Mingary; we've been pelted by rain, hail, sleet and snow; and then, yesterday, the sun smiled...
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As is so typical of Ardnamurchan, the weather has been highly variable over the past couple of weeks, with some fine, clear days and some impressive gales. The workmen were rocked around in their caravans on Monday/Tuesday night by a gale that hit hurricane force on the north coast, and they're in...
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After last week's spectacular dawn, today's weather has turned nasty again, with southeasterlies gusting to gale force forecast to continue through the next two days which, along with the current low temperatures, is making outdoor work a misery.Despite this, a great deal has happened since last...
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A different sort of winter has arrived, bringing clear skies and frosts accompanied by light flurries of snow and occasional rather heavier falls of hail. This picture shows the castle at nine this morning, with the sun rising behind it over the hills of Morvern, while........this was taken from...
Kirkhope Mountaineering
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I was back out with the two Dave's yesterday and we had a great time climbing Tower ridge in it's current condition. There is a good track up the route with most of the belays dug out. The route has a good covering of snow and ice making a lot of the climbing a bit more straightforward but it does...
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Today I was out with Dave who is up for his usual winter 'hit' and nearly always brings good weather with him. Given the current snow conditions and avalanche forecast we decided on the west face of Aonach Mor along with a few other teams. There was a good track in and it soon turned turned out the...
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On Thursday I was back out with Sarah and after she had loved the little mixed steps on the SW ridge the day before we stepped it up a bit and climbed North Buttress on the Bauchaille. It was a busy day but all five teams managed to move around each other and keep moving. The route was in great...
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Sarah and I headed up to the Ben yesterday (Wednesday) with a fairly open mind and a rack for all occasions. After lots of discussion about route choice given the conditions and avalanche forecast we settled on the SW ridge. As always it gave three good pitches of climbing with some very helpful...
Lochaber Guides
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The Winter season is in full swing now. Here are some pictures with captions of my work and play over the last few weeks:A snowy trip on Ben Nevis for Abacus Mountain Guides2 days with Mark looking at Winter Skills and navigation- deep snow on Buachaille Etive Beag on Day 1!A trip up...
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Today, Dave and I took advantage of day off and the good weather and headed up Green Gully (IV) on the Ben. We arrived at the CIC hut, there was quite a bit more fresh snow than we expected. The avalanche forecast made us choose our approach carefully, especially after the fresh snow...
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Today Dave B and I headed onto the Ben expecting some pretty wet weather (according to one of the forecasts). We were pleasantly surprised when things turned out to be dry and still. Our plan A was Thomson's Route (IV,4) on No.3 Gully Buttress, a route neither of us had done before.There was some...
Go Mountain Goats
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On Sunday 14th February 2016 myself and Tim Gomersall completed a Winter Cuillin Ridge Traverse from Sgurr nan Gillean in the north to Gars-bheinn in the south. Our route took in all 11 Munro summits, Bidein Druim nan Ramh, and included the TD gap. We started at Sgurr nan Gillean at 07.40am and...
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A few weeks ago we headed down to the John Muir Trust 'Wild Space' in Pitlochry, to hang my first art exhibition 'Kaleidoscape'. It will run in the Alan Reece Gallery there for the next two months. It was great to see so many of my painting all up in the same space - 15 framed canvases and 5 framed...
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The 2016 Skimo British Champs were set to take place at the Roc et Pic race at Thollon les Memises on the slopes above Lac Leman (Lake Geneva). I've done the Roc et Pic before, and remember some great sections with sunny slopes and expansive views down towards the shimmering lake with bluebird...
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We've had a few weeks of reasonable snow, followed by the devastating thaw on Sunday.On 16th January myself and Suzy decided to head up into the Mamores. From the forecast it looked like Lochaber could be a better bet than the Cairngorms, although the opposite was true in the end and the cloud came...
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This weekend I had a couple of good days out. Although the weather wasn't great it was brilliant to see the hills looking much whiter.On Sunday I skied in the Cairngorms with James W. It was fairly windy with clag and a predicted wee window of clearer weather around noon. We managed to coincide...
Unsworth Photographic
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We seem to be locked in a continuous freeze thaw cycle this Winter as El Nino continues to anomalise the usually fairly predictable weather patterns. In the Highlands we are experiencing either torrential rain, with wind gusts typifying 60mph, or we have days of high pressure weather patterns...
