Winter's On The Way - Link to Posts on Winter Skills & Gear

Two years ago I posted a blog with links to pieces on winter skills and gear. As we're entering the winter season and there will soon be snow (I hope) here it is again.

A Look At The December Issue Of The Great Outdoors

The December issue of The Great Outdoors is out now and unsurprisingly it has a snowy theme including a big feature on winter skills by instructors from Glen More Lodge and an article by Anna Wells about her record-breaking winter round of the Munros. 

Photographer James Roddie recalls encounters with ptarmigan with some lovely photographs of this bird of the snows. 

Far from Britain Maria Philippa Rossi learns what it takes to become an Arctic Nature Guide on Svalbard.

In the gear pages Alex Roddie reviews ice axes and Peter Macfarlane looks at emergency kit. My only contribution to this issue is here, a review of the Montane Terra Pants. Steph Wetherall, who has just joined the reviewing team, reviews another pair of trousers, the Maier Sports Lulaka.

The issue opens with a lovely dawn photo of a snowy Pen Y Fan and Cribyn by Itay Kaplan. Creator of the Month is movement artist and bikepacking guide Ana Norrie-Toch. Francesca Donovan reviews Mountains Before Mountaineering: The Call of the Peaks Before the Modern Age by Dawn L. Hollis. In the Opinion piece Dr Rose O'Neill, Chief Executive of Campaign for National Parks, says it's time to put the 'national' back in our National Parks. Jim Perrin looks at the Carneddau in his Mountain Portrait. Your Weekend In... looks at Horton in Ribblesdale where Vivienne Crow says there's much to do as well as the Three Peaks. Finally Emma Schroeder remembers coping with last winter on her walk round Britain's coast.

Wild Walks becomes Snowy Walks this issue, including in some unusual places. Ian Battersby finds snow on Beinn Mhor on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides while Rich Hartfield makes a snowy ascent of Bla Bheinn on the Isle of Skye. In the Cairngorms Alex Roddie makes winter rounds of Beinn a' Bhuird and Ben Avon and the Ring of Tarff. Further west and south Rich Hartfield links four wintry peaks on a Glen Etive traverse. Down in England Vivienne Crow and Ian Battersby both enjoy walks in the Howgills and Vivienne Crow also climbs Great Ewe Fell in the Yorkshire Dales. In the Lake District Norman Hadley walks Fairfield's third horseshoe. Much further south Fiona Barltrop discovers snow on the South Downs.

It's Publication Day For High Summer!

 

I'm delighted and thrilled that my book on my walk the length of the Canadian Rockies is available again in a brand new edition packed with photos that have never been published before. I'm amazed too. I never thought this long out-of-print book about a walk thirty-six years ago would ever reappear. For that I have to thank publisher Andrew Terrill. 

Here are a few of the photos. 

Going through my old slides and working on the book meant reliving what was a grand adventure. I loved doing that. I hope readers will enjoy my story too. 

Hill Forts, Skeletal Trees & Blood Red Berries

Tangled forest in Clais an Dunain

An interesting exhibition on the First People Of The Spey at the excellent Grantown-on-Spey Museum (well worth a visit if you're in the area) had a sketch map of nine Iron Age hill forts in the area, two of which are within a few kilometres of my home. One stands out prominently on the hillside on the other side of our little glen. The other is hidden in trees above a steep ravine called the Clais an Dunain. I've visited both these in the past but inspired by the exhibition I decided I'd go and have a closer look at Grant's Fort, the one buried in the woods, and take some telephoto photographs of  the other one, Torran Ban. 

Torran Ban

Not much is known about these hill forts. The exhibition booklet says they are "oval enclosures sited on hill tops or glacial mounds" and that their purpose is unknown. They have ramparts of earth or rubble  and ditches or moats around them. Grant's Fort and Torran Ban are both on raised areas on the sides of hills. They ate opposite each other and would have commanded views up and down the glen. Torran Ban still does but Grant's Fort has no clear views now due to the trees.

Aspens 

Visiting Clais an Dunain and it's tangle of mixed woodland is always worth while but especially so in autumn. Many of the leaves had fallen but there was still enough colour left to add beautiful contrasts to the pale leafless skeletal trees, especially the almost-white aspens.

Grant's Fort, or part of it.

After crossing the steep ravine I wandered through the trees to the mounds that make up Grant's Fort. These can't be seen until you are almost on top of them and I found it hard to work out the exact shape and which slopes were part of the hill fort and which weren't. Through the trees I caught glimpses of distinctive Torran Ban, just two kilometres away. I wondered about the people who lived here 1500 years or longer ago. What was the landscape like then? Did they admire it? Worship it? Take it for granted? How did they live? What were these structures for? Many questions and much scope for speculation. The world was so different then. We know that, whatever it was like.

Rowan berries

From Grant's Fort I plunged back down into the Clais. Rowans appeared, leafless now but with astonishingly bright blood red berries not yet stripped by the birds. I've never seen so many berries on rowans as this year.

Bynack Mor, Beinn Mheadhoin, & Cairn Gorm

Back in the open fields I could see the Cairngorms in the distance, etched sharp against the cloud-streaked darkening sky. Dusk is 5pm now. Autumn is fading into winter.

More scenes in the Clais

More rowan berries

Wild Nature Diary & Wild Nature Calendar 2025: Highly Recommended

Nature and adventure photographer John Beatty has recently published his Wild Nature Diary and Calendar for 2025 in partnership with the John Muir Trust and they are as superb as ever, packed with brilliant wildlife and nature photographs. I always look forward to seeing them.

The Wild Nature Diary has a Foreword by BBC TV presenter Iolo Williams and is edited by John Beatty. Inside there are 60 wonderful images by some of the best landscape and wildlife photographers in Britain including Beatty himself. 

With a page per week and measuring 205mm x 193mm this is a functional desk diary. It's also a superb photo collection that can be browsed again and again. This is not a diary to throw out at the end of the year.

The Wild Nature Calendar features 12 more mouth-watering photos and is also worth keeping. Like the Diary it's functional too with a page per month and plenty of space for each day. It measures 300mm x 300mm.

Both items are available from Wild Nature. The Diary costs £16.50, the Calendar £13. 

Tony Hobbs' videos on our recent Cape Wrath Trail walk

Tony in the rain on the Cape Wrath Trail

Tony Hobbs accompanied me on my recent almost completion of the Cape Wrath Trail (see this post) and shot many videos during the walk. I could often hear him recording his commentary and see him holding out his action camera. His ability to slosh through tussocks and bogs whilst filming and talking is impressive!

Tony has now posted six videos on his YouTube channel, one for each day of the walk. I think they capture well the beauty of the area and the wetness of the bogs! Plus the rain and the campsites.

An autumn walk and camp in Glen Feshie

Glen Feshie in the Cairngorms is one of my favourite places, as regular readers of this blog will know. I go there several times every year. At least one of those visits is always in the autumn when there is a brilliant show of colour from the deciduous trees, especially the birches.

This year I set off down the glen in a rain storm and a strong wind. But, as forecast, the rain soon cleared and there were occasional patches of blue in the sky. The wind, however, blew on. Under the shade of the grey clouds the wet trees glistened, the autumn colours glowing.

Through the forest the river wound, fast and rushing here, slow and swirling there. The Feshie is a very mobile river, constantly changing its course, leaving banks of shingle, and dried out old water courses. Often it’s braided, with many channels. In places it cuts into the steep banks of soil and pebbles, bringing down trees and sometimes the path itself.  Every visit something has changed. Here you can see a dynamic landscape in action.

At a point where the path had collapsed into the river a temporary way had been made steeply up and then steeply down a wooded slope. I’d followed this many times. On this occasion though the river had receded enough to allow passage along its edge below the trees. This was aided by some new material fallen from above. When I returned along the glen I took the steep path up into the woods to find that the descent had eroded away, providing the surface I’d walked on below. Constant change.

On another section the edge of the river was flowing over a shingle bank at right angles to the main flow into a lower channel. I walked out along this shingle bank with the river roaring past next to me and the overflow just below me.

As I searched for a camp site reasonably sheltered from the wind that roared down the glen a female capercaillie rose out of the long grass and flapped away into the trees. I pitched near a beautiful big old pine and a screen of young pines and birch saplings. From the tent door I could watch the river flowing.

The evening was peaceful, the wind dying down. During the night it picked up again, roaring through the trees and buffeting the tent. The night was warm for late October, with a low of only 7°C.

I woke to low clouds covering the tops and the wind raging on. I had thought of heading up to Mullach Clach a’ Bhlair and the Moine Mhor if the weather improved but as it hadn’t a walk further up the glen was much more appealing. Leaving the tent to collect on the way back I followed the river below the crags of Creag na Gaibhre and Creag na Caillich where the glen narrows and the forest rises steeply on the rocky slopes. The path rises and falls, sometimes beside the water, sometimes traversing high above it, a superb walk in the grandest part of the glen.

A soft but loud ‘kek’ call came down from high in a stand of old pines. It was hard to see the source but eventually I spotted a cock capercaillie way up in the branches plucking pine needles as it called. Seeing two of this rare and threatened bird was wonderful. I passed by quietly.

The subdued light and overcast sky made the autumn colours even more striking. The mix of trees, rocks, and river was glorious. This is a landscape to inspire and hearten. It always raises my spirits, especially now the forest is returning under the stewardship of Wildland. “A landscape of hope” says the sign near the start of the walk. It truly is.