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 Mingarry Blodge
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Guests occasionally ask us whether we get crested tits in Mingarry. Unfortunately not, though they were rumoured to have been seen some years ago by the Church in Acharacle and we always keep a look out for them when walking in the pine plantations in High Mingarry. Crested tits in Scotland are...
Unsworth Photographic
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You start the day off a few hundred paces into a a walk and before you know it there’s a common lizard enjoying the first Spring weather, almost under your feet. Focussing in on the pattern on his (or her – how can you tell?) body he (or she) is a beautiful patterns of chocolate,...
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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...
Lochaber Guides
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Wednesday saw my first bit of 'Summer' work for West Highland College. Dennis, Julie and I were working with students to look at aspects of leadership in the mountains. With the snowline still being quite low, we kept even lower and had a great wander in Glenfinnan. Plenty of scenarios for the...
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It's been a busy few weeks since the last blog post. We've had some stormier weather which seems to have settled down and the last few weeks have been fantastic in the mountains.I had a couple of great days with Rebecca and Debbie who were here on a Ben Nevis Winter weekend trip. We had a proper...
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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...
Mingary Castle
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So first I must start with an apology that this is the first blog in two weeks. It has been a very busy two weeks, launching our new website www.mingarycastle.com and making bookings LIVE! Plus starting the long but VERY enjoyable task of turning the inside from building site to luxury hotel. I...
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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...
Go Mountain Goats
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On Sunday 28th Febuary myself and Tim Gomersall completed the Phillip Tranter Round in a time of 17hours and 35minutes. This is a classic running Round of 40miles and circa 6000m ascent along the Ben Nevis, Aonachs, Grey Corries and then Mamores ranges in Lochaber. We set off from Glen Nevis Youth...
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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...
Kirkhope Mountaineering
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The weather in the Highlands has been absolutely stunning the last two days, Steve and I have been out with Scott, Cally, Joe and Will and yesterday we climbed Curved ridge in great conditions. Today we headed round to the west face of Aonach Mor (along with about 40 other people) and climbed...
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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...
