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.
The Rum Ranger Diaries
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“Nature’s Islands” a new exhibition of artwork and photography of Rum & the Western Isles. Venue: Isle of Rum Community Hall, 30th March-31st August 2018. Launch night Good Friday, 30th March, 5-8pm with complimentary wine and nibbles. The rugged, wild beauty of the Western Isles has...
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Six new sketches now added to my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TJClarkePhotography Trudi February 2018
Alan Halewood
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I've watched with interest the avalanche forecast and where climbers have been climbing this weekend. I've been winter climbing for just over 30 years now and have been in, on or in immediate proximity to friends in avalanches 4 times. More recently I've started trying to be very critically aware...
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My Scottish Winter started 10 weeks ago! here is a 2 minute video of some of the highlights of what is shaping up to be a great season: First 10 Weeks of Winter from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.
Arisaig Community Trust
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24th March Land, Sea and Island Centre 3 – 7pmArisaig Community Trust invites you to contribute to the development of your local historic visitor centre. A consultation day on 24th March will be attended by Architect Sam Foster and...
Kirkhope Mountaineering
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It's been a busy week since the last blog, with two days of winter skills with students from West Highland College from the School of Adventure Studies and five days of private guiding with Paul.Paul and I have had a great run of weather and a tour of the West Highlands. We started with Curved...
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We have had a wild weekend on the west with strong winds and heavy rain at times meaning the snowpack is saturated but the good news is it is turning cold again today and more snow is forecast for midweek. I was out working with a group from Manchester University Mountaineering club on a...
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This week I have been working with a group from the Ulster University Mountaineering club over in the Cairngorms. It has been a mixed few days with temperatures mostly above the summits. There have been some bright spells too and things cooled down on Wednesday but we did take a bit of a...
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Thursday and Friday were great days to be out mountaineering in Glencoe. The snow cover was great and both our routes, Curved Ridge and Sron na Lairig were well stamped out making for quick and easy progress.Things are changing today with the freezing level rising above the summit this evening...
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Curved ridge gave us some fantastic and pretty straight forward climbing today. There is enough snow on the route to have filled in a lot of the ground and there is a line of firm steps up the whole route. We did get a couple of strong gusts of wind today but it was not as bad as forecast but it...
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The ice at Beinn Udlaidh is quite variable at the moment and there aren't that many routes that are fully formed, Quartzvein scoop was definitely the most complete and fattest looking line on the crag today. The strong SE winds from the start of the week have buried the crag in snow and insulated...
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Yesterday's group were given a bit of a choice today. Go out on the hill again and face some potentially fierce winds, go climbing indoor or go Mountain biking? So on the bike, it was for me today then, it was a great day riding the natural trails at Wolftrax, over on the 'Brown side', trying to...
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Today, Dave and I were out with a group from West Highland college looking to fill in some skills gaps from before Christmas. We need to spend some time in crampons and continue looking at our planning and decision-making processes using the 'Be Avalanche Aware' model. We decided on Buachaille...
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I was joined on the 3rd of January by the French family, who were looking to learn the movement skills needed for them to hopefully tackle Mont Blanc in the summer. We spent day one climbing Stob Coire Raineach trying to cover as much as we could with the conditions we had. This was a bit of a...
Dave MacLeod
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Last night I climbed Catalan Witness the Fitness in Cova De l’ Ocell, Catalunya, first climbed by Chris Sharma. In my last post I talked about doing one of the 8B variations on it and how I felt uninhibited by worry about my shoulder on a very aggressive iron-cross move and how this felt like a big...
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Video still of the redpoint crux on ‘GRA” 8B, Cova De l’Ocell, Catalunya. I was really trying to hold on, but didn’t quite make it this time.Right now I am in Spain. My climbing partner Alicia has broken her foot, so I am not doing my planned sport climbing and instead going bouldering. I spent...
Guy Steven
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This is by far the longest I have been away from Scottish winter and despite there being very good conditions back home we are equally having great conditions here. Yes, we have had Category 5 (very high) twice this season and the 'worst' conditions (in regards to avalanches) since 1991, and...
Highland Titles
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January 25th sees the annual celebration of the birth of ‘The Bard’ – Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. Marked by the sharing of haggis, traditional music and Scots poetry, Burns Night is a renowned international festival. We often think we know Burns as well as the words to Auld Lang...
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Robert The Bruce: Overview Life: 1274 – 1329 Reign: 1306 – 1329 Age at ascension: 31 Cause of death: Suspected leprosy Robert The Bruce’s Birth and Legacy Photo by L E X commons / CC0 1.0 Queen Elizabeth II’s 19th great-grandfather, Robert The Bruce (...
Go Mountain Goats
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Many times I have passed through Glen Shiel, looked up to the South Cluanie Ridge and wondered what it would be like as a ski traverse. Having run it once many years ago, my memory was of grassy amenable slopes, and with this in mind it was certainly on my radar for a ski traverse on lightweight ‘...
