Great Mountain Days in Scotland. Dan Bailey

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      Tent versus bothy – Corrour (Walk 40), dwarfed by the Devil’s Point

      Bothies are free to use and open to all comers, an admirably inclusive ethos, but with the downside that well-known huts in popular areas may fill to capacity (and beyond) at peak times. Bothy culture is very accepting of high spirits (generally lubricated with spirits of the liquid kind), so those seeking guaranteed peace in busy locations such as Shenavall (Walks 9 and 10) or Culra (Walk 25) probably ought to consider camping instead.

      Many Scottish bothies are maintained by volunteers from the Mountain Bothies Association (MBA) (see Appendix 4), a charity that exists to look after remote buildings for which estate owners typically have little use, but which remain important to walkers. Although they are keen to point out that there are no actual rules, the MBA does offer guidelines for visitors. In essence the Bothy Code is to keep the building and its surroundings clean and tidy, extinguish fires before leaving, respect other users and restrict groups to six or fewer.

Maps and guidebooks

      Even GPS users should carry a map and compass (and know how to use them) in case of electronic gremlins or battery failure. The Ordnance Survey (OS) produce comprehensive mapping of the whole country in a range of scales, the most useful for walkers being Explorer maps at 1:25,000 and Landranger sheets at 1:50,000. The latter are generally better for long hill walks since they cover more ground per sheet at sufficient (but not excessive) detail. Popular mountain areas are also covered by the small independent cartographer Harvey, their Superwalker (1:25,000) and British Mountain Map (1:40,000) series having been designed to contain only information pertinent to outdoor users. The relevant maps are given in the information box for each walk.

      Scotland’s hills must be among the best documented anywhere, covered by a library of guidebooks in a thriving ‘literary’ tradition dating back to the 19th century. Activity-specific guides are available for every mainstream outdoor activity – post-lunch glen strolls, long-distance hikes, serious hill walks, scrambling, climbing, paddling, and cycling in its various sub-genres. Regional guides provide detail on a given area; national guides take a broad-brush approach or (like this book) they cherry pick. There are too many books to list, but for some specific recommendations see Appendix 3.

      Ben Loyal from a tarp bivi on Ben Hope (Walk 1)

      Dramatic – and unavoidable – scrambling on the east ridge of Lurg Mhòr (Walk 14)

Scrambles

      This book does not go out of its way to find steep rock, and none of the walks involves graded climbing (in summer at least). For this reason the traverse of Skye’s Cuillin ridge has been omitted, although it is the greatest of all Scottish hill challenges. But in these rugged mountains scrambling can’t always be entirely avoided. In some cases the best walker’s route to a summit happens to involve some gentle clambering, such as the famous Carn Mòr Dearg (CMD) Arête onto Ben Nevis (Walk 26) or the prow of The Stuic on Lochnagar (Walk 42).

      For easy grade 1 scrambles such as these rock climbing skills and gear are unnecessary, but a head for heights is essential. Even the simplest scrambles need respect in wet, windy or icy conditions. Despite the non-climbing caveat, there are a few walks in this book that err towards mountaineering. After all, no collection of great Scottish mountain walks would be complete without the traverse of Aonach Eagach (grade 2), Liathach (grade 2) or the formidable An Teallach (grade 3). If there is a way to avoid the harder hands-on sections of a walk (and there usually is), then the description will mention it.

      Scrambling grades are expressed numerically in ascending order of difficulty.

      Grade 1

      Where hillwalking gets hands-on. In good weather these are routes that walkers with no scrambling experience should be capable of, given a reasonable tolerance for heights. Very limited technical difficulty in climbing terms, although there will be some exposure and a fall could be nasty.

      Grade 2

      Steeper rock, generally bigger drops, less easily escaped from and perhaps with less intuitive route finding. The harder steps may feel extremely daunting, although they’ll usually be short lived. Potentially very unpleasant in poor weather. Prior scrambling experience highly advised.

      Grade 3

      Committing, serious and technically challenging, routes of this grade are tantamount to climbing proper. Best left to competent and suitably equipped mountaineers.

      Summer scrambles become winter mountaineering routes (Aonach Eagach, Walk 28)

Seasonal variations

      Hillwalking is a year-round activity. The chief advantages of late spring or early summer are almost endless daylight – at the best, over 18hrs a day in the far north – and relatively few midges. Mid-summer may be less ideal than expected, being high season for both crowds and midges. The weather, too, is often wet and humid at mid-summer; but don’t let that spoil things. Early autumn can be lovely on the hills, but November is often the opposite.

      The approaching tread of winter brings dwindling daylight and worsening weather, and big hill routes are correspondingly harder to pull off. Summer seems a distant memory in the chill gloom of mid-winter. Life was once cheerily described by Nabokov as ‘a crack of light between two eternities of darkness’; he could as easily have been talking about a Scottish winter day. Around the winter solstice in the far north, daylight hours dwindle to a little over 6 in 24. During this period hill walks routinely start and finish in the dark, and a determined pace is needed for tricky ground to be safely negotiated before sunset.

      Winter walking is an activity defined not by the calendar, but by the state of the ground. If a January thaw has stripped snow cover to the grass, then the hills may feel barely more СКАЧАТЬ